An Unexpected MP (4 page)

But we did have one silly game we played just to wind up the whips. In those days, when the division bell rang you had eight minutes to get to the lobbies before the doors were locked. Behind Annie's there was a little-known staircase which was an amazing shortcut. So, when the whips were beginning to panic we would saunter in with twenty seconds
to go. And wave to each other as we voted in different ways. And then pop back down for another drink.

Another great character was Sir Fergus Montgomery, a former PPS to the Lady. His nickname was Dame Fergus because he was rather gay. I once asked him over a glass of wine how he managed to bring some of the biggest stars in show business, like Shirley Bassey, in for dinner.

‘Easy, dear. When I was a young and pretty teacher I once fucked Noël Coward.'

He was a lovely man.

Annie's Bar summed up to me what politics should really be about. That people of goodwill will disagree but can compromise and be pragmatic. That problems are best solved by not looking at them through the prism of party dogma, but with a genuine desire to solve them. And that those who will be seen as your enemies on election day and in the chamber are really some of the finest and most reliable friends you will ever have.

T
he Conservative Party in Parliament is no different from any other: they all have their factions. In Thatcher’s days it was between ‘wet’ and ‘dry’. This was because she would have the habit of writing ‘wet’ in the margins of papers or memos from ministers that she thoroughly disagreed with. So those of us on the One Nation side of the party were branded the wets. She is alleged to have said that I was so wet that you could shoot snipe off me.

It wasn’t long before I was approached to join a group called the Lollards. We were called this because we met in Bill van Straubenzee’s Church Commissioners’ flat at Lambeth Palace. The idea was that we would do battle for the party committees with the dries, whose grouping in those days was called the 92. This was founded by Sir Patrick Wall at his home in 92 Cheyne Walk. We both had slates. For us it was a bit of a waste of time as there were more of them, they were better organised and we were a delightful shambles. I remember trying to persuade some of our wealthier and more patrician members to vote for these committees which in reality had very little influence. The excuses were wonderfully laid-back. ‘So sorry, old boy, country house party … My dear chap, got
a bit of fishing laid on.’ And that was the problem: we wets coasted by knowing that the Thatcher machine, like Amazon forest loggers, moved on relentlessly, slashing and burning as we indigenous peoples had our way of life gradually destroyed.

But we Lollards weren’t into plotting. Well, not very effectively. We moaned and groaned to each other that the wets were gradually being driven out of Cabinet: Sir Ian Gilmour, Mark Carlisle and Norman St John-Stevas for starters.

Norman was a lovely man. Very bright, very arch, delightfully camp, with a razor-sharp wit. No pretty waiter was safe. What did for him was his waspish humour. The Lady began to tire of his little nicknames for her – ‘the immaculate misconception’ … ‘Attila the Hen’ … ‘She who must be obeyed’. Once, at a meeting, she suggested that they finish early as she and Norman were going to the opera and he needed more time to get ready than she did. He had a wonderful collection of Queen Victoria’s stockings, which he kept in his bathroom.

To be honest, the only committee that really mattered was the 1922, the Tory backbench trade union. They would have regular meetings with the Lady and were so stuffed with her supporters that it was no more than a love-in. Sir Edward du Cann (whom I rather liked) was the chairman. He was a serious operator, but unfortunately got rather tied up with Tiny Rowland’s business, Lonrho, which Ted Heath described as the ‘unacceptable face of capitalism’. I once had lunch with Rowland’s biographer Tom Bower, who wrote biographies of the likes of Maxwell and Al Fayed.

‘Who did you like least?’ I asked.

‘Oh, Tiny. He used to have people killed in Africa.’

I am not suggesting for one moment that Edward knew
or condoned any of this. If he had had the slightest suspicion he would have been out of that company faster than a flasher’s mac.

Du Cann was beautifully smooth. Listening to one of his speeches was like wiping your arse with silk. He was also very obliging. The joke was that if you asked him the time he would coo, ‘And what time would you want it to be, dear boy?’ Once, I shocked the grandees by rushing back for an unexpected vote straight from the gym, still in Lycra. Some of the old boys were apoplectic with indignation. Edward just sidled up and said, ‘How delightful you look, dear boy.’

He once told me how Harold Macmillan had invited him in to discuss the possibility of his joining the government. Edward expressed concern about needing to earn some money (like me, he was always fairly broke). In times of difficulty, Mac always poured a large sherry. Du Cann joined the government.

