First Among Equals (26 page)

Raymond paused,
staring at the menu.

“Very,” he
finally admitted.

“Nevertheless,
you were wise to come to Blackpool, because this is where your strength lies,”

“You think so?”

“Come on.
Evervbody knows you’re the trade unions’ pin-up boy, and tfiey still have a lot
of influence as to who sits in the Cabinet.”

“I haven’t
noticed,” said Raymond mournfully.

“You will when
they eventually choose the Leader.”

“That’s funny,
that’s exactly what... Joyce said last week.”

“Sensible girl, Joyce.
I fear it will happen in our time as
members.”

A waitress
appeared at their side and they both ordered.

“I doubt it,”
said Raymond, “and I can tell you one thing. I would oppose the idea, which
wouldn’t make me popular with the unions.”

“Perhaps.
But every party needs a man like you, and the
union leaders wouldn’t mind if you were a card-carrying Fascist-, they’d still
back you.”

“I’l] tell you
something-I’d trade it all in for your job at the Home Office. I didn’t go into
politics to spend my life on the benches.”

As he spoke, the
chairman of the Boilermakers’ Union shouted across as he passed their table,
“Good to see you, Ray.” lie showed no recognition of Jamie. Raymond turned and
smiled at the man waving as Caesar might have done to Cassius.

“Have you
decided how you’re going to vote in the Leadership battle?” asked Fiona over
breakfast.

“Yes,” replied
Charles. “And at this point in my career, I can’t afford to make the wrong
choice.”

“So who have
you decided on?” asked Fiona.

“While there
isn’t a serious contender willing to oppose Ted Heath, it remains in my best
interest to continue backing him.”

“Isn’t there
one shadow Cabinet Minister who has the guts to run against him?”

“The rumor
grows that Margaret Thatcher will act as whi i i I If she gets close enough to
force a
second ,pping
gir .
ballot
,
the serious contenders will then join in.”

:’What if she
won the first round?”

‘Don’t be
silly, Fiona,” said Charles, taking more interest in his scrambled egg. “The
Tory Party would never elect a woman to lead them.

We’re far too hidebound
and traditional.

That’s the sort
of immature mistake the Labour Party would make to prove how much they believed
in equality.”

Simon was still
pusbing Margaret Thatcher to throw her hat in the ring.

“She certainly
has enough of them,” said Elizabeth.

It amused
Raymond to watch the Tory Party Leadership struggle while he got on with his
job. Raymond would have dismissed Thatcher’s chances if Kate hadn’t reminded
him that the Tories had been the first and only party to choose a Jewish leader
in Benjamin Disraeli, and a bachelor in Ted Heath.

“Why shouldn’t
they be the first to elect a woman?” she demanded. He would have continued to
argue with Kate, but the damn woman had proved to be right so often in ihe
past.

The 1922 Conim
ittee announced that the election for Tory Leader would take place on February
4, 1975.
At a press conference in early January at the House
of Commons, Margaret Thatcher.
still
the only
woman in the Shadow Cabinet, announced she would allow herself to be nominated
for the Leadership. Simon immediately spent his time exhorting his colleagues
to support “the lady” and joined a small committee that was formed for the
purpose. Charles Hampton warned his friends that the party could never hope to
win a general election with a woman Leader. As the days passed, nothing became
clearer than the uncertainty of the outcome.

At four o’clock
on a particularly wet and windy day, the chairman of the 1922 Committee
announced the figures:

MARGARET THATCHER 130

EDWARD HEATH 119

Hucm FRASER 16

According to
the 1922 Committee rules, the winner needed a 15 percent majority, and so a
second round was necessary. “It will be held in seven days’ time,” the Chief
Whip announced.

Three former
Cabinet Ministers immediately declared they were candidates. Ted Heath, having
been warned that he would get even fewer votes the second time around, withdrew
from the second ballot.

