Breaking the Code Read online

  ‘Do you live in the constituency?’ I asked.

  ‘Good God no,’ he spluttered, ‘Happiness is the constituency in the rear-view mirror.’

  Speech of the week: on Tuesday, chairman Patten’s opening address, unscripted, informal, unexpected, modern. Moment of the week: on Wednesday, when Mrs T. arrived on the platform and pandemonium broke out. She didn’t say anything: she just was and for five minutes we stood and clapped and stamped our feet and roared. Even Michèle was cheering. There were tears in the eyes. You couldn’t not be moved. It was wonderful.

  Equally wondrous to behold (in a wholly different way) was the astonishing curly-topped MP for Harlow called Jerry Hayes95 who bounded up to the podium on Thursday morning to give an apparently unscripted address on the wonders of the NHS and completely and utterly and absolutely lost his way! ‘Mr madam chairman’ he burbled as he fumbled as he stumbled, concluding (with the rest of us), ‘this must be the after-effect of a very bad night.’ It made me feel my speech had been quite statesmanlike. I was appallingly nervous, but it was fine – I got a bit of an ovation in the hall, but wasn’t much noticed beyond: as I began we hit ten o’clock and the BBC TV conference coverage was interrupted for Watch with Mother.

  Last night I had my first close encounter with the Prime Minister. It was not an unqualified success. I had been asked to conduct the auction at the Conference Ball (and asked too to donate one of my ‘famous jumpers’ as an extra auction offering) and consequently Michèle and I were invited to come to the VIP reception and join the line-up for presentation to the Majors. We arrived on time and stood for about an hour, in our gladrags, in the dim and narrow gallery overlooking the Empress Ballroom, sipping our orange juice, shifting from foot to foot, making desultory small talk with the party bigwigs who understandably weren’t listening to us because they were anxiously listening out for word that the PM was on his way. It was exactly like waiting for royalty – and when eventually they arrived we treated them like royalty, bicycling Scandinavian royalty perhaps, but royalty all the same. Cameras whirred, bulbs flashed, we all beamed and the PM and Norma worked the line, winning hearts, shaking hands, squeezing arms, grinning resolutely all the way. As they got to us I was thrust forward clutching my ‘famous jumper’ – powder blue with ‘MAJOR TALENT’ boldly emblazoned on the chest – and as the Prime Minister caught sight of it I saw a danger signal flash behind his eyes. Whatever happened, he was not going to be photographed with that silly jumper. He started back, he grimaced, he gave a little cough, he muttered ‘Good to see you’ and moved firmly on.

  LATER

  We have just watched the Prime Minister give his end-of-conference address. It was exactly right: clear, uncomplicated, compelling. Some good self-deprecating jokes (on his educational qualifications: ‘Never has so much been written about so little’) and lots that was quite personal (‘the long road from Coalharbour Lane to Downing Street’). I know I’m easily moved, but I found it rather touching. It worked. And best of all, at the end, when John and Norma went walkabout among the cheering delegates, what did we see? Picked out by the TV camera – again and again and again – the comely girl who last night bought and is today wearing a powder blue jumper bearing the legend ‘MAJOR TALENT’.

  So there.

  WEDNESDAY 30 OCTOBER 1991

  Judy Hurd, wife of the Foreign Secretary, came to Chester to be guest of honour at a charity lunch at the racecourse. She talked about life as the wife of a Foreign Secretary and did it rather well. I introduced myself and we travelled back together on the train. She is the second Mrs Hurd, was his secretary I think, is now quietly grand (not in a nasty way), tall, slim, fair, more presentable than pretty, but friendly, ready to be chatty. Around Rugby (and the second cup of tea) we’d exhausted Castlereagh and Lord Curzon and Anthony Eden and the rest and moved on to star signs (as one does) and we discovered, first, that Douglas Hurd and I share a birthday (8 March – different years, natch) and then, amazingly, that Judy and Michèle share a birthday too – 14 March, same day as Albert Einstein and Michael Caine. (Not many people know that…) I told her the poem that Tom Stoppard sent to me years ago, called simply 14 March:

