First Among Equals

by Jeffrey Archer

  Alf Abbott felt assured enough to challenge Simon to a public debate. Although it was usual for the sitting member to refuse to be drawn on such occasions Simon jumped at his opponent’s challenge and prepared for the encounter with his usual diligence. Seven days before the election Simon and Elizabeth stood in the wings behind the stage of Coventry town hall with Alf Abbott, Nigel Bainbridge, and their wives. The three men made stilted conversation while the women eyed each other’s outfits critically. The political correspondent of the Coventry Evening Telegraph, acting as chairman, introduced each of the protagonists as they walked on to the stage, to whipped-up applause from different sections of the hall. Simon spoke first and held the attention of the large audience for over twenty minutes. Those who tried to heckle him ended up regretting having brought attention to themselves. Without once referring to his notes, he quoted figures and clauses from Government bills with an ease that impressed even Elizabeth. Abbott followed him and made a bitter attack on the Tories, accusing them of still wanting to tread down the workers at any cost, and was greeted by large cheers from his section of the audience. Bainbridge claimed that neither understood the real issues and went into an involved dissertation on the problem of the local sewers. During the questions that followed Simon once again proved to be far better informed than Abbott or Bainbridge, but he was aware that the packed hall only held 700 that cold March evening while elsewhere in Coventry were 50,000 more voters, most of them glued to “Coronation Street.”

  Although the local press proclaimed Simon the victor of a one-sided debate he remained downcast by the national dailies which were now predicting a landslide for Labour.

  On election morning Simon and Elizabeth were up by six and among the first to cast their votes at the local primary school. They spent the rest of the day traveling from polling station to committee room to party checking posts, trying to keep up the morale of their supporters. Everywhere they went the committed believed in his victory but Simon knew that the national swing would be impossible to ignore. A senior Conservative back-bencher had once told him that an outstanding member could be worth a thousand personal votes and a weak opponent might sacrifice another thousand. It wasn’t going to be enough.

  By nine o’clock the last polling station had been locked and Simon and Elizabeth collapsed into a local pub and ordered two halves of bitter. They sat and watched the television above the bar. The commentator was saying that during the day a straw poll had been taken outside six constituencies in London and from those figures they were predicting a Labour majority of sixty to seventy seats. Up on the screen flashed the seventy seats most vulnerable to siege by Labour. Ninth on the list was Coventry Central: Simon ordered the other half.

  “We should be off to watch the count soon,” said Elizabeth.

  “There’s no hurry.”

  “Don’t be such a wimp, Simon. And remember you’re still the member,” she said, surprisingly sharply. “You owe it to your supporters to remain confident after all the work they’ve put in.”

  In the town hall black boxes were being-delivered by police vehicles from every ward in the constituency. Their contents were tipped on to trestle tables which made up three sides of a square on the vast cleared floor. The town clerk and his personal staff stood alone in the well made by the tables, while council workers sat around the outside carefully stacking up the votes into little piles of a hundred. These in turn were checked by party scrutineers who hovered over them, hawklike, often demanding that a particular hundred be rechecked.

  The little piles grew into large stacks which were then placed next to each other, and as the hours passed it became obvious even to a casual observer that the outcome was going to be extremely close.

  The tension on the floor mounted as each hundred, then each thousand, was handed over to the clerk. Rumors that began at one end of the room had been puffed up like soufflés long before they had reached the waiting crowd standing in a chill wind outside the hall. By midnight, several constituencies’ results around the country had been declared. The national swing seemed to be much as predicted, around three percent to Labour, which would give them the promised majority of seventy or over.

  At twelve-twenty-one the Coventry town clerk invited all three candidates to join him in the center of the room. He told them the result of the count.

  A recount was immediately demanded. The town clerk agreed, and each pile of voting slips was returned to the tables and checked over again.

  An hour later the town clerk called the three candidates together again and briefed them on the result of the recount; it had changed by only three votes.

  Another recount was requested and the town clerk reluctantly acquiesced. By two o’clock in the morning Elizabeth felt she had no nails left. Another hour passed, during which Heath conceded defeat while Wilson gave an extended interview to ITN spelling out his program for the new Parliament.

  At two-twenty-seven the town clerk called the three candidates together for the last time and they all accepted the result. The town clerk walked up on to the stage accompanied by the rivals. He tapped the microphone to check the speaker was working, cleared his throat, and said:

  “I, the undersigned, being the acting returning officer for the constituency of Coventry Central, hereby announce the total number of votes cast for each candidate to be as follows:

  Alf Abbott 19,716

  Nigel Bainbridge 7,002

  Simon Kerslake 19,731

  “I therefore declare Simon Kerslake to be the duly elected Member of Parliament for the constituency of Coventry Central.”

  Even though the Labour party ended up with an overall majority in the House of ninety-seven, Simon had still won by fifteen votes.

  Raymond Could increased his majority to 12,413 in line with the national swing, and Joyce was ready for a week’s rest.

  Andrew Fraser improved his vote by 2,468 and announced his engagement to Louise Forsyth on the night after the election.

