Breaking the Code (5 page)
Authors: Gyles Brandreth
I was ushered past a splendid portrait of John Major in the foyer (a month is a long time in politics) and led up the back stairs to the Arnold closet. I stepped into his room on the dot of six-thirty. A moment of banter, no more – ‘There seem to have been some changes since I was last here,’ I burbled: he laughed softly and gave nothing away – then I handed over my completed forms. He turned the pages. ‘Mmm … mmm … very good … Gummer, Waldegrave, Hanley … mmm … Hanley.’
‘I went for the local MP rather than the association chairman because I know the MP so much better,’ I said, as casually as I could. (I don’t know the local chairman at all, of course, but I have tried, consciously, not to lie outright at any stage in the process to date. This is Michèle’s influence.) He patted his lips with his fingers and half-closed his eyes. ‘Mmm … mmm.’ I had decided what I wanted to say before the meeting and I said it: ‘I appreciate I’m not on the list, but, while you’re processing this, if a possibility crops up, would it be okay for me to throw my hat in the ring?’ His face crinkled into a sudden smile. His eyes narrowed. He glanced furtively to left and right and then leant
forward and in a voice barely above a whisper said, ‘I don’t see why not.’ He tapped the side of his nose and smiled again, and then opened up his diary.
‘Let’s see. We’ll next meet on Wednesday 23 January. Yes?’
‘In the morning?’ I said, as lightly as I could (I didn’t mention the matinee at two).
‘11.00 a.m.?’
‘Fine.’
At 7.03 p.m., on the stage of the Wimbledon Theatre the Lord Chamberlain (Ed ‘Stewpot’ Stewart) announced ‘His Excellency the Baron Hardup of Hardup Hall’ and I made my entrance – on cue, but in a charcoal-grey suit. The Ugly Sisters had a lot of fun with that.
1
GB has had a long involvement with the National Playing Fields Association: Appeals Chairman 1983–8; Chairman 1988–93; Vice-President since 1993.
2
Chief of the Defence Staff 1982–5; Lord Lieutenant of Greater London 1986–98; President of the London Playing Fields Society from 1990. (The Duke of Gloucester is patron.)
3
Hon Colin Moynihan, MP for Lewisham East 1983–92, former Oxford rowing and boxing blue, Minister for Sport 1987–90; 4th Baron Moynihan from 1997 and chairman of the British Olympic Association from 2005.
4
GB was a presenter with TV-am, the ITV breakfast station, 1983–90.
5
Broadcaster and cricket commentator, 1912–94.
6
Journalist, daughter of the Prime Minister
7
Theatrical agent and producer, father of comedian Jack Whitehall, friend of GB.
8
Simon Cadell, 1950–96, actor, GB’s oldest friend.
9
American singer.
10
An exhibition on the history of British royalty, conceived by GB, which opened at the Barbican in London in 1988 but failed to attract sufficient visitors to succeed.
11
President of the National Playing Fields Association from 1948 to 2012.
12
Colin Sanders CBE, 1947–98, inventor and entrepreneur, friend of GB.
13
Financier and insurance salesman, soon to fall from grace.
14
Contemporary of GB’s at Oxford. Daughter of Robert Maxwell, Labour MP for Buckingham 1964–70, publisher, soon to fall from boat.
15
Richard, 7th Earl of Bradford, chairman of the Royal Britain Company, Unicorn Heritage plc, friend of GB.
16
FitzRoy, 5th Baron Raglan, of Usk, Gwent; independent peer particularly associated with the housing association movement in Wales.
17
Frank, 7th Earl of Longford, minister in Labour governments 1946–51 and 1964–6. In 1971 Lord Longford set up an independent inquiry into pornography and invited Malcolm Muggeridge, Cliff Richard and GB, among others, to be part of the team. During the group’s fact-finding trip to Copenhagen Lord Longford met assorted strippers and GB stood on his head.
18
Member of the construction family, vice-chairman of NPFA, friend of GB.
19
GB’s son, then aged fifteen.
20
Art critic of the London
Evening Standard
.
21
Novelist and critic, 1917–93.
22
Journalist and biographer, friend of GB.
23
GB’s wife, writer and publisher Michèle Brown. They met at university and married in 1973.
24
GB and his wife were making a television series about West Country gardens.
