Breaking the Code (38 page)

Normally, between twenty or thirty, maybe more, stand up on our side looking to be called. Today, nobody. We reached the last question and the Speaker turned to our side of the House and there was no one standing – no one at all. Not one of us ready to put his head above the parapet. She scanned our benches – an eternity seemed to pass (this not an exaggeration) – and then, just as she was going to give the opposition an unprecedented extra question, at the far end of our side of the Chamber, Simon Burns
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slowly got to his feet and asked a question about the road-building programme in his constituency.

It saved the moment – and from Simon’s point of view it will have made his career. I know now how the system works here. It may seem absurd, but I guarantee that – regardless of his capacity or qualifications – that moment of courage will guarantee Simon a job. I told him so. Well done him. He stood up when it counted, when no one else would.

From Questions we went straight on to the PM’s formal statement. He did his best to dress it up as a reasonable compromise, but it was hopeless. Smith made mincemeat of him, even Ashdown scored. The whips had orchestrated interventions from the loyalist knights of the shires – Dame Jill,
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Cranley [Onslow], Archie Hamilton, Peter Emery
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– ‘We’ll bring on the big beasts’ is what the Chief Whip will have said – but they made no difference. The PM had promised us a triumph: he brought us a humiliating climb-down. That was all there was to it. Unctuous praise from demented Euro-enthusiasts (Ian Taylor, Hugh Dykes) hardly helped, and probably encouraged Tony Marlow to deliver what he clearly felt was the coup de grâce:

‘As my Right Honourable Friend has no authority, credibility or identifiable policy in this area, why does he not stand aside and make way for somebody else who can provide the party and the country with direction and leadership?’

The Labour benches rocked with excitement. ‘Resign! Resign!’ they brayed. On our side there was an intake of breath, heads were shaken, there were desultory cries of shame – and when the PM came back with a jibe at Marlow’s expense – ‘It might be a
useful novelty if, now and again, he was prepared to support the government he was elected to support’ – we managed a bit of a cheer and Skinner punctured the tension with a nice aside: ‘Who’s going to clean up the blood?’

All in all it was a hateful hour and, as I write this, around six o’clock, in the Finance Bill Committee, the feeling is that the PM may survive the week but, after today, he can’t survive the summer.

I get the impression that at the Cabinet meeting this morning, Howard led the way urging a rejection of the compromise, with Portillo and Lilley weighing in, and John Redwood returning to the attack a second time. But Hurd had to win, not just because he’s got Heseltine and Clarke with him, but because the second tier – Gummer, Hunt, MacGregor, Waldegrave, Mayhew, Bottomley – are with him too.

This is the PM’s fifty-first birthday. For a moment, just before he went into the Chamber, I came face to face with him behind the Speaker’s chair. I smiled weakly and muttered ‘Good luck’. He squeezed my arm.

Tomorrow we’re off to Framlingham, to Simon and Beckie for Easter. I’m just in from supper with Stephen D. We went to his favourite Italian, Pasta Prego in Beauchamp Place. We had the same food and came to the same and fairly obvious conclusion: it’s looking pretty dire for the PM.

‘How did he get to become leader?’

‘Nobody knew who he was. Thatcher thought he was “one of us”. We thought he was one of us.’

‘Which he is?’

‘Yes, I suppose so.’

That’s the crux of the matter. No one’s
quite
sure. Major’s a natural charmer, a past-master at listening to what you have to say, absorbing it and then playing it back to you. Clearly Stephen feels he should never have got beyond the rank of Chief Secretary, but he did and he has and now, three and a half years down the road, his number is up. Sir Peter Tapsell’s verdict is gaining sway: ‘Nice chap, just not up to snuff.’

Who next? It’s too soon for Portillo. It’s too soon for Stephen. Heseltine’s pitching it just right: wooing the right with his plans to sell-off the Post Office (while letting us know that it’s Douglas Hurd and Tony Newton who are urging caution), soft-pedalling on his Euro-enthusiasm, looking fit again, looking like a grown-up. Ken Clarke remains my candidate, but he’s missing the moment – and, oddly, for such an instinctive political animal, he doesn’t seem to realise.