  Charles Seymour could never recall accurately the size of his majority because, as Fiona explained to the old earl the following morning, “They don’t count the Conservative vote in Sussex Downs, darling, they weigh it.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  IN MOST DEMOCRATIC countries a newly elected leader enjoys a transitional period during which he is able to announce the policies he intends to pursue and whom he has selected to implement them. In Britain MPs sit by their phones and wait for forty-eight hours immediately after the election result has been declared. If a call comes in the first twelve hours they will be asked to join the Cabinet, the second twelve given a position as a Minister of State, the third twelve made an Under-Secretary of State, and the last twelve a Parliamentary Private Secretary to a Cabinet minister. If the phone hasn’t rung by then, they remain on the back benches.

  Andrew Fraser had not bothered to be anywhere near a phone when the BBC midday news announced that Hugh McKenzie had been promoted from Minister of State to Secretary of State for Scotland, with a seat in the Cabinet. Andrew and Louise Forsyth decided to spend a quiet weekend at Aviemore, he to relax and climb other mountains before returning to the House, she to make plans for their forthcoming wedding.

  It had taken Andrew countless trips to Edinburgh to convince Louise what had happened to him at Bute House that night had not been mere infatuation that would soon pass, but held long-term conviction. When the one weekend he couldn’t travel to the Scottish capital and she came down to London he knew she no longer doubted his resolve. Andrew had found in the past that once the conquest was achieved interest soon waned. For him, though, his love for “the wee slip of a thing,” as his mother had come to describe Louise, grew and grew.

  Although Louise was only five foot three she was so slim she appeared far taller, and her short black hair, blue eyes, and laughing smile had many tall men bending down to take a closer look.

  “You eat like a pig and look like a rake. I don’t know how you manage it,” grumbled Andrew over di
nner one night. He played regular games of squash and swam three times a week to keep his own heavy frame in trim. He stared in admiration and not a little envy as Louise’s eyes twinkled mischievously before she devoured another portion of Black Forest gâteau.

  Although she had been brought up in a strict Calvinist household in which politics were never discussed Louise quickly learned about the machinery of Government and soon found herself debating long into the night with Sir Duncan. At first he scored points off her with ease, but it was not long before he had to answer her demands with more and more reasoned arguments, and sometimes even that was not enough.

  By the time the election had taken place Louise had become a total convert to Andrew’s views. The squalor in some of the parts of the Edinburgh Carlton constituency, which she had never set foot in before, made her sick at heart. Like all converts, she became zealous and began by trying to reform the entire Forsyth clan. She even paid twelve shillings to join the Scottish Labour party.

  “Why did you do that?” asked Andrew, trying not to show his pleasure.

  “I’m against mixed marriages,” she replied.

  Andrew was delighted and surprised by the interest she took, and the local constituency’s suspicions of “the wealthy lady” soon turned to affection.

  “Your future husband will be Secretary of State for Scotland one day,” many of them shouted, as she walked down the narrow cobbled streets.

  “It’s Downing Street, not Bute House, that I want to live in,” he had once confided to her. “And in any case I’ve still got to become a junior minister.”

  “That could change in the very near future.”

  “Not while Hugh McKenzie is Secretary of State,” he said, not under his breath.

  “To hell with McKenzie,” she said. “Surely one of his Cabinet colleagues has the guts to offer you the chance to be his PPS?” But despite Louise’s sentiments the phone did not ring that weekend.

  Raymond Gould returned from Leeds the moment the count was over, leaving Joyce to carry out the traditional “thank you” drive around the constituency.

  When he wasn’t sitting by the phone the following day he was walking around it, nervously pushing his glasses back up his nose. The first call came from his mother who had rung to congratulate him.

  “On what?” he asked. “Have you heard something?”

  “No, love,” she said, “I just rang to say how pleased I was about your increased majority.”

  “Oh.”

  “And to add how sorry we were not to see you before you left the constituency, especially as you have to pass the shop on the way to the A1.”

  Not again, Mother, he wanted to say.

  The second call was from a colleague inquiring if Raymond had been offered a job.

  “Nothing so far,” he said before learning of his contemporary’s promotion.

  The third call was from one of Joyce’s friends.

  “When will she be back?” another Yorkshire accent inquired.

  “I’ve no idea,” said Raymond, desperate to get the caller off the line.

  “I’ll call again this afternoon, then.”

  “Fine,” said Raymond, putting the phone down quickly.

  He went into the kitchen to make himself a cheese sandwich, but there wasn’t any cheese, so he ate stale bread smeared with three-week-old butter. He was halfway through a second slice when the phone rang.

  “Raymond?”

  He held his breath.

  “Noel Brewster.”

  He exhaled in exasperation as he recognized the vicar’s voice.

  “Can you read the second lesson when you’re next up in Leeds? We had rather hoped you would read it this morning—your dear wife …”

  “Yes,” he promised. “The first weekend I am back in Leeds.” The phone rang again as soon as he placed it back on the receiver.

