Breaking the Code (6 page)

Vanessa has called. I’m through to the next round. They’re down from around two dozen to about six. There’s a candidates’ reception on Friday evening (‘for yourself and spouse, lounge suit’) hosted by the Association’s President – i.e. the Duke of Westminster – and a much fuller interview on Saturday. ‘This will take the form of a brief summary of your position on the Community Charge, followed by a fifteen-minute presentation on what would be in your manifesto for the election.’ I asked if I could again be the last one to be seen. She laughed and said yes. She’s rather plain and horsey, but there’s a gawky Carol Thatcher energy to her that I like. Tom Arnold’s office has also called. My meeting with him is postponed to Thursday, but I’m going to Central Office anyway today to pick up briefing material. As I write I can’t pretend to have much grasp of the detail of our policies, but it’s still only Monday…

A rather drunken encounter with Wayne Sleep last night was followed by an extraordinarily indulgent lunch with John and Patti Bratby today. They took us to the Savoy to celebrate John’s retrospective at the National Portrait Gallery. Patti was in one of her favourite rubber rigouts and John was looking more like Raymond Briggs’s Father Christmas than ever. We had a wonderful window table overlooking the river and so much champagne that halfway through the main course John began to slide beneath the table – literally.
Kaleidoscope
was coming to interview him at 4.00 p.m. so Patti decided to take him up to bed for a recuperative snooze. He pottered off on her arm beaming benignly and waving to his public as he went.

Castle Point, Brighton and Croydon Central don’t want to see me. Is this because they don’t like the look of my CV or because Sir Tom has warned them off me? I don’t know and I don’t ask. When I’m closeted with him today his manner is more conspiratorial than ever. ‘Mmm, mmm, it’s going well,’ he murmurs,
sotto voce
, ‘Going well. They seem to like you. So far. But it’s early days. Can’t be too careful. Mustn’t take anything for granted.’ He picks up the telephone and turns away from me and whispers urgently into it. A girl knocks on the door and hands him a document. It’s a speech by John Major. He glances around the room. Evidently this is very hush-hush.

‘This hasn’t been delivered yet, but there’s a phrase here I think you might find useful.’ He points to the headline and raises a triumphant eyebrow. ‘“A society of opportunity”. Mmm. That’s the line, isn’t it? A society of opportunity. What do you think?’

‘Good,’ I say. ‘Very good.’

‘Call me on Monday. Let me know how you get on.’

This is my forty-third birthday and John Major’s hundredth day as Prime Minister. We are travelling to Chester on the 11.35 from Euston in the wake of the Ribble Valley by-election. The Lib Dems have overturned our majority of 20,000. ‘Setback to prospect of early election as Conservatives lose their tenth safest constituency.’ The recession and the poll tax are twin killers – but if I’ve got to explain away the one and justify the other, I will!

It’s Mothering Sunday and if Chester went well I’ve got to put it down to the mother of my children. At the Friday night drinks with the Duke of Westminster – in the Venetian Suite of the Grosvenor Hotel – my darling girl was utterly fantastic. She looked exactly right; she played the part to perfection. She was better than the Princess of Wales would have been. She worked the room and they lapped her up. The chairman of the women’s committee was Russian-born and Michèle even managed to charm her
in Russian
. What a woman, what a wife! I tried not to overdo it – not altogether successfully. I said to the Duke (whom I met years ago, around the time of his twenty-first birthday, when I was sent to interview him for
Woman
magazine) ‘May I call you Gerald?’ which was certainly a mistake. He was easy-going and perfectly charming (great black bags under his eyes, cigarette constantly on the go), but I sensed he was wary of me, so after my first sortie with him I steered clear. I don’t think he’ll be voting for me, but I felt the others might.

On Saturday the format was as before: fourteen inquisitors in a horseshoe around the candidate seated at a small card table. The Community Charge stuff was fine – I remembered all the figures and trotted out the Central Office brief.

For my manifesto:

It felt as if it was working. Thank you, Sir Tom!