25
MP for Lewisham West 1970–74, Eye Suffolk 1979–83, Suffolk Coastal since 1983; Minister of Agriculture 1989–93; Secretary of State for the Environment 1993–7; Baron Deben from 2010.
26
In 1988 GB and his wife opened the Teddy Bear Museum in a Tudor house in the centre of Stratford-upon-Avon.
27
Irish actor, 1930–2002.
28
British dancer.
29
Joanna Lumley, actress, and her husband Stephen Barlow, conductor, friends of GB.
30
MP for Derbyshire South 1983–97, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health 1986–8, friend of GB since university, was one of a team of parliamentary observers at Romania’s elections.
31
1929–2012; MP for Chelmsford 1964–87; Lord St John of Fawsley from 1987.
32
Actor.
33
MP for Plymouth Sutton 1966–74, Plymouth Devonport 1974–92; Labour Foreign Secretary, 1977–9; one of the founders of the Social Democrat Party, 1981, and its leader, 1983–7, 1988–90.
34
Writer, broadcaster, cook, 1924–2009; Liberal MP for Isle of Ely 1973–83.
35
Actor, 1908–90.
36
In 1987 the bulk of the SDP membership merged with the Liberals to form the Liberal Democrats. At the 1992 general election the rump of SDP MPs disappeared: David Owen did not stand, and Rosie Barnes and John Cartwright, standing as independent Social Democrats, lost their seats.
37
1925–2013; MP for Finchley 1959–92; Prime Minister 1979–90; later Baroness Thatcher LG, OM, FRS.
38
MP for Bedwellty 1970–83, Islwyn 1983–95; Leader of the Labour Party, 1983–92; later Baron Kinnock.
39
Gerald Kaufman, MP for Manchester Ardwick 1970–83, Manchester Gorton since 1983; shadow Foreign Secretary, 1987–92.
40
Denis Healey, MP for Leeds South East 1952–5, Leeds East 1955–92; Chancellor of the Exchequer 1974–9; shadow Foreign Secretary 1981–7; later Baron Healey CH.
41
A generous funder of the SDP whose wife, Susie, was at school with GB.
42
1929–1993; Secretary of State for the Environment; MP for Cirencester & Tewksbury 1959–92.
43
Sir Alec Douglas-Home, Prime Minister 1963–4, later Lord Home of Hirsel.
44
GB went to Betteshanger, a prep school in Kent, 1958–61; Bedales, a coeducational boarding school in Hampshire, 1961–6; and was a Scholar at New College, Oxford, 1967–70. Edward Heath, 1916–2005, MP for Bexley 1950–74, Bexley Sidcup 1974–83, Old Bexley & Sidcup since 1983, Leader of the Conservative Party 1965–75, Prime Minister 1970–74, was President of the Oxford Union in 1939. Thirty years later GB was President of the Union and, on one of the Leader of the Opposition’s visits to Oxford, GB was presented to him. Unfortunately GB was unwell and, on shaking Heath’s hand for the first time, threw up.
45
President of the National Union of Students in 1970; Labour MP for Blackburn since 1979.
46
Novelist; MP for Louth 1969–74; deputy chairman of the Conservative Party 1985–6; Lord Archer of Weston-super-Mare from 1992; a friend of GB since the early ’70s.
47
1974–92.
48
John Major, MP for Huntingdonshire 1979–83, Huntingdon from 1983; Chancellor of the Exchequer 1989–90; Prime Minister 1990–97; later Sir John Major KG, CH.
49
Douglas Hurd, MP for Mid-Oxon 1974–83, Witney 1983–97; Foreign Secretary 1989–95; later Baron Hurd of Westwell CH.
50
MP for Blaby 1974–92; Chancellor of the Exchequer 1983–9; later Baron Lawson of Blaby.
51
Actress, 1931–90.
52
Australian actress, 1913–91.
53
Geoffrey Howe, Deputy Prime Minister, Leader of the Commons and Lord President of the Council, 1989–90; MP for Bebington 1964–6, Reigate 1970–74, Surrey East 1974–92; Chancellor of the Exchequer 1979–83; Foreign Secretary 1983–9; later Baron Howe of Aberavon CH. John Major replaced him as Foreign Secretary in July 1989. Major became Chancellor in October 1989 when Lawson resigned.
