Breaking the Code (48 page)

And indeed he might have been had not five of the whipless wonders voted with us and five abstained. We wheeled in our sick, including Geoffrey Dickens, who has lost so much weight and looks like death. He is a lovely man and, quite rightly, the PM sought him out to give him a grateful squeeze.

Benet’s twentieth birthday. Our little celebration lunch in Cambridge yesterday was really good. Blair has replaced Clause IV with a new creed that promises to put ‘power, wealth and opportunity into the hands of the many not the few.’ So that’s all right then. I think
my
new creed may be ‘communitarianism’. I’ve just emerged from a session with Amitai Etzioni, Harvard lawyer and father of the concept. Given the collapse of the family network, urbanisation and the disappearance of the street as a real community, what do we do? And how do we do it without creating a paternalistic nanny state? Amitai is experimenting with practical ways of reinventing communities, doing it locally, from the bottom up. Alan Howarth is organising a small group to have dinner with him tomorrow night.

As if he didn’t have enough to do, the Prime Minister obliges colleagues by generously autographing bottles that can then be auctioned off at party functions. I am about to take two bottles of House of Commons Wickham Fumé to his room in the hope that they can be signed after PMQs tomorrow. On a bad day there are
dozens
of bottles clanking on John Ward’s
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desk awaiting prime ministerial attention. Colleagues of the old school (and a more generous disposition) get brandy or malt whisky for the great man to sign. I’m opting for the Wickham Fumé at a fiver a bottle, despite the lordly reprimand I received from Sir Peter Tapsell: ‘You cannot ask the British Prime Minister to autograph a bottle of
table
wine. You really cannot.’

‘It is English,’ I bleated.

‘Non-vintage?’

‘Er … yes.’

‘Good God, what is the party coming to?’

Inadvertently I appear to have landed poor Fergie in the soup. She called. ‘Children in Crisis’ was in a crisis. They had a fund-raising dinner in the City and needed a speaker. Could I? Would I?
Please
. Yes, of course, but I have to be back at the Commons to vote at ten. Fine. So along I go last night and all is hunky-dory. Sarah is in very jolly form, I sit on her right, we are cosy, gossipy, giggly (
slightly
excessively so: I imagine we rather irritate the rest of the table whom we appear to ignore). Sarah tells me how she’s made nothing out of Budgie the Helicopter, but
she’s
got a new idea for a children’s story that
turns out to be just like
my
new idea, so why don’t we do it together? Nine-thirty comes and I say I’ve got to speak now because I’ve got to go and vote at ten. ‘No, no, no!’ ‘Yes, yes, yes!’ I get up and do my speech, going right over the top about the Mountain Haven Centre and Sarah’s commitment, achievement, beauty, brilliance, pizzazz. I’ve got tears in my eyes. She’s got tears in hers. I say I’ve
got
to go now. ‘No, no, no!’ ‘Yes, yes, yes!’ Lots of huggy-kissy goodbyes and then, just as I’m slipping out, I have a bright idea.

‘Look, why don’t we find the richest man in the room and get him to take  my place?’

‘What?’

‘He can sit next to you for coffee and you can seduce him. Before the brandy’s arrived he’ll have promised a nice fat donation for the cause.’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘Go on, go for it.’

And poor girl, she did. I’ve just had a call from the
Daily Mail
and, after I’d departed what happened, it seems, was this: the rich stranger was found and placed next to Fergie; to everyone’s surprise a Beadle-style prankster’s auction then ensued, in which people were somehow persuaded to raise money by removing their clothing. The long and the short of it is that the man who filled my seat was encouraged to drop his trousers in aid of the cause – and just as he did so photographers appeared from the shadows and flash, bang, wallop caught candid snaps of dear old Fergie with a fellow she’s never met before with his trousers round his ankles.

I was going to say none of us can choose how we are going to be remembered, but I’ve just come from sharing a cup of tea with the Prime Minister and I think he is
actively
engaged in securing his future reputation. He was talking about his trip to Israel, Jordan, Arafat etc. and let slip that Martin Gilbert
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had come along. I said, ‘The historian?’ ‘Yes, he’s an authority on the Holocaust.’ ‘Of course, but did you get him to keep a record of your meetings?’

The PM quickly changed the subject.

