Political Suicide (24 page)

By-elections resemble bodies that have died unnaturally: inevitably they have inquests that sit upon them.

The political hacks had their say in the later editions the next day, or in the Friday weeklies and the Sunday heavies. They fed the votes, the swings, the turnout into the mincing machine of their psephologically-attuned minds, and came up with the conclusion that it was a triumph for the Social Democrats and a humiliation for the government. Then they went back to El Vino's to forget about it all.

The Social Democrats' inquest was really more of a small-scale orgy. The whole parliamentary party, all seven of them, were gathered in the party's London headquarters, and when the result was announced they filled the available floor space with a rapturous dance. Since all seven members of the parliamentary party were male, it was fortunate that the police's interest in MPs' sexual habits was confined to sending their prettier PCs
into the gay clubs of Soho to seduce them, and that they had not yet woken up to what could go on in party headquarters. The next day, when Oliver Worthing came to London, he found to his surprise that he had already been made his party's spokesman on education.

The Labour leader sat at home watching on television, knowing that he would be telephoned for a comment as soon as the results were known. His feelings when the Labour candidate was a left-wing trouble-maker who had wangled himself the candidacy by thoroughly conspiratorial means were always ambiguous, and when he heard through a phone call from the Labour Agent that Jerry Snaithe was being interviewed by the police in connection with the murder of James Partridge, he became very het-up and Welsh indeed.

“Thank God we lost” was his reaction when the result was announced, though when one of the national newspapers rang him minutes later, he had a very different rigmarole at his practised fingertips.

But the final, authoritative judgment on the by-election was pronounced from No. 10, Downing Street.

It was one of those not-too-busy Fridays when the absence of important business in the House meant that time could be given to a consideration, not of day-to-day, bread-and-butter matters, but of more visionary schemes. Thus, while lackeys were scurrying hither and thither leaking libellous titbits of information to account for the poor showing of the Conservative candidate, the Prime Minister was sat at a desk stewing over a draft speech advocating the
abolition of the old age pension. A knotty passage in the argument had just been reached when the phone rang.

“Yes? . . . The Chairman? Put him on at once . . . Well, that
was
a poor showing at Bootham yesterday.”

From the end of the line came a high-pitched, fluttery voice.

“I quite agree, Prime Minister, but—”

“A poor candidate,
I
would have said. A quite unsuitable candidate for
that
constituency.”

“I'm glad you realize—”

“If you'll just let me finish, John. You people at Central Office should have given better advice to the selectors. And I don't understand why the election had to be
hurried
in the way it was: it gave the impression that we wanted to get it out of the way before the Budget—”

“But, Prime Minister,
you—”

“No excuses. There are going to have to be a lot of socks pulled up at Central Office, and I'll expect you to see that they are.”

The phone was put firmly and finally down. On the blank wall in the office, on which were invisibly written the names of all the cabinet and all the party officials, there appeared against that of the party chairman one more black mark.

Then the Prime Minister returned to the text of the speech:

“Surely it is vital to encourage enterprise and initiative in the old—
especially
in the old . . .”

It was Business As Usual.

By the same author

FETE FATALE

OUT OF THE BLACKOUT

CORPSE IN A GILDED CAGE

SCHOOL FOR MURDER

THE CASE OF THE MISSING BRONTË

A LITTLE LOCAL MURDER

DEATH AND THE PRINCESS

DEATH BY SHEER TORTURE

DEATH IN A COLD CLIMATE

DEATH OF A PERFECT MOTHER

DEATH OF A LITERARY WIDOW

DEATH OF A MYSTERY WRITER

Copyright © 1986 Friends Of Opera North

www.SimonandSchuster.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Barnard, Robert.

Political suicide.

I. Title.

PS3552.A6737P65  1986        823'.914         85-25130

ISBN 0-684-18625-X

ISBN 978-1-4767-3721-8 (ebook)

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the permission of Scribner.