54
Michael Heseltine, MP for Tavistock 1966–74, Henley since 1974; Secretary of State for the Environment 1990–92; President of the Board of Trade 1992–5; Deputy Prime Minister 1995–7. He resigned as Defence Secretary in 1986 over the Westland affair.
55
Founder of the advertising agency Allen, Brady and Marsh, he was helping market the NPFA’s fund-raising appeal. GB and Michèle bought their house in Barnes from him in 1986.
56
MP for Richmond & Barnes 1983–97.
57
MP for Bristol West 1979–97, a contemporary of GB at university. He was promoted to the Cabinet in the reshuffle that followed Geoffrey Howe’s resignation. Later Baron Waldegrave of North Hill and Provost of Eton since 2009.
58
Malcolm Muggeridge, writer and broadcaster, 1903–90.
59
GB was a director of a chain of specialist knitting wool retail shops.
60
Children’s writer, 1916–90.
61
MP for Maidstone, 1987–2010; a contemporary of GB at university.
62
Rosalind Ayres and Martin Jarvis, actors, friends of GB.
63
This was before her television renaissance in the BBC’s
EastEnders
.
New Year headlines: ‘Prospect of early election recedes.’ ‘Gulf war could mean tax rise, Lamont
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hints.’ ‘Visit by Major to Ulster will revive hope on initiative.’ ‘Marlene Dietrich has briefly emerged from years of seclusion to help save the studios outside Berlin where she made
The Blue Angel
.’
One of my proudest memories is of holding Marlene’s left thigh. Outside the stage door of the Golders Green Hippodrome, one night in 1964, Simon [Cadell] and I helped her off the roof of her limousine. Precariously, on spindly heels she teetered about on the roof of the car, blowing little kisses and distributing signed photos to the fans. She was wearing a black mini-skirt slashed to the waist (or so it seemed) and, as we helped ease her to the ground, Simon got the right leg and I got the left.
Iraq rejects last-ditch peace moves as UN Gulf deadline expires. Major wins cross-party support in Commons – though fifty-five Labour people abstained or voted against (quite useful in the longer term). Saddam is promising that ‘the mother of all wars will be waged’. Heath wants time for sanctions to work. Naturally. ‘No choice but war’ says
The Times
leader. No choice but
Cinderella
at 2.30 and 7.30 says GB. Actually, I’m rather enjoying it. It’s a good show, glossy, doesn’t hang around, and three grand a week.
Bonnie, Barbara, Brian, Ray Alan (even Lord Charles,
especially
Lord Charles),
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they’re all
troupers
, doing it now just as their forebears would have done it a century ago. It’s a cosy company, a nice old theatre – we’re cocooned backstage, out there there’s the distant rumble of war – it could all have been scripted by J. B. Priestley. He’d have enjoyed a moment with me last night. There’s a small corner in the wings where I do several of my quick changes. There’s a makeshift screen and behind it propped on a wooden chair a long mirror lit by a single bare bulb. Just before the ghost scene I was standing ready in my knitted nightshirt when one of the dancers popped her head around the screen.
‘May I?’
‘Of course.’
She came round and pulled off her top and stood naked for a moment shaking her hair loose in front of the mirror. She looked at me and smiled. ‘Sorry.’
‘Not at all.’ I tried to look at her face.
‘They’re small, aren’t they?’ she said, pulling on her top again.
‘No. Yes. I mean they’re charming.’
And she’d gone. I can’t help feeling a proper leading man would have handled the situation with rather more
panache
.
‘4.00 a.m.: Bombs rain down on Iraqi capital as war erupts in Operation Desert Storm.’
I had a disconcerting experience during the show tonight. I have three spots when I’m alone on stage, burbling to the audience, and during one of them I suddenly felt as if I was up in the gallery looking down on myself – I could see myself from a long way away, as if I was looking through the wrong end of the telescope, and I was this tiny figure in a ridiculous costume and I just wanted to laugh out loud at the complete absurdity of it. Instead, I dried – not noticeably, I don’t think – but, just for a second, my mind went blank and I had no idea where I was, what I was doing or what came next.
‘After just fifty days in office, Britain’s youngest Prime Minister this century has been forced to become a war leader. His hardest passage so far came during the pre-dawn
hours yesterday morning. John Major had slept no more than two hours during Wednesday night as he received intelligence briefings on the first sorties against Iraq. He retired on Thursday night about midnight but aides woke him in the Downing Street flat at 12.45 a.m. The development they feared most had happened: Iraq’s launching of missiles against Israel, threatening a belligerent response that could detach the Arabs from the allied coalition.’