Over the years he attracted rather a bad press, somewhat unfairly. But he was always kind and courteous to me and my friends. He was a gentleman rather than a shit. But a serious player, whom I hope history will not overlook. He skilfully papered over the serious cracks within the party. He was the consummate chairman of the ’22.

It wasn’t long before I made a very serious error of judgement. Sadly, one of many. I was approached by an emissary of Francis Pym, by now a sacked Foreign Secretary and more bitter than the lemon in his gin, asking if I wanted to join a new policy group to discuss ways in which Thatcherism could be given a more human face. It was to be called Centre Forward. I really should have seen what was going to happen next. The members were the usual suspects: Alan Haselhurst,
David Knox, Hugh Dykes, Peter Temple-Morris. The decent, caring wing of the Conservative Party. And those who were rumoured to have considered defecting to the SDP in 1981.

When I look back it was a rather tame affair, but when news leaked out the Downing Street rubbish machine went into overdrive. You have to understand that Downing Street is designed for one purpose only – to protect the Prime Minister. We were not plotting her downfall, just putting together policies that would put the government more in touch with what people really wanted. Yet at that time she didn’t need too much protection.

It was all leaked to the
Sunday Times
, where I was pictured as a ‘leader’ of this dissident group. Half a dozen of our photographs straddled the front page, making us look like the FBI’s most wanted. Next Monday, Norman St John-Stevas spotted me in the lobby, doffed his cloth cap (yes, he really wore one, but it was probably from Lockes), grinned ‘hail to my leader’ and wiggled into the distance.

What really screwed things up was a speech about to be given by Francis Pym. He told us that it would be mildly critical. I wish it had been. It turned into a personal attack on Thatcher as the sort of woman who hoards tinned goods in the larder. It was actually a reference to a photo shoot by the Saatchis showing her as a prudent housewife when Leader of the Opposition. My constituency association were not at all amused. And the press were after my blood. I panicked and resigned from the committee (as did Tony Baldry). That night, in the division lobby, a very angry David Knox pulled me to one side and testily called me a ‘silly, silly boy’. He was right. My error of judgement was not joining the group, but failing
to have the courage to publicly argue our corner and not run away at the first whiff of cordite. What a pathetic, cowardly little fool I was. I would never make the same mistake again.

On the night of my fall into ignominy I was invited to drinks with Transport Secretary and arch-Thatcherite Nick Ridley. He gave me some very wise advice. ‘In politics, always shoot to kill, never to wound. A wounded animal is a dangerous and unpredictable beast.’ How right he was.

But there was one rather touching tale. After the story first broke, Alan Haselhurst and I were caught talking on a landing in hushed tones by the Lady’s PPS, Michael Alison. He even saw us exchange a package. Heaven knows what he reported back to No. 10. The truth is that Alan is one of my dearest friends (who should have been Speaker if the Amish wing of the party hadn’t blocked him). The
sotto voce
plotting we were doing was merely sorting out the dates for his godson (my son Lawrence)’s first birthday party. And the mysterious package? A handgun with ammunition? A hand grenade? A deadly poison? No, a yellow mechanical teddy bear for his cot. Thank heavens the
Mail
didn’t get hold of that one. He would have been branded the Godfather.

One of the duller duties of an MP is to be a silent muppet on a standing committee – a phenomenal waste of time. The idea is that you are meant to scrutinise legislation. The reality was that government backbenchers were drilled not to say a word, allowing the Opposition to drone on, and then the ‘improved’ Bill would be presented to the Commons for a third-reading
debate before being sent to the Lords, who would seriously have a good look at it and hopefully sort out all the problems created by the lower House. I was put on something called the Health and Medicine Bill as I knew absolutely nothing about either health or medicine. The ideal candidate.

In a bored moment I sat down and read the Bill. I was shocked. It was an utter disgrace. The plan was to save the NHS thirty million quid and this was to be done by abolishing the free sight test and the free dental check-up. ‘So what?’ you might ask. Just remember that diseases of the eye are silent. A sight test can diagnose glaucoma, HIV and many other diseases. As can the dental check-up, which can spot HIV and cancer of the mouth. Here we were saying to the public that we as a government believed in preventative healthcare but condemning thousands of state pensioners to a life of blindness. That we, as a government who believed in curtailing the spread of HIV and cancer, were condemning thousands to an early death. Of course, it was Treasury-led and backed by an utterly hopeless Secretary of State, John Moore, who, on his appointment, told Cabinet that he could deliver a world-class health service for less money. Oh dear.

