Breaking the Code (82 page)

She is in her element, careering round the country like this, eighteen hours a day.

‘How are you surviving?' I ask.

‘On Lucozade and catnaps,' she chortles. What is the single most important personal quality a leader needs? ‘Moral courage. And William has it to an extraordinary degree. He couldn't have done this without it.'

We crisscross the county, meeting two candidates, six police officers, eight local press, eleven members of the general public (‘Good morning! Good morning!' trills Ann, although it is now late afternoon) and twenty-six party activists, average age sixty-plus. ‘Is it worth it, Ann?'

‘Yes.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘Yes.' She trembles with zeal.

Ann's off to Cumbria. I want to track down Prescott, but, ‘for security reasons', the Labour Party won't release details of his whereabouts. At 6.00 p.m. they concede, ‘Tomorrow he is in the north-west. That's all we're saying.' I reckon it will be Chester, my old constituency, where his mother lives.

I am right. At 10.15 a.m. the ‘Prescott Express' rolls into town and the bruiser, surrounded by heavies, clambers off the bus and wades through the heaving crowd (mostly media and local Labour stalwarts) to the stone steps where he gives us his stump speech. It is superb: fast, furious, funny. The jokes are current (‘Last night Margaret Thatcher said William Hague was cool and gritty – yes, like sand in your ice cream') and the way he wraps up New Labour thinking in Old Labour rhetoric is awe-inspiring. A man who can trumpet the virtues of Tony Blair and Keir Hardie in the same sentence is worth hanging onto.

When it's over and we've had a bit of banter and he's manhandled me joshingly for the cameras, I say, ‘Well done. You're a star, though I thought Tony was more into Kir Royale than Keir Hardie.'

JP screws up his face, ‘What are you blathering on about, Gyles?' I know his contempt for me and my kind is profound, but today he's all smiles. ‘When are you coming over to our side? We'll take you. We're not fussy. Mum sends her best, by the way.'

As we wave the bus farewell, a huge woman standing next to me gives a deep sigh. ‘Isn't he fantastic? He's a real man – with a bit of meat on him. That's what this country needs.'

Her friend recognises me and tut-tuts, ‘It's you, is it? You only come round when the election's on. You're not getting my vote. We never see you.'

At 7.40 a.m., outside Conservative Central Office, in a deserted Smith Square, I meet up with the Tory Holy Trinity: William, Ffion and Seb Coe. They seem symbiotically linked. To me, there is something rather touching about their interdependent, mutually nourishing relationship. Others (including several in the shadow Cabinet) find it uncomfortable and excluding. Seb's devotion to William is absolute: ‘I would die in the ditch for that man,' he says to me, and he means it literally. As I kiss Ffion I feel immediately guilty: her make-up is mask-like and thick because it has to last the whole day and here I am smudging it before she's even got started. I tell William that I've heard that the Labour focus groups show that, since the punch, Prescott's ‘negatives' have turned into ‘positives'. William laughs: ‘Even so, Gyles, we're still not going to resort to beating up the electorate.' He is looking so cool, so pink and polished, so perky. As one of Blair's aides says to me later, ‘If you can keep your head when all about are losing theirs, perhaps you're not reading the situation right.'

Michael Ancram (party chairman) bounces past, ‘I'm having so much fun.' His days are numbered. Four years ago I remember getting calls from all and sundry (including Seb, I think) saying, ‘What about Ancram for leader?'

At the Labour press conference, the journalist sitting next to me [Peter Hitchens] has his hand in the air for half an hour without being called. ‘Are you ever called?' I ask.

‘I'm not waiting to ask a question,' he explains. ‘This is a position in tantric yoga designed to suppress nausea.'

Tony Blair clocks me from the platform and flashes me a brilliant smile. William can't do this. Ffion can. She does it to me at lunchtime in Kingston. I melt immediately. Blair can be suddenly cold and distant, but when he focuses on you the sun shines. Hague doesn't blow so hot and cold: he is always the same, even-tempered, serene. His stump speech is completely professional, but somehow he doesn't connect. An elderly Conservative activist in the crowd whispers to me, ‘Life hasn't touched him yet. He's still a boy, isn't he? Now we've lost Kenneth Clarke and Douglas Hurd, we haven't got any grown-ups. Labour has all the serious players these days.'