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How soon will I get to meet him? Will I get to meet him? Benny Hill is coming to the show today. That’s who the cast here all want to meet. He’s their kind of hero.
My third encounter with Tom Arnold. It’s the routine as before: I’m trundled up the back stairs, bundled along the corridor, ushered through his door into his cubby-hole as the clock strikes. (I imagine the secretary doesn’t come in because the room couldn’t fit three at a time.) Tom is as ever – charming, elusive, conspiratorial – but this time I’ve come prepared. No more pussy-footing, no more amiable small talk leading nowhere in particular. From my briefcase I produce a piece of paper and lay it on the table in front of him:
To: Sir Thomas Arnold MP
Coming from a large family, and as the chairman of a national body with affiliated associations in every English county, and as a director of a retail chain with thirty branches, I can claim links with many parts of the country.
Specifically I have direct business or family ties with each of the following constituencies:
Hertsmere
City of Chester
Croydon Central
Brighton Pavilion
Castle Point
Chingford
I live not far from Croydon, and my associations with Chester and Hertsmere are particularly close, as my father and his family come from the former and my sister and her family live in the latter.
(Okay, so my father came from Hoylake, but Chester’s close. And if St Albans isn’t in the Hertsmere constituency it ought to be. And desperate times call for desperate measures.)
Tom considered my list and offered a crooked smiled. ‘You’ve been doing your homework.’
‘I’m keen.’
‘I see.’ He lifted the telephone with one hand and put his finger to his lips with the other. He gave me a knowing look and narrowed his eyes. He murmured into the receiver, ‘Hertsmere? The list’s closed, isn’t it? Yes, thanks.’
The upshot is this: I can send my CV to the constituency chairmen at Chester, Croydon, Brighton, Castle Point and Chingford and Tom has said he will send my details to the Central Office agents in the relevant areas with the recommendation that I be considered for an interview. I am to see Tom again on Wednesday 6 March at 11.00 a.m.
At last, progress.
The Duke of Edinburgh Birthday Committee meets. HRH will be seventy on 10 June and, with the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme, we’re planning a gala bash at Windsor Castle. Prince Edward is
obergruppenführer
. I propose Michael Caine as master of ceremonies and suggest we try Barbra Streisand for the cabaret, but it’s a large committee (there’s going to be a lot of talk) and it seems on the cabaret-front we’re already committed to Harry Connick Jr. (Who he?)
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Hundreds of Iraqis have been killed in the first real land battle of the war. It’s getting dawn-to-dusk coverage on radio and TV, and most nights I tune in briefly after the show. I didn’t tonight, because I went with Bonnie and Barbara and Brian to an end-of-run celebration at Joe Allen’s. We laughed a lot, gossiped, they talked about their plans. I got Barbara talking a bit about the Krays (‘they only ever killed their own’) but it was really showbiz-showbiz all the way. The war didn’t get a look-in. War in a distant land (even when our boys are involved) is not a topic much touched upon by the Wimbledon Theatre panto players – though I did make Barbara laugh telling her the story Beverley Nichols told me years ago.
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It was during the darkest days of the Second World War. John Gielgud
69
went to stay with Beverley in the country and, on
Sunday morning, Beverley got up early to fetch the papers from the village shop. Gielgud had got there first and was sitting in the kitchen surrounded by all the newspapers, with headline after headline blaring doom and gloom, news of setback and disaster on almost every front. Gielgud was ashen-faced, shaking his head in despair. ‘John, what on earth has happened?’ ‘The worst,’ wailed Gielgud, ‘Gladys has got the most terrible notices!’
‘Iraqis morale wilts under allied onslaught.’ Mine has rather wilted too. And the country has disappeared beneath a blanket of snow.
Ash Wednesday. Mrs T.’s monetarist gurus have written to
The Times
warning of ‘a 1930s style depression’ and calling for interest rate cuts. Saddam pledges to talk to Moscow and fight on. And I go to Stratford-upon-Avon to meet Sooty – in person – at the Teddy Bear Museum. Once he’s got the glove on, Matthew Corbett suddenly becomes quite charismatic and Sooty (complete with water pistol aimed straight at the local press) is a true star. I present him with the ‘Teddy’, the Museum’s answer to the Oscar, a lifetime achievement award given to those bears who have ‘shaken paws with immortality’.