I invited John Gielgud to lunch to celebrate his ninetieth birthday. There was just the four of us: Sir John, Michèle, me and Glenda [Jackson]. (Glenda was Michèle’s idea – and inspired. She looks so sour, but she was sweet and gossipy and exactly right for the occasion.) He arrived in Central Lobby at one, on the dot, twinkling and cherubic, amazingly upright and steady.

‘It’s a great honour that you should join us, Sir John,’ I said.

‘Oh, I’m delighted to have been asked. All my real friends are dead, you know.’

The stories just poured out of him. ‘Marlene [Dietrich] invited me to hear her new record. We were in New York. We all went and gathered round the gramophone, and when we were settled the record was put on. It was simply an audience applauding her! We sat through the entire first side and then we listened to the other side: more of the same!’

He asked after Simon and said he remembered his grandmother, Jean Cadell, ‘so well. She was a fine actress: she did
what she did
so well. She played Prism with me in New York, when Margaret moved up to play Lady Bracknell instead of Edith.’
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‘Why didn’t Dame Edith play the part in America?’

That prompted Queen Mary stories:

The conversational cast list included Orson Welles, Micheál MacLiammoir (was it
MacLiammoir or Orson who kept a flashlight up his sleeve so he could illuminate his face on the darkened stage?), Sir Ralph (‘dear Ralph’), Mrs Pat, Kenneth Branagh (‘so clever and so delightful’), Peter Brook (‘so very clever – but oh dear…’), Binkie, Donald Wolfit (‘He hated me,
hated
me. The feeling was entirely mutual’).

He was extraordinary – and he’s ninety. I said, ‘After lunch, would you like to come to Prime Minister’s Questions? I know the Prime Minister is hoping to pay a small tribute to you.’

‘Oh, no, no,’ he looked quite alarmed. ‘I think I might find that a little embarrassing. So kind of him. He is so nice. I think I’ll just slip away quietly, if you don’t mind.’ As we were walking him across Central Lobby back to the St Stephen’s entrance, he paused and smiled and fluted gently, ‘This has been great fun. You know, the last time I was here Mr Bonar Law was answering the questions.’

We waved him into the street and I went into the Chamber and, on cue, as arranged with No. 10, asked the question prompting the PM’s little tribute to Sir John. At 3.30 I followed the PM out and went with him to him room.

‘Sir John decided to slip away,’ I said. ‘He didn’t want any fuss.’

‘I wanted to give him a cup of tea. And say thank you.’

‘He’s amazing.’

‘Yes. During one of our recent bouts of bad publicity, he sent Norma some beautiful flowers. That was kind.’

‘Yes.’

His face clouded over. ‘How do you think it’s going?’

‘Better,’ I said. What should I have said?

‘Do you think so? Have you heard the latest? The Liberals are publishing a document with disloyal quotes from sixty Conservatives –
sixty
colleagues. Can you believe it?’

‘They’re a minority.’

‘Are they? Are they?’

‘Yes.’ I thought perhaps it was my turn to squeeze his arm. ‘Onward and upward.’

I left him looking pretty dejected. He’s disappointed in us and too many of us are disappointed in him.

It is 1.32 a.m. and all’s quiet in the Silent Room at the end of the Commons Library – or relatively quiet. Raymond Robertson
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is snoring gently. The other seven are sleeping
peacefully. Matthew Carrington
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and Peter Luff are reading, and I am reflecting on the absurdity of it all. In the Chamber they’re grinding slowly through the final stages of the Criminal Justice Bill. With a bit of luck, the last vote will be about an hour from now.

Bob Cryer has died, killed in a car crash. I’m not sure what to say.

The word is that Douglas Hurd is not going to step down at the reshuffle after all. He is planning to stay on to ‘shore up’ the PM. John Carlisle
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is saying in public what in the Tea Room we already know: if the Euro-elections are a disaster the avalanche could bury Major.