Very evidently he wasn’t going to let himself be drawn. But it’s clear: he’s got Gilbert on board as his personal chronicler.

Five years down the line, we’ll have Churchill’s authorised biographer producing the definitive insider’s take on ‘the Major years’.

A funny letter from Fergie – ‘Life might have been easier if I had had to leave for a vote at 10.00 – alternatively had you remained at my right hand I would not have been on the front page of
The Sun
this morning!’ – but I’m afraid the notepaper confirms Lord Charteris’s worst fears: a huge swan-like S (at least 50 point font) surmounted by a coronet. ‘Where are your children’s books? I would love to hear more about your writing…’ Michèle says: steer clear – ‘the woman’s a disaster waiting to happen’.

I have just returned from taking a delegation to the Department of Employment to see a woman who can only be described as a triumph. She may look like a death-watch beetle, but Ann Widdecombe is quite simply the best woman we’ve got. She had my Chester people eating out of her hand. She understood exactly what they were after, told them precisely what she could and couldn’t do, and when she makes a commitment you know she’ll deliver.

I gave the city council people a copy of yesterday’s Hansard. I wanted them to see that I had been badgering Gummer on the local government review. I should be ashamed of my own hypocrisy (because Gummer has done exactly what I wanted and the badgering was merely for show), but I don’t quite see how else I could have played it. Our people on the city council wanted unitary status, wanted it
passionately
, but our people on the county council naturally wanted the status quo. I don’t think the man in the street really gives a toss. If we’d gone for unitary status, my city people would have been overjoyed, but the county would have been dismayed, the county headquarters might have moved out of Chester, we’d have had disruption, additional unemployment and no guarantee of improved services. Despite being harangued by the city councillors (it was a horrible scene – they were spitting blood), privately I opted for the status quo. I think I was swayed by the fact that I find the officers on the county council more impressive than those on the city council. Irritated at being shouted at by Paul Durham over the millions we coughed up for MBNA, I fear there may even have been a smidgeon of vengefulness in the way I decided to go. Formally, I did everything as I should: I conveyed all the views I had received to the Department of the Environment. Informally, in the lobby, I tipped J. Gummer the wink that I felt the status quo would ‘probably be best’. Now every other historic city, every vaguely comparable city in fact, is going to get unitary status. Chester is the lone exception. Was I right? It’s a close call.

The Marginals Club dinner with Michael Dobbs
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was poorly attended and not encouraging.
The PM can’t wait to get shot of poor Jeremy and I imagine Michael (another truly nice guy) will join him on the way to the knackers’ yard. But never mind Smith Square: Stephen and I began the evening at No. 10. We went to see Norman Blackwell, Head of the No. 10 Policy Unit, the ‘thinker’ at the right-hand of the leader of our great nation, the man who is fizzing with those ideas and bite-sized chunks of policy that are going to sweep us back to power and give Martin Gilbert something to write home about. It was truly appalling.

We climbed the stairs to a garret-like office, small and Spartan, where Norman, courteous, self-effacing, smiling quietly behind the owlish giglamps, shared with us the fruit of his pensive nights and laborious days. He has spent months on this and had it all set out neatly on display sheets. As he turned each page our hearts sank lower. You couldn’t argue with any of it, but it was all so horrifyingly obvious and banal. He’s identified our weaknesses (correctly) and he listed what we need to offer under five ‘policy themes’, each subdivided into various strands: 1) delivering economic security; 2) creating a society of opportunity, choice and reward; 3) support for law, order and justice; 4) a commitment to first class public services; 5) reflecting national pride in the UK and our role in the world. It was very worthy – you wouldn’t want to disagree – but the average well-informed activist could have cobbled it together in an afternoon. And the Big Ideas ranged from ‘creating a good news package on information technology’ to – wait for it! – ‘relaunching the Citizen’s Charter’. I said almost nothing. Stephen probed a bit, tried out one or two of the thoughts we’d gained from Newt Gingrich’s man, but Norman Blackwell is what he is: a decent dull dog. And we are doomed. Forget the Charter for Government. Here comes
o-bli-vion
!