  Einstein born

  Quite unprepared

  For E to equal

  MC squared

  THURSDAY 31 OCTOBER 1991

  We were invited to the State Opening of Parliament as guests of the Duke of Edinburgh. This was a real kindness as I have never seen the State Opening, even on television, but somehow, when we woke up this morning, we both felt shattered and decided we wouldn’t go. I felt a bit guilty about it, but Michèle was adamant: ‘It’ll be like a garden party, nobody’ll notice.’ I wasn’t sure, I went on brooding, and, at the last minute, we went. Fortunately. Not only were we expected (our names in elegant italic on dainty cards placed on our gilt and red-velvet seats), we were awaited. As we beetled along the red carpet, moments before Her Majesty, white-tied tail-coated flunkeys were anxiously checking their watches. We were seated in a sort of royal stage-box in a narrow gallery to the right of the throne, a ringside seat at a wonderful piece of pageantry and hokum that came over as magnificent and ridiculous all at the same time.

  TUESDAY 5 NOVEMBER 1991

  Christopher phoned Kirsty96 and Kirsty phoned Michèle to say: had we heard? Robert Maxwell had committed suicide – thrown himself off his yacht somewhere in the Canaries. Was it suicide or was he pushed? He was an alarming man. I vividly remember my first encounter with him, more than twenty years ago, when I was about nineteen and at Oxford. I was invited by Philip and Anne97 to an amazingly grand party at Headington Hill Hall where – I am ashamed to say – in the middle of the library, just after supper, I was attempting to amuse a group of fellow guests with an impertinent impersonation of our host when, quite suddenly, a heavy hand landed on my left shoulder. I spun round to find myself face to face with the great tycoon. I blanched. He looked stern, then he let out a loud, alarming, barking laugh, shook me by the shoulder and walked away. His children are devoted to him and I suppose he must have had real friends, although whenever we were at his house I found that fellow guests invariably spent much of their time talking about him in hushed undertones. At the last party we went to – for what seemed like 2,000 of his closer chums – I noticed he’d equipped himself with personal amplification. He was wearing a radio mike and there were speakers scattered about the house and the marquees, so, without having to raise his voice, the great man could address each and every one of us wherever we were. And now he’s gone.

  Bizarre.

  WEDNESDAY 6 NOVEMBER 1991

  It may not be suicide. It could be an accident. Or murder. Was he an agent for Mossad? He was a monster. And a crook. I know: I sat in reception at Maxwell House for hours on end, saying ‘I’m not leaving without a cheque in my hand’ and meaning it – and getting it – after months and months and months of waiting.98 Maverick, money-maker, MP, rogue, he really was Augustus Melmotte in The Way We Live Now. I see the Prime Minister has picked the words of his tribute carefully: ‘A great character … I am sure he would not want us to grieve at his loss, but marvel at a quite extraordinary life lived to the full.’ Neil Kinnock is completely over the top: ‘This is truly tragic news.’ That he was ever taken seriously by the Labour Party is amazing. It was pitiful when Peter Jay allowed himself to become his poodle-cum-chef-de-cabinet.99 I remember a lunch at Jeffrey [Archer]’s when Jay was summoned to the phone once, twice, three times, then hauled away altogether. It would be nothing, Jay acknowledged, but when the master flicked his fingers the little dog had to jump. I think it was Jeffrey who had just been at some sporting gathering in Scotland and witnessed Captain Bob put his bearlike arm around the Queen and keep it there. Not even Her Majesty was able to freeze him off. Well, he had hutzpah. And for the children it is a tragedy. I must write to Anne, but I’m not sure what to say.

  WEDNESDAY 27 NOVEMBER 1991

  Creditors force Asil Nadir into bankruptcy. The Maxwell empir
e is unravelling before our eyes. The recession is deepening and lengthening. And last night, at Buckingham Palace, we set about trying to raise a million pounds for NPFA! HRH and I addressed our potential donors from a little dais in the middle of the magnificent stateroom. I thought as I spoke, ‘Isn’t this extraordinary, me being here in Buckingham Palace, making a speech like this?’ I tried to be amusing. HRH did the business. He went for the jugular. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, good evening. The doors at either end of the gallery have been closed. Welcome to the shearing shed.’ Of course, we will only fleece them successfully if we follow through … We went on to the Caprice for supper with Colin and Rosie [Sanders] and he has delivered, bless him: £50,000 and he paid for the birthday fireworks at the Windsor bash. A good man.