The next seven
days were the longest in Simon’s life. He did everything in his power to hold
Thatcher’s supporters together. Charles meanwhile decided to play the second
round very low key. When the time came to vote, he put his cross on the ballot
paper next to the former Secretary of State he bad served under at Trade and
Industry. “A man we can all trust,” he told Fiona.

When the votes
had been finally counted, the chairman of the 1922

Committee
announced that Margaret Thatcher was the outright winner with a vote of 146 to
79 for her nearest challenger.

Simon was
delighted, while Elizabeth hoped he had forgotten about her promise to eat her
hat. Charles was dumbfounded. They both wrote to their new Leader immediately.

Qrrrm 9W

Vrx= sr”“

Februar 11,
1975 y Dear Margaret, Many congratulations on your victory as the first woman Leader
of our Party. I was proud to have played a smallpart in your triumph and will
continue to workJor your success at the next election.

Yours, SIMON

27 Eaton Square
London SW I

February 11,
1975

Dear Ilargaret,
I made no secret oj’backing Ted Heath in thefirst round ()/
,the
leadership contest, having had the privilege oj’serving it, his administration.
I was delighted to have supportedyou on the second ballot. It illustrates how
progressive our Pariv is that we have chosen a woman who will undoubtedly be
Britain’s next Prime ffinister.

Be assured
qf
my loyalty.

Yours, CHARLES

Margai-et’rhatcher
answered all her colleagues’ letters within the week.

Simon received
a handwritten letter inviting him tojoin the new Shadow team as number two in
the Education Department. Charles received a typed note thanking him for his
letter of support.

H
AMPTON’s BANK had weathered the Great War, the thirties crash, and
then the Second World War. Charles had no intention of being the chairman who
presided over its demise in the seventies.

Soon after
taking over from Derek Spencer-at the board’s unanimous insistence-Charles
discovered that being chairman wasn’t quite as relaxed a job as he had
expected. He lacked the knowledge and expertise to run Hampton’s on a
day-to-day basis.

While Charles
remained confident that the bank could ride the storm, he wasn’t taking any
risks. The business news sections of the newspapers were full of stories of the
Bank of Englapd’s acting as a “lifeboat” and having to step in to assist ailing
financial institutions, along with the daily reports of the collapse of yet
another property company. The time when property values and rents automatically
increased each year had become a thing of the past.

When he had
accepted the board’s offer, Charles insisted that a chief executive be
appointed to carry out the professional business while he remained the man with
whom other City chairmen dealt. Charles interviewed several people for the
position but he did not find anyone suitable.

Head-hunting
seemed to be the next move, the expense of which was saved when he overheard,
at a conversation at the next table at White’s.
that
the newly appointed chief executive at the First Bank of America was sick of
having to report to the board in New York every time he wanted to use a
firstclass stamp. -

Charles
immediately invited the First Bank of America’s chief executive to lunch at the
House of Commons. Clive Reynolds had come from a background similar to Derek
Spencer’s: London School of Economics, followed by the Harvard Business School,
and a series of successful appointments which had culminated in his becoming
chief executive of the First Bank of America.

This similarity
did not worry Charles, as he made it clear to Mr. Reynolds that any appointee
would be the chairman’s man.

When Reynolds
had been offered the appointment he had driven a hard bargain, and Charles
looked forward to his doing the same for Hampton’s.

Reynolds ended
up with fifty thousand pounds a year and enough of a profit incentive to insure
that he didn’t deal for himself or encourage any other head-hunters to invite
him to join their particular jungle.

“He’s not the
sort of fellow we could invite to dinner,” Charles told Fiona, “but his
appointment will enable me to sleep at night knowing the bank is in safe
hands.”

Charles’s
choice was rubber-stamped by the board at their next meeting, and as the months
passed it became obvious that the First Bank of America had lost one of its
prime assets below market value.