I found Jeremy alone in the Tea Room. He was gazing at the front page of
The Times
: ‘Major ready to get rid of Hanley’. He looked up, all puffy-eyed. ‘I blame you,’ he said, ‘personally.’ He laughed and shook his head. ‘You just can’t win.’ He remains fiercely loyal to the PM – while around the knives are out. Everyone is agreed that Jeremy must go, preferably sooner than later. The likely scenario is that he’ll be sacrificed on 5 May in the aftermath of our local election bloodbath. The real question is: can the PM survive? Open speculation is rife again. Today’s most popular prediction: a leadership challenge in the autumn, with Lamont as the stalking-horse, pre-empted by Major stepping down to be replaced by a so-called ‘dream team’: Heseltine as PM, Portillo as deputy.

The Wednesday Club gathered for our occasional Monday night of gossip, wine and sandwiches. We met in the Home Secretary’s room behind the Speaker’s chair. (Only the holders of the great offices of state – plus the Leader of the House – have decent-sized
rooms here. The rest of the Cabinet have fairly poky rooms, sub-Pugin, a desk and a couple of chairs, off a long narrow corridor upstairs.) In theory the setting was exactly right for half a dozen of the more upwardly-mobile members of the government’s team to meet and put the world to rights. In practice, it didn’t work at all. The room was inhibiting. We felt guilty about our gossip. We talked conspiratorially, in hushed tones, as if the room might be bugged. (Perhaps it is?) And when I suggested we might each give a sketch of our boss, strengths/weaknesses/prospects, Lidington
471
[Michael Howard’s PPS] looked really alarmed. ‘I don’t that would be quite proper,’ he squeaked primly. I was irritated at the time, but I think he was probably right.

I am in the Library, leafing through a long screed that has arrived from Sandringham. HRH hopes I will ‘persuade the SoS to read, at least, bits of it’. Look what he has to say about team games: ‘It is the coordination of individual skills and team tactics and the sublimation of individual ambitions for the good of the team that brings success.’ Exactly.

We’ve just been voting on the Disability Discrimination Bill. Hague is very, very good, but Alan Howarth voted with Labour. He gets wobblier by the hour.

I am sitting alone on the PPSs bench as the three-hour tourism debate trudges towards its close. Around me, assorted good-hearted oddities (Toby Jessel has been speaking with his mouth full and his Garrick Club tie poking out through his flies); facing me, empty Labour benches and a pretty desultory opposition double act: Chris Smith, thin and worthy, Tom Pendry, fat and worthy.
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It’s interesting how little they’ve got to offer.

It’s been another long DNH day. To get to breakfast with Stephen and Danny by 8.00 I leave home at 7.00 and tonight I’ll be back by 11.00 p.m. which will be my earliest night this week. Sometimes I creep out of bed and M’s still fast asleep and when I get back it’s gone midnight and she’s already asleep again. I don’t like it. But we’re making progress. Stephen is infinitely more engaged. I’m making real headway on the funding of dance and drama students, largely by scurrying from Stephen to Gillian [Shephard, Education Secretary] and talking up the issue, saying that ‘No. 10 are anxious for us to find a solution’ when I’ve no idea whether or not No. 10 is interested at all. (In fact, they would be.) Sproatie is irritating Stephen by running off to No. 10 whenever he senses the DNH and the DfE are diluting the school sport policy – but he’s doing the right thing. The only
way to make progress here is to take ownership of what you believe in and, come hell or high water, drive your policy through.

I had another meeting with Hayden on honours. Between us Danny and I had cobbled together a little list (literally on the back of an envelope) and as well as the legit end of the business (Richard Curtis, John Cleland, Martin Jarvis, Eileen Atkins, Alec McCowen etc.) we threw in some populist suggestions of the ‘Arise Dame Cilla’ variety: Norman Widsom, Bruce Forsyth, Julie Goodyear, Peggy Mount, Michael Elphick, Delia Smith. Danny (off the top of his head) conjured up a raft of names for the sports list and, knowing I wouldn’t have heard of half of them, supplied thumbnail portraits: Ian Rush (‘Liverpool soccer legend. This is his testimonial season’), Fred Street (‘for many years the England football team’s physiotherapist’), Martin Edwards (‘chairman of Manchester United. A go-ahead sporting entrepreneur of the sort we are trying to encourage’), Len Martin (‘The best-known voice in Britain. He reads the football results on BBC1. He is getting on a bit and presumably will soon retire’).