  FRIDAY 13 DECEMBER 1991

  Friday the thirteenth. I’m on the train to Chester, on my way to the St Theresa’s PTA Karaoke Night, preceded by a ‘two-hour in-depth’ interview with Chester Talking Newspaper. This morning I was on Treasure Islands on Radio 4 talking about children’s books and I started the day at TV-am talking about teddy bears. Last night, at the last minute, I found myself standing in for Jeffrey Archer and joining Tony Banks100 on a programme called Behind the Headlines for BBC2. I have just this second opened the Evening Standard and read Mark Steyn’s review: ‘On the last two occasions I saw Brandreth on TV, he was, first, dressed as Rhett Butler to host a Gone with the Wind lookalike competition and, second, wearing a fried egg on his head and inviting an adjoining snooker player to join him in a tribute to John Gielgud. Since then, unfortunately, he’s been selected as a Tory parliamentary candidate and so is now seen as a ridiculous figure of fun. To correct this impression for Behind the Headlines, he has gone to the trouble of wearing a grey suit, sober shirt, discreet tie and asking lots of questions about drugs and inheritance tax. But, behind Behind the Headlines, nobody seemed to care. Where most programmes tuck the wires down the back of the presenters’ jackets, here they extended from Brandreth’s and Banks’s ears before disappearing behind the chairs; Brandreth’s microphone was off initially, and, later, on when it shouldn’t have been; a floor manager crawled into view at one point.’ Quite funny really.

  TUESDAY 17 DECEMBER 1991

  At 10.30 this morning I joined a long queue that snaked its way from the front door of 32 Smith Square all the way through the building to a room right at the back where, for several hours, the poor Prime Minister stood in front of a blue screen waiting to have his photograph taken with each and every prospective candidate in turn. We shuffled forward at a snail’s pace, combing our hair and adjusting our ties in the mirror that awaited us at the final bend, and eventually reaching the small, stuffy room where the snaps were being taken. When we entered the room the PM looked weary, but he was equally effusive and engaging with each of us. We all stood in the same position; he held our hand rather limply in his; he offered the same goofy grin; the photographer gave it two shots and we all trusted that our leader’s eyes couldn’t be closed in both of them. Before we entered into the presence someone must have whispered our names to him because he got every first name spot on and when he realised the woman ahead of me had a child with her (who hadn’t come in to the room but hovered near the door) he chased out after the child and led it back into the room himself so it could be photographed too. It’s a funny way to lead a country.

  TUESDAY 31 DECEMBER 1991

  199 firms a day are collapsing. We’re behind in the polls. Our personal finances are pretty dire because I’ve spent a year walking the streets and treading water. But this is what I wanted to do and Michèle is supporting me without reproach. (Well, not quite without reproach: every time we’re on the motorway for more than four hours trekking between here and Chester she hisses, ‘You wouldn’t wait, would you? You had to have it; you wouldn’t see if something nearer London came up; you had to have it; you’d have walked over your dying granny to get it. I know you.’ She does.)

  Anyway, the year’s done now. And there were good things too. Today Dirk Bogarde has a knighthood. And I have a brilliant wife and three good children and one fine cat and plenty of energy and ambition and hope. 1992, here we come!

  64 Norman Lamont, MP for Kingston-upon-Thames 1972–97, had been John Major’s campaign manager in his bid for the leadership in November 1990 and became Chancellor of the Exchequer when Major became Prime Minister. Later Baron Lamont of Lerwick.

  65 Ventriloquist Ray Alan’s dummy.

  66 Throughout the diary GB quotes from newspapers, usually either the Daily Telegraph or, as here, The Times.

  67 American singer and film actor.

  68 Writer who had been President of the Oxford Union in 1919. Fifty years later GB had invited him to return to the Union.

  69 Actor. GB wrote a biography to celebrate his eightieth birthday in 1984.

  70 Clare Short, MP for Birmingham Ladywood since 1983; member of the opposition front bench social security team 1989–91.

  71 1920–2007; Speaker of the House of Commons 1983–92; MP for Croydon North East 1964–92.