And yet this was not the first time these dreadful proposals had been attempted. Before the 1983 election the ministerial line was that these proposals would be ‘wrong in principle and act as a deterrent to those who should be encouraged to have their eyes and teeth tested’.

Well, I did what was sensible by the rules. I pleaded with the whips and the Secretary of State. A total waste of time.

So, me and the feisty Jill Knight (now Baroness Knight), a close friend of the Lady and an old-fashioned but decent
right-winger, joined forces. She was an expert as her husband was an optician. The rebellion was also joined by a new up-and-coming right-winger named David Davis, who once told me that his favourite pastime in politics was ‘bayoneting the wounded’. A good guy.

Well, I did not remain silent as required by the whips. And the committee whip was an old friend called David Lightbown. David was the enforcer. He was twenty-five stone and was not a pushover in any sense. He used to run a factory in Birmingham. When the first IRA bomb went off in Brum, he called in his Irish workforce and sacked them all. He was known as the ‘caring’ whip.

So, in committee I made a speech quoting all the Cabinet in their letters to constituents in 1979 saying that the plans were ‘wrong in principle’. I finished up with a letter from a lady saying the very same thing. It was Margaret Thatcher, written on her prime ministerial notepaper. There was uproar. The caring whip bundled me outside. ‘You little cunt, you have just destroyed the Cabinet for writing letters that go back to the days of Gladstone.’

I demurred.

‘No more overseas trips for you, lad.’

‘Actually, I don’t want any.’

‘Well, I’ll make sure you are deselected then.’

‘Well, I did call a meeting of my executive last night and they fully support me.’

And this is when things became little more heated.

‘You little shit,’ as he thumped me in the chest.

‘Oh fuck off, you fat twat,’ as I kicked him in the balls.

We were so grown-up in those days. The art of intellectual
debate was alive and kicking. Well, at least kicking. The lovely David Hunt, now Lord Hunt of Wirral, then Deputy Chief Whip, commented to the press that he couldn’t possibly adjudicate on every fight in the playground. A few weeks later he pulled me aside and said that if I could vote continuously for the government for six months he would make me a minister. Sadly, I failed.

And then came the third-reading debate of the Health and Medicine Bill. David Mellor was the lead minister. The government’s majority on this Bill was in serious jeopardy. And he was pretty annoyed that I had appeared simultaneously on every television channel the night before, and particularly miffed that I had written a prominent piece in the
Evening Standard
which had just hit the news-stands. So, being the sort of man who enjoyed a scrap, he launched into me in a rather personal way.

‘Well, my Hon. friend the Member for Harlow would have got a larger fee for his piece in the
Evening Standard
than a sight check would cost if this Bill is passed,’ he glowered. This was a strategic mistake. MPs can just about stomach voting for unspeakable crap on whips’ orders, but they detest having to put up with a bumptious minister slagging off someone they know is on the right side of the argument. My
Standard
piece had been commissioned by the wonderful Sarah Sands (she of the perpetually undone extra blouse button; now editor of the
Standard
) but I had totally forgotten to ask for a fee.

‘I did it for free,’ I shouted, glowing with accidental righteousness.

Ian Gow, former PPS to the Lady, was outraged with Mellor. He stormed out of the chamber and would have missed the
vote had Thatcher not despatched the police to find him. That night, the government’s massive majority was reduced to four. Aha, I thought. This could be fun in the Lords. So it was time to hatch a plot.

I knew Rebecca Runcie rather well, the daughter of Bob, who was then Archbishop of Canterbury and who had won the MC for killing a few Germans. That was about the only thing that Thatcher agreed with him on. He thought the proposals were outrageous too. So we thought of a cunning scheme. He couldn’t tell his mad right-wing bishops what to do. But he could send them off for trips abroad on the night of the vote. And this is what he did. But we still lost. As I was sitting up in the MPs’ gallery when the result was announced, I caught the eye of John Belstead, leader of the Lords, who shrugged his shoulders with sadness. He was against the Health and Medicine Bill too. Government is a very strange business. And I had become a rebel.