I was okay-ish on the questions – except on farming. I’d done no homework on farming. I know nothing about farming. But that didn’t seem to matter. The room was with me. When it was over I made for the loo and when I emerged they were all coming out of the interview room. A couple of the women whispered ‘Well done!’ as they passed, and the chairman – on crutches, he’s ex-RAF, avuncular, Mr Pickwick meets Mr Punch – came struggling up, rather embarrassed, and said, ‘Good show – but I forgot to ask – anything I ought to know – skeletons in the cupboard – that sort of thing – need your word.’

‘I don’t think so.’ I tried to say it meekly. ‘I think you’ll be all right with me.’

We were still in bed with the early morning tea when Sir Tom called.

‘It’s going well. Going well. But I think you ought to go and see Sir Peter Morrison. I sense he’s got one or two reservations.’

‘But he’s never even met me!’

‘Exactly – needs a bit of reassurance. He’s not certain about your contribution to the party. Give his office a call and see if he can fit you in.’

Then John Gummer called: ‘Peter Morrison will move hell and high water to stop you. He’s got his own man and doesn’t want you at any price.’

At five o’clock, on the dot, I rang the doorbell at 81 Cambridge Street, SW1. Sir Peter opened the door and beamed. He could not have been more courteous. He is tall, fat, with crinkly hair, piggy eyes, a pink-gin drinker’s face, effortlessly patrician, a non-stop smoker and a proper Tory grandee. (I checked him out in
Who’s Who
and the credentials are impeccable: Eton, Oxford, White’s, Pratt’s, son of Lord Margadale, his brother’s an MP, his sister is Woman of the Bedchamber to the Queen!) He introduced me to his secretary – ‘This is the real Member of Parliament for the City of Chester’ – and then we climbed the stairs to a little first-floor drawing room where he sat back on a sofa, glass in one hand, cigarette in the other, and I sat forward facing him, perched on the edge of my seat, willing him to see me as a surprisingly straight bat. Unfortunately he wouldn’t lead the conversation. I had to
do the talking. I struggled. I asked him about the constituency and he answered in vague generalities. But he said there are going to be boundary changes that’ll make it safer. I asked him about the local press. ‘I never talk to them,’ he said with satisfaction. I asked him why he was giving up (he looks sixty, but he’s only forty-six): ‘When you’ve been a Minister of State, deputy chairman of the party, worked with the Prime Minister at No. 10
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and you know you’re not going to get into the Cabinet – and I’m not – it’s time to do something else. If I get out now I’ve got time for a second career. I’m going into business, going to make some money.’ After about half an hour we’d both run dry and he was getting restless, so up I got and off I toddled. He wished me luck and said if it went my way in the final round, he’d do whatever he could to help. I don’t know what was gained by the encounter, except he will have discovered I don’t have green skin and I own at least one sober suit as well as all those ghastly jumpers.

Tonight we had supper down the road with Peter and Sue.
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They were funny and generous as ever, but I couldn’t concentrate at all on the conversation around me. All I could think about was Chester. I’ve not told any of our friends (or family, other than Michèle, not even the children) what I’m up to. If it happens they’ll know soon enough.

Dear Gyles,

I am writing to confirm you are now down to the final three in our selection of a prospective candidate. The procedure for the final selection meetings will be as follows:

a) Thursday 14 March, Executive Council Meeting, 7.00 p.m. at Rowton Hall Hotel.

Each candidate after a brief social meeting with executive council members will be asked a few brief questions by the chairman, then asked to make a fifteen-minute presentation on how they are going to retain Chester at the next general election, followed by questions from members of the executive council. Once all three candidates have been presented a ballot will take place. If one candidate gets more than 50 per cent of the vote they may choose to forward only one candidate to the general meeting. If not, at least two candidates will be forwarded to the general meeting.
b) Friday 15 March, General Association Meeting at Christleton Country Club, 7.00 p.m.

If more than one candidate is presented then the procedure will follow that of the executive council. If only one is presented then they will be asked to make a speech, answer questions and there will be a vote on a motion proposing them as the next prospective candidate.

At both meetings we would be delighted if your spouse could attend.