  “Raymond Gould?” said an anonymous voice.

  “Speaking,” he said.

  “The Prime Minister will be with you in one moment.”

  Raymond waited. The front door opened and another voice shouted, “It’s only me. I don’t suppose you found anything to eat, poor love.” Joyce joined Raymond in the drawing room.

  Without looking at his wife he waved his hand at her to keep quiet.

  “Ray,” said a voice on the other end of the line.

  “Good afternoon, Prime Minister,” he replied, rather formally in response to the more pronounced Yorkshire accent.

  “I was hoping you would feel able to join the new team as Under-Secretary for Employment?”

  Raymond breathed a sigh of relief. It was exactly what he’d hoped for. “I’d be delighted, Prime Minister.”

  “Good, that will give the trade union leaders something new to think about.” The phone went dead.

  Raymond Gould, Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Employment, sat motionless on the third rung of the ladder.

  As Raymond left the house the next morning he was greeted by a driver standing next to a gleaming black Austin Westminster. Unlike his secondhand Sunbeam, it glowed in the morning light. The rear door was opened and Raymond climbed in to be driven off to the department. Thank Cod he knows where my office is, thought Raymond as he sat alone in the back. By his side on the back seat was a red leather box the size of a very thick briefcase with gold lettering running along the edge: “Under-Secretary of State for Employment.” Raymond turned the small key, knowing what Alice must have felt like on her way down the rabbit hole. The inside was crammed with buff files. He opened the first to see, “A five-point plan for discussion by Cabinet on how to keep unemployment under one million.” He immediately started to read the closely typed documents.

  When Charles Seymour returned to the Commons on the Tuesday there was a note from the Whips’ office waiting for him on the Members’ Letter-board. One of the Housing and Local Government team had lost his seat in the general election and Charles had been promoted to number two on the Opposition bench. “No more preservation of trees. You’ll be on to higher things now,” chuckled the Chief Whip. “Pollution, water shortage, and exhaust fumes …”

  Charles smiled with pleasure as he walked through the Commons, acknowledging old colleagues and noticing a considerable number of new faces. He didn’t stop and talk to any of the newcomers as he could not be certain if they were Labour or Conservative and, given the election result, most of them had to be Socialist. A doorkeeper in white tie and black tail-jacket handed him a message to say that a constituent was waiting to see him in the Central Lobby. He hurried off to find out what the problem was, passing some of his older colleagues who wore forlorn looks on their faces. For some it would be a considerable time before they were offered the chance of office again, while others knew they had served as ministers for the last time. As Macmillan had proclaimed, even the most glittering political career always ends in tears.

  But at thirty-five Charles dismissed such thoughts as he marched toward the waiting constituent. He turned out to be a red-faced Master of Hounds who had traveled up to London to grumble about the proposed private member’s bill banning hare coursing. Charles listened to a fifteen-minute monologue before assuring his constituent that any such bill was doomed through lack of parliamentary time. The Master of Hounds went away happy and Charles returned to his room to check over the constituency mail. Fiona had reminded him of the 800 letters of thanks to the party workers that had been franked but still needed topping and tailing after every election. He groaned.

  “Mrs. Blenkinsop, the chairman of Sussex Ladies’ Luncheon Club, wants you to be their guest speaker this year,” his secretary told him once he had settled.

  “Reply yes—what’s the date?” asked Charles, reaching for his diary.

  “16 June.”

  “Stupid woman, that’s Ladies Day at Ascot. Tell her that I’m delivering a speech at a Housing Conference, but I’ll be certain to make myself free for the function next year.”

  The secretary loo
ked up anxiously.

  “Don’t fuss, she’ll never know any better.”

  She moved on to the next letter. “Mr. Heath wonders if you can join him for a drink on Thursday, six o’clock?”

  Simon Kerslake also knew it was going to be a long slog. He was aware the Tories would not change their leader until Heath had been given a second chance at the polls, and that could take every day of five years with a Government which had a ninety-seven majority.

  He began writing articles for the Spectator and for the Sunday Express center pages, in the hope of building a reputation outside the House while at the same time supplementing his parliamentary salary of £3,400. Even with Elizabeth’s income as a consultant he was finding it difficult to make ends meet, and soon their two young sons would have reached prep school age. He envied the Charles Seymours of this world who did not have to give a second thought about their next paycheck. Simon wondered if the damn man had any problems at all. He ran a finger down his own bank account: as usual there was a figure around £500 in the right-hand margin, and as usual it was in red. Many of his Oxford contemporaries had already established themselves in the City or at the bar and on a Friday evening could be seen being driven to large houses in the country. Simon laughed whenever he read that people went into politics to make money.

  He pressed on with demanding questions to the Prime Minister, and tried not to show how frustrated he was by the expectations of his colleagues whenever he rose each Tuesday and Thursday. Even after it became routine he prepared himself thoroughly, and on one occasion he even elicited praise from his normally taciturn leader. But as the weeks passed he found that his thoughts continually returned to money—or to his lack of it.