At 8.00 p.m. at Millbank I meet up with Tony. We are alone. (Alastair Campbell, looking thin, pasty, none too well, has disappeared.) The Prime Minister, clutching his mug of tea, is weary but buoyant. ‘How are the nights?' I ask.

‘Okay, thanks. Leo is sleeping right through. That's made a big difference.' What does Tony think is the single quality most essential to a modern leader? ‘Knowing what you believe in, what you want to achieve.' What about energy, stamina, moral courage? ‘Yes, they all kick in, but the first essential is to be clear about your aims.'

‘Is the Third Way still part of it?'

‘Absolutely, Gyles. That's what it's all about. Nothing's changed.'

He looks directly at me. His eyes are wide open and glistening. He squeezes my arm and pushes his eerie, orange, over-made-up face towards mine. ‘Gyles, the Third Way – it's real. And it's for you.'

I am expecting to meet William at Central Office at 8.30 a.m. When I arrive, he's gone. The mood has altered: last night, on
Newsnight
, he looked pie-eyed and vulnerable. Today's ICM poll shows the Conservatives losing ground. I gossip with the troops, who know the truth. We're doomed. Four years ago, William's plan was clear: begin by convincing the MPs at Westminster that he can deliver (done); next, shore up the core vote by giving them what they want to hear on Europe (done); finally – having secured our base – broaden the appeal, move back to the centre ground and give a distinctive message in the areas the electorate cares about: the economy, crime, education, health. Alas, not done at all. Perhaps it doesn't matter. We were never going to win anyway. From the electorate's perspective, it isn't yet time for a change.

Fly to Manchester and outside the gates at Old Trafford meet up with Jordan, twenty-three, the surgically enhanced Page Three girl who is standing as an independent in Stetchford. She looks quite rough and completely unreal. The media are out in force. I say to the female reporter from
The Guardian,
‘I don't think this is quite what Emmeline Pankhurst had in mind. Why are you here?'

‘Well,' she says gamely, ‘We've got to cover this because there's a real shortage of women in the campaign. I mean, Ffion won't say a thing.'

That's right, blame Ffion. The Tories just can't win.
688

A fun few days on the celebrity merry-go-round. I've just interviewed Ken Clarke, who should become leader of the Conservative Party but won't. Europe does for him every time. I asked him for his motto. ‘It's a good life if you don't weaken.' A happy interview with John Major, too. Plenty of white wine and choice Majorisms. When he said Blair is something of a chameleon, I told him he could be something of a chameleon himself, giving everyone he met the impression he was on their side. He responded with a phrase unlikely to fall from the lips of any other Prime Minister: ‘I was never in the business of telling porkies.'

I like my life. I like the range of my acquaintance – from Paul Daniels (last night) to Bill Nighy today. (They are both so good at what they do.) I went to a private view of the Vermeer exhibition at the National Gallery organised by Ivan Massow. Peter Mandelson turned up with a handsome black security guy in tow. ‘Oh,' squealed Ivan, ‘is he my present?' Peter was at the Conrad Black party, too. ‘The usual crowd': Trevor McDonald, Melvyn Bragg, Simon Jenkins (all jolly); Portillo (‘Hello, darling!' he cried, slapping his palm against mine); Sarah Ferguson (loopier than ever); Angus Ogilvy (sweet); Jack Profumo (eighty-six and still charming); David Frost … ‘A joy, Gyles.' ‘You're looking well, David.' He was looking terrible. ‘I'm on the steady white wine and high protein diet.' I don't know how he is still alive. Andrew Lloyd Webber was looking well. ‘I'm 23 pounds lighter after five weeks off alcohol. Shall we write a musical together? A funny one.'

I telephoned Walter Cronkite in New York. ‘We can smell the burning still. It's 2 miles away, but we can smell it. And see it. The smoke's still rising.'
689

‘How are you?' I asked, ‘How is America?'

‘Numb,' he replied. He remembered that he had taken us to the World Trade Center for dinner. ‘What can I say? They are burning down our world.' This does not feel like a week when you want Iain Duncan Smith as your leader – nice guy though he is. Everyone is very jittery. I was pre-recording my show at LBC today – in the ITN building in Gray's Inn Road – and the fire alarm went off. My stomach churned. I wasn't alone.