Yours sincerely,

Vanessa, Agent

Well, if that wasn’t forty-eight hours that shook the world, it was certainly forty-eight hours that changed our lives.

On Wednesday night we went to St Paul’s to see
Nicholas Nickleby
with Saethryd
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as The Infant Phenomenon. She was gorgeous. When she was on, I concentrated. The rest of the time, my head whirred with my speech, round and round it went, round and round. On Thursday (Michèle’s birthday, poor thing) we set off for Chester early and ensconced ourselves in ‘our’ room at the Grosvenor. (This is proving an expensive business.) At 6.45 p.m. we were at Rowton Hall Hotel, stomachs churning, smiles fixed. The other candidates appeared equally daunted: Sir Peter’s young man looked reassuringly unpromising, uncertain, ill-at-ease, but the woman looked – and was – formidable. She is called Jacqui Lait,
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she’s been on the circuit for years, she clearly knows her stuff. Her husband was even larger than her, bear-like, genial, supportive. Sir Peter’s candidate didn’t appear to have a spouse – another nail in his coffin. Vanessa said to me right away, ‘Sorry, you can’t go last this time. They’re on to you. We’re drawing lots.’

For the first half-hour we sipped our orange juice and mingled. This we did (let’s face it) so much better than the others. Michèle was a star – smiling, laughing, gladhanding, moving down the aisles, not missing a single row. She looked the business. She did the business. At 7.30 the chairman called the room to order, the executive council took their seats (there must have been about eighty of them in all), and we, candidates and spouses, were escorted to a separate sitting-room on the other side of the hall. The
local papers were waiting to take our pictures. We each had to do a sad shot in case we lost and a happy shot in case we won.

The lots were drawn. I was second on. The speech went well. It was a bit of a toe-curler (‘If you choose me you will do me great honour. I promise I will do all in my power to do you proud’) but it had shape and purpose
and
the society of opportunity and as much local stuff as I could manage. The speech was fine, but the questions were a nightmare. Several I didn’t understand
at all
. There were councillors with points about local government that were utterly and completely beyond my ken. One of the first questions was about farm subsidies. I hadn’t a clue. I said, ‘I’ve written on my notes, “If you don’t know the answer tell them the truth” – I don’t know the answer, sir, but I’ll find out.’ It got a nice round of applause. But when I didn’t know the answer to the next question either, I realised I couldn’t play the same card twice so I just blathered and blustered and flannelled – and got away with it,
just
.

When I was asked if the children would move to schools in the constituency, I said ‘No,’ but when when they said ‘Will you live in the constituency?’ I said ‘Yes, of course. Accessibility is everything. If you choose me tonight, I move in on Monday.’

My turn done, we moved back to the sitting-room and Jacqui Lait went in. Michèle went to the loo and on the way back paused by the door to the hall. She came back and took me into a corner and said, ‘Don’t be very disappointed if you lose. She’s very, very good. She’s talking about Europe and she knows her stuff.’

I must say when she emerged from the hall, Jacqui looked like a winner. She glowed. While they counted the votes, we stood around, laughing nervously, drinking coffee, making small talk, making banter, saying what a shame it was the three of us couldn’t share the constituency – and, in the moment, even meaning it. Then, quite suddenly, the chairman was struggling in on his sticks. He paused, breathless, looked around the group then shot his hand in my direction: ‘Congratulations. The vote was decisive. You are to be our prospective parliamentary candidate. Well done.’ The others shrunk back, faded instantly, began at once to make their excuses and go. We mumbled hollow commiserations as the chairman and Vanessa pulled us away and led us triumphantly back into the hall. With Michèle I stood on the little platform at the end of the room and surveyed the standing ovation. It felt very good.

What felt best of all was getting back to our room at the Grosvenor and collapsing over a bottle of ludicrously expensive house champagne. I raised my glass to my birthday girl and she raised her glass to me. By George, we’d done it! Five years on the back benches, five years a junior minister, five years in Cabinet, with perhaps a brief spell in opposition along the way. That’ll see me through to sixty.