Clive Reynolds
was a conservative by nature, but when he (
hd
take
what Charles described as a risk – and what Reynolds called a “hunch”-more than
50 percent of such risks paid off. While Hampton’s kept its reputa tion for
caution and good husbandry under Charles, it managed a few quite spectacular
coups thanks to their new chief executive.

Reynolds had
enough sense to treat his new chairman with respect without ever showing undue
deference, while their relationship remained at all times strictly
professional.

One of
Reynolds’s first innovations had been to suggest that they check on every
customer account over two hundred anil fifty-thousand pounds, and Charles had
approved.

“When you’ve handled the account of a company for many years.”
Reynolds pointed out, “it sometimes is less obvious when one of your
traditional customers is heading for trouble than it would be with a newcomer.
If there are any ‘lame ducks,’ let’s discover them before they hit the ground”
– a metaphor that Charles repeated at several weekend parties.

Charles enjoyed
his morning meetings with Clive Reynolds, where he picked up a great deal about
a profession to which he had previously only brought gut feeling and common
sense. In a short time he learned enough from his new tutor to make him sound
like David Rockefeller when he rose to speak in a finance debate on the floor
of the Housean unexpected bonus.

Charles knew
little of Reynolds’s private life except what was on file. He was forty-one,
unmarried, and lived in Esher, wherever that was. All Charles cared about was
that Reynolds arrived each morning at least an hour before him, and left after
him every night, even when the House was in recess.

Charles had
studied fourteen of the confidential reports on customers %ith loans over two hundred
and fifty thousand pounds. Clive Reynolds had already picked out two companies
with whom he felt the bank should revise its current position.

Charles still
had three more reports to consider before he presented a full assessment to the
board.

The quiet knock
on the door, however, meant that it was ten o’clock and Reynolds had arrived to
make his daily report. Rumors were circulating in London that the bank rate
would go up on Thursday, so Reynolds wanted to go short on dollars and long on
gold. Charles nodded. As soon as the announcement had been made about the bank
rate, Reynolds continued, “It will be wiser to return to dollars, as the new
round of pay negotiations with the unions is about to take place.

This, in turn,
will undoubtedly start a fresh run on the pound.” Charles nodded again.

“I think the
dollar is far too weak at two ten,” Reynolds added. “With the unions settling
at around twelve percent, the dollar must strengthen, say, to nearer one
ninety.” He added that he was not happy about the bank’s large holding in
Slater Walker, Inc., and wanted to liquidate half the stock over the next
month. He proposed to do so in small amounts over irregular periods. “We also
have three oth-er major accounts to consider before we make known our findings to
the board. I’m concerned about the spending policy of one of the companies, but
the other two appear stable.

I think we
should go over them together when you have time to consider my reports.
Perhaps tomorrow morning, if you could manage that.
The
companies concerned are Speyward Laboratories, Blackies Limited and Nethercote
and Company. It’s Speyward I’m worried about.”

“I’ll take the
files home tonight,” said Charles, “and give you an opinion in the morning.”

“Thank you,
Chairman.”

Charles had
never suggested that Reynolds call him by his first name.

Archie Millburn
held a small dinner party to celebrate Simon’s first anniversary as the member
for Pucklebridge. Although these occasions had originally been to introduce the
Party hierarchy to their new member,

Simon now knew
more about the constituency and its flock than Archie did, as Archie was the
first to admit.

Elizabeth,
Peter and Lucy had settled comfortably into their small cottage, while Simon,
as a member of the Shadow Education team, had visited schools – nursery,
primary, public and secondary; universities-red brick, plate glass and
Oxbridge; technical colleges, art institutes and correctional centers. He had
read Butler, Robbins, Plowden, and had listened to children and to professors
of psychology alle. He felt that after a year he was beginning to understand
the subject, and only longed for a General Election so that he could once again
turn rehearsal into performance.

“Opposition
must be frustrating,” observed Archie when the ladies had retired after dinner.

“Yes, but it’s
an excellent way to prepare yourself for Government and do some basic thinking
about the subject. I never found time for such luxury as a Minister.”