Our ten-day try-out of
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah!
is almost done.
690
Given that next week marks the Golden Jubilee, it's appropriate that I am playing at the Palace and staying at the Balmoral – both, of course, in Westcliff-on-Sea. I am getting a fair flavour of the travelling actor's life. My bath at the Balmoral is shallow and narrow and the water is alternately freezing and boiling. There is nothing in between. For lunch I have walked through the windswept town and found a smoke-filled café on the sea front where I am sitting now and where I have been joined at my table by a sweet-faced young man who has explained to me that he is schizophrenic but not dangerous. He says hello to everyone who comes into the café and everyone just wants him to go away.

I have just had a call from Radio 5 Live. They want an interview on who empties the House of Commons. Cue my Paddy Ashdown stories.

I walked along the embankment from Millbank to the Savoy, passing the long queues waiting to go in to Westminster Hall to file past the Queen Mother's coffin. The funeral is tomorrow, so I thought it politic to wear a dark suit and black tie tonight even though the Savoy dinner was wholly celebratory and, as it turned out, totally uproarious. Iain Dale was marking the fifth birthday of Politico's, his bookshop and publishing empire, and Margaret Thatcher was his guest of honour. Quite a coup – except that only days ago word reached the world that Lady T. has had a couple of small strokes and consequently, on strict doctor's orders, is never to speak in public again. We thought that might put a bit of a dampener on the proceedings, but, as it turned out, not so. It was a very jolly party. Iain had packed the room with his family (it was his fortieth birthday, too, I think) and her family (Denis and Carol and entourage) and a cast conjured up from all her yesterdays – John Nott, John Redwood, Sir Rex and Mavis Hunt (the salty smell of the Falkands still in their hair), even John Sergeant from outside the embassy in
Paris… Good speeches: Bernard Ingham quite the best. I was the MC and my only task (impressed upon me time and again) was to make absolutely sure that Lady T. heeded her doctor's advice and resisted all temptation to say a word. I failed. As I announced that the great lady was about to leave and reminded the crowd that, while we could salute her she could not address us, suddenly she was at my side – grinning from ear to ear. Without any warning, she lunged towards the podium and grabbed the microphone with both hands. She thanked us for our welcome and told us to keep the faith. She was unstoppable – and glorious. We roared our approval and delight.

The Iron Lady may have fallen silent now, but, tonight, we were there for her last hurrah. Weren't we the lucky ones?

Last night: the National Portrait Gallery – where Michèle and I are the curators of an exhibition celebrating a century of children's writers. We were there for the talk on J. M. Barrie, an odd, unhappy man, whose plays are largely forgotten, but whose name will live forever because of his one great creation: Peter Pan.

Tonight: Highgrove for the British Forces' Foundation dinner. Noel Edmonds, Anita Harris, Frederick Forsyth, Will Young, two hugely famous Argentinian polo players whose names I don't catch… Ben Elton provides the cabaret. It doesn't quite work: it's too near the knuckle for this audience and I can sense the poor man, trapped in the spotlight, furiously editing the routine as he goes along. He feels he's dying. He isn't, and afterwards, in a corner of the room, I embrace him with fellow feeling. What do we learn from Ben's performance tonight? Our compère, Jim Davidson, tells me, ‘If the audience believe you like them – really like them – they will like you. Put the punters at their ease: make them feel comfortable.' With Ben, some of them were on edge.

Not Charles and Camilla. They laughed obligingly. Their delight in each other's company is palpable. Someone who knew Highgrove in Diana's day whispers to me, ‘It's so much happier here now.' The garden is perfect. Charles is so proud of it. ‘Do you like it?' he asks, ‘I'm so glad. I want you to like it.' He squints at me, brows furrowed. ‘Are you still on television?' he enquires. ‘Now and then,' I say. ‘I don't watch,' he says. ‘Not at all?' I ask. ‘Not at all,' he says, peering at me closely. ‘Are you funny?' he asks. ‘I try,' I say wanly. He sighs: ‘I know the feeling.'

Camilla is looking lovely (I tell her so, far too fruitily) and seems utterly at home. She is easy with William and Harry, who sit at a table of young ones, conspicuously the only two at the table who do not smoke. When Charles gets up to leave, Camilla creeps around the edge of the room and follows him out at a discreet distance. Ben and I descend on
Harry and William with a flurry of ingratiating banter. Poor lads: they are going to have to endure a lifetime of this.