Kinnock sacks Short
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because she won’t keep quiet about the war. The jobless figures head for two million. And I head for Croydon where I’m addressing the Croydon Playing Fields Association and, incidentally, hoping to impress any Croydon Conservatives who happen to be in the audience. I sit with Bernard Weatherill,
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who is easy, urbane, chatty (reminds me of John Profumo) but clearly doesn’t see me as a political figure at all. Why should he?
Hallelujah! A letter from the City of Chester Conservative Association: ‘The shortlisting has now taken place and I am pleased to say that we would like you to attend an interview on the weekend of 1–3 March. The format of the interview will be questions from the chairman, a ten-minute speech by you without notes on a subject of your choice, followed by further questions from the Interview Panel.’ It is simply signed, ‘Vanessa. Agent.’
I call her first thing. She sounds friendly, jolly and quite young. I ask to be booked in for the last slot of the weekend: 3.00 p.m. on Sunday the 3rd.
By odd coincidence, tonight we’re going for dinner with the Nimmos
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– one of the last establishments in London (and certainly the only flat in Earl’s Court) where they still have liveried footmen waiting at table and the ladies retire to leave the gentlemen to their port and filthy stories. If it hadn’t been for Derek I wouldn’t have been to Chester even once. He goes there for the racing and, a few years back, suggested Michèle and I take a look at it as a possible location for another attraction like the Teddy Bear Museum. We went for a weekend and liked it a lot, but it was too far from London and the rents were ridiculous.
I told Michèle about the interview and her
first
response was, ‘It’s fucking miles away!’ There wasn’t a second response.
I am writing this in the Reference Room on the first floor of the Chester Public Library. I am speaking in Harrogate tonight and I’ve come via here for a quick recess. I got the 7.25 from Euston, reached Chester at 9.57 and walked into and around the centre of the town. On the basis that the other candidates will be drawn from the Central Office list, veterans of the circuit with standard set-piece speeches, my aim is to wow them with my local knowledge – and I’ve got it all here now: the population, the workforce, the balance of services to manufacturing, the unemployment, the poll tax, the county structure plan, the Chester district plan, the proposed park & ride, the works. I’ve been through six months worth of the local paper – it’s as dreary and parochial as they come (and clearly hates us [Conservatives]) but it’s full of useful local guff. There’s nary a mention of the incumbent,
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lots on the Labour Euro MP
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and picture after picture of the Labour prospective candidate, a bearded teacher called David Robinson. I began by
trawling the
Rolls of the Freemen of the City of Chester (1392–1700
) without much joy, but I’m feeling pretty good all the same. Leafing through
Wills at Chester
, look who I’ve found: ‘Elizabeth Brandreth, deceased, 1591.’ A forebear! Who could ask for anything more?
I’m going from Harrogate to York, from York to Birmingham, from Birmingham to London. ‘Bush calls Gulf ceasefire but warns Iraq not to fight back.’ ‘Major keen on June poll.’ Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be selected in March and elected in June? Who
could
ask for anything more?
I’m on the train coming home from the initial interview. It went well. I was appallingly nervous, but I don’t think it showed. I came up last night and booked myself into the Grosvenor Hotel (owned by the Duke of Westminster who, I imagine, is about the only person who can actually afford to stay there: it’s very lush and
very
pricey). I ordered room service for supper and breakfast and lunch and just paced the room running and rerunning my speech. It was personal and passionate (and ridiculous – I know), but it felt as if it was doing the trick: ‘It’s been my ambition to represent a Cheshire seat in Parliament since I was a small boy. My father, my grandfather, my great-grandfathers going back to Dr Joseph Brandreth who first came to Chester in the 1770s were all born and bred in this part of the world…’ I played the local card for all it was worth, gave them my Iain Macleod story,
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did the family stuff, the visionary stuff, why I am a Conservative (‘Why
we
are Conservatives – we believe in building a better world, a world built on principles, the principles of freedom, independence, initiative…’) I went for a
ralentando
at the finish to tug at the heartstrings. ‘I believe passionately in the values of our party. I know and love the City of Chester. We have such a great cause. This is such a special constituency. How I would love to be your candidate.’ Well, I convinced myself anyway. And I liked them. And I think they liked me.