  72 Derek Nimmo, 1930–99, actor, and his wife Pat, friends of GB.

  73 Peter Morrison, 1944–95, MP for the City of Chester 1974–92.

  74 Lyndon Harrison, Labour MEP for Cheshire West & Wirral 1989–99.

  75 In 1969 GB, while still at Oxford, had presented a television programme for ITV called Child of the Sixties in which he looked back on the ’60s and interviewed a range of guests, including the then shadow Chancellor Iain Macleod (1913–70). After the programme, GB asked his hero for advice about a political career and Macleod replied: ‘Go away. Get yourself a wife, she’ll knock some sense into you. Get some children, they’ll knock the stuffing out of you. And do something – build something, make something, achieve something. Then come back and talk to me.’

  76 He was Margaret Thatcher’s PPS 1990–92.

  77 Peter Bowles, actor, and his wife Sue, friends of GB and neighbours in Barnes.

  78 GB’s elder daughter was fourteen and a pupil at St Paul’s Girls’ School.

  79 Subsequently MP for Hastings & Rye 1992–7, and Beckenham 1997–2010, and, in 1996, the first woman to join the Conservative Whips’ Office.

  80 In fact, 1940–56

  81 Until the general election, GB continued to work as a radio and TV presenter and to make after-dinner speeches.

  82 Gwyn Gough, much-valued, much-loved Chester Conservative Association secretary.

  83 Jenny Noll, much-valued, much-loved personal assistant to GB.

  84 MP for Wirral 1976–83, Wirral West 1983–97; later Baron Hunt of Wirral.

  85 Alastair Goodlad, MP for Northwich 1974–83, Eddisbury 1983–99; later Baron Goodlad of Lincoln KCMG.

  86 MP for Tatton 1983–97.

  87 A Labour stronghold, a district of Chester dominated by a large council estate.

  88 The Challenge Anneka television programme, starring Anneka Rice, had agreed to build a playground on behalf of NPFA if Prince Philip issued the challenge.

  89 Tim Heald, journalist and writer, and his then wife, friends of GB.

  90 MP for Bath 1979–92, chairman of the Conservative Party and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster 1990–92. Later Baron Patten of Barnes, Chancellor of Oxford University and chairman of the BBC Trust.

  91 Deputy chairman of the City of Chester Conservative Association.

  92 Michael Mansfield QC.

  93 MP for Warwickshire North 1983–92, Financial Secretary to the Treasury 1990–92. MP for Horsham from 1997.

  94 MP for Richmond, Yorkshire, since 1989.

  95 MP for Harlow 1983–97.

  96 Christopher Hudson, journalist and writer, and his wife, Kirsty McLeod, writer, friends of GB.

  97 Maxwell’s two oldest children, contemporaries of GB at university.

  98 GB and his wife’s editorial services business, Complete Editions, had created a range of books and magazines for two Maxwell companies.

  99 Maxwell’s chie
f of staff, 1986–9; later BBC economics editor and non-executive director of the Bank of England.

  100 1942–2006; Labour MP for Newham North West 1983–2005.

  CHAPTER III

  1992

  THURSDAY 9 JANUARY 1992

  Mr Major (who has rather a Pooterish turn of phrase at times) is in the paper rebuking the ‘dismal johnnies’ for being gloomy about the economy. Apparently he is standing by his man, Norman ‘Green shoots/Black eye’ Lamont, who is ‘doing a difficult job jolly well.’ Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he? But out here in the boondocks they’re still feeling the pain, the recession is bloody, and if you’re in debt, out of work and up the creek, homely reassurance from that nice Mr Major at No. 10 doesn’t cut much mustard. It’s no use telling people they’re getting better when they’re still hurting. They simply won’t believe you. And they don’t believe us. It’s pretty dismal on the doorstep.

  MONDAY 20 JANUARY 1992

  When I last went to Dublin to appear on Gay Byrne’s famous Late Late Show show, I seem to remember being invited to join Danny La Rue in a couple of choruses of ‘On Mother Kelly’s Doorstep’. Our hapless Secretary of State for Northern Ireland101 appeared on the show on Friday and was persuaded to sing solo, giving us a couple of verses of that old saloon-bar stand-by ‘Oh My Darling Clementine’ – doing so within a few hours of seven men being killed in an IRA bomb attack in Co. Tyrone. I may be new to this game, but I think even I would not have landed myself in that one.