The only President in the history of the US to be forced to resign in order to avoid impeachment has died. He certainly impressed me. Jonathan has written an affecting tribute in
The Times
– not whitewashing the dark side, the vindictiveness, the paranoia, the ‘sordid and shameful mess’ of Watergate, but checking off the achievements too – desegregating the Southern schools, ending the Vietnam war, ending the draft, saving Israel from annihilation, detente with the Soviet Union, opening the door to China. He tells a fascinating story of a conversation he had with Nixon about his mother – who never kissed him. ‘My mother,’ said Nixon, ‘could communicate far more than others could with a lot of sloppy talk and even more sloppy kissing and hugging. I can never remember her saying to any of us, “I love you” – she didn’t have to.’ During his wilderness years in the ’60s he said the real reason he continued to want the presidency was to honour his mother’s ideals. She was a Quaker. Last month when we stood on the pavement in Lord North Street and waved him off his last words to Jonathan were, ‘Keep on fighting!’

We’ve just returned from Raymond and Caroline Seitz’s farewell party at the ambassador’s residence in Regent’s Park. Michèle says it’s the best party of its kind she’s ever been to. Certainly, Ray has been the most successful – and popular – US ambassador anybody can remember. He exemplifies ‘discreet charm’. He’s wooed and won the entire British establishment, and they all seemed to be on parade tonight. A. N. Wilson and I shared high church memories: smells and bells at St Stephen’s, Gloucester Road. Peter Ackroyd was fruity and very funny – and quite won me over: he said he’d loved my biography of Dan Leno. Michèle said, ‘You could see he was drunk.’ There was a lovely moment at the end, when we were lining up to take our leave. We were standing in the queue, just behind the Frosts – (David: ‘Gyles, a
joy
, an absolute
joy!
’) – and up strode the Heseltines, saw the length of the line, stalked grandly past us and went straight to
the front. ‘No line-jumping,’ said Ray with a smile and back the humbled Heseltines came. Democracy in action. Michèle said, ‘That man mustn’t become Prime Minister.’

Douglas Hurd has been offering us ‘a few home truths’. The 200 or so MPs
The Times
claims would support moves to loosen links with Brussels are ‘out of touch with reality’, according to the Foreign Secretary. Unfortunately their number appears to include the Chief Secretary to the Treasury who – without consulting either KC or the PM – has unilaterally ruled out the single currency claiming it will lead ‘inevitably’ to a united Europe which ‘people don’t want’. Gillian Shephard has helped keep the pot boiling nicely by offering a school-marmish rebuke to ‘the contenders’. It certainly is extraordinary that members of the Cabinet seem to be openly jockeying for pole position.

David Evans
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is adding to the general sense of degringolade by
demanding
a clearout of the Cabinet. He wants at least six of them sacked – with Fowler, Patten, Gummer and Waldegrave heading the list. (I think Fowler’s wanting out anyway and Patten should have gone last time round. We’re not overstocked with talent and experience so I imagine Gummer will stay and I’ve now changed my mind about Waldegrave’s prospects. Watching the PM’s body language when he’s with William, I am
certain
that so long as JM is PM Waldegrave will be in the Cabinet.) Amazingly, the Evans outburst is the front page splash. Of course, we know Evans is simply a music-hall turn who likes to play the loutish loud-mouthed Essex man for a laugh. The press know it too, but that’s not the way they’re writing it up. Evans is a member of the 1922 executive, ‘an influential senior figure in the party’. In truth, he’s a tosspot. In the papers he’s a ‘Top Tory’.

John Smith had fun with all this at PMQs, but given his impossible wicket the PM didn’t do too badly. He wasn’t cowed. He hit back: ‘Unlike the right hon. gentleman, at least I am not faced with senior ministers emigrating to New Zealand.’
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Energy, attack, humour – deploy all three at once and both sides of the House give you credit.

After PMQs the Chamber emptied and we proceeded to the second reading of our new Education Bill – with only dedicated education nuts (Jim Pawsey,
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Harry Greenway,
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Rhodes Boyson
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etc.) and professional toadies (Brandreth, step forward) in attendance.
As far as I can see this is a completely unnecessary piece of legislation – a perfect example of ‘I tinker therefore I am.’ No doubt teacher training can and should be improved, but this Bill isn’t going to make any real difference on the ground. And bashing the student unions is harking back to an agenda that was looking pretty tired ten years ago, isn’t it? (My friend Graham Riddick thinks not. He thinks there’s still mileage in it. I’m sure he’s wrong and I sense there’s increasingly a problem for Conservatives of his ilk: what are they going to do when we’ve slain all the dragons?)