An Unexpected MP Read online

  Someone who would have thought that counselling was a left-wing aberration was the cheeringly acrimonious Nick Budgen, the Member for Enoch Powell’s old seat, Wolverhampton. To hear him chortling over some acid piece he had written in a broadsheet was a joy. He once gave me some interesting advice about writing.

  ‘I only take the cover off my typewriter for reasons of either money or malice. Preferably both.’ Dear Nick only had one fault: he was notoriously mean – not in spirit but in cash. I’m sure that I grew my beard while waiting for him to buy a round. It never happened.

  Douglas Hogg was another Tea Room regular. Dougie is a lovely guy but could get rather irritable with those who annoyed him. And there were quite a few of them. One such fellow was an old right-winger called Ivor Stanbrook.

  At the time, Dougie was in the Whips’ Office, a job which needed tact, discretion and sensitivity – not, perhaps, qualities he possessed in abundance. I can’t remember what offence Ivor had committed but I do recall Hogg being dragged off the poor fellow as he had him by the lapels shouting, ‘Bounder, cad, bastard.’ He was sensibly moved from the Whips’ Office to a ministry.

  But Ivor was a funny old stick. He used to be chairman of the backbench Constitutional Affairs Committee, and for some bizarre and inexplicable reason I was secretary. He always insisted we met in Committee Room 14, the largest in the House. Yet usually it was just me, him and the vice-chairman, Robert Cranborne. Once, I made the mistake of calling him by his first name at a meeting. ‘Order, order, all questions should be addressed through the chair!’ he barked.

  ‘But Ivor, there are only you and me here!’

  It didn’t make a difference.

  Sometimes it was very difficult to keep a straight face and not dissolve into fits of giggles, as when the very, very strait-laced Peter Viggers (he of duck house fame) slumped into a chair, deeply upset. The poor fellow was close to tears. I asked what the matter was.

  ‘Last night I did something that I was deeply ashamed of. I really can’t bear thinking about it,’ he lachrymosed. As you can imagine, a small crowd of unwell wishers assembled. A moment of madness on Clapham Common? A shake too far at a urinal in the Victoria railway station lavatories? Oh God, not the most unforgivable of sins, shagging a royal corgi? Our imaginations ran wild until finally he confessed.

  In a voice quaking with emotion he told of his wickedness and shame.

  ‘Last night I voted against the government.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ leered Budgen, ‘I did that three times last week.’ And off he stormed to cadge a drink in Annie’s Bar.

  But the Tea Room could be a place where great personal dramas were played out. There was the time when some old boy was caught in bed by a tabloid with someone who wasn’t his wife. He was in such a state that his long-suffering wife was allowed into the Tea Room to escort him home. As this very tweedy matron led him to the car park, all we could hear was his wailing: ‘Daddy’s been a very bad boy.’ After a week of educative waterboarding at home, he returned a new man.

  Poor old Geoffrey Dickens got himself into a spot of bother too. Despite being a rather large man he had a penchant for escorting girls to tea dances and then whisking them back to his flat. At last his conscience could bear the weight of guilt no more. So Geoffrey decided to confess all at a press conference. After his mea culpa had run its course, he answered questions from the hacks. As proceedings were drawing to a close, one asked him how his wife had taken the news.

  Geoffrey went as white as a sheet, began to goldfish, and fled the room. He’d forgotten to tell her and was off to catch her before she caught the six o’clock news.

  Dickens was a good sort in a hearty, beefy, not too cerebrally gifted, right-wing sort of way. Unbeknown to him he became involved in a famous Tea Room plot. This was at a time when the papers were doing their usual trick of taking soundings on who could replace Thatcher if the number 39 bus curse finally struck. One tabloid was doing a telephone survey. So we decided to rig it. To the shock of No. 10 and the confusion of the press, the man most likely to succeed Thatcher was not Heseltine, Lawson or even Major, but one G. Dickens. It was a good day’s work.

  The same malarkey was indulged in by Labour MPs furious that they had to vote for a woman on the shadow Cabinet. They rigged the vote and a rather eccentric (but rather nice) elderly MP called Mildred Gordon was duly elected. She was never allowed to a meeting. I saw Mildred the other week, still going strong at ninety.

  Not too many grandees were regular Tea Roomers, but Ted Heath would sometimes grace us with an appearance. When in a good mood he was great value, but when he was in a sulk, he was best avoided. When Peter Walker was his minder he warned Ted that he really ought to press the flesh a bit more and mingle with the backbenchers. So Peter took him to the Tea Room and pointed out a knight of the shires who had just made a speech. This was a great opportunity for Ted to show charm and empathy.

  ‘Prime Minister, Sir George made a speech today.’ Sir George (or whatever his name was) eagerly awaited the prime ministerial pat on the back.

  ‘I know,’ grumbled Ted, ‘I heard it was bloody awful.’ Peter never took him to the Tea Room again.

  One day, Ted had heard it was my birthday and asked me if I’d care to join him for dinner in the Members’ dining room. How could I refuse? If he was on form it would be fun. Sadly, he was at his grumpiest, made worse when we were joined by Douglas Hurd, who was then Home Secretary, and Nigel Lawson, the Chancellor. Both used to work for him when he was Prime Minister. There was lots of talk about ‘that woman’ and, quite remarkably, he treated Hurd and Lawson as if they were a couple of unruly sixth formers. Being gentlemen and knowing that this was an off day, they took their punishment with a smile. And he still owes me a pound from when he was queuing up for a cup of tea and discovered that he had no money, so I obliged. My heartfelt thanks was a grunt.

  But Ted could be enormous fun. His fortieth-year-in-the-House celebration at the Savoy was one such occasion. The guests were glittering, the food and wine magnificent and a string orchestra played discreetly in the background. The only person not enjoying herself was Thatcher. When it was time to leave I went to thank Ted for a wonderful time. I commented to him that she seemed to be having rather an uncomfortable lunch. I pointed out that she had been stuck in between two people she loathed, Sonny Ramphal, Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, and Bob Runcie, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Ted’s smile grew to a grin, his grin to a belly laugh and then those famous shoulders started to gyrate.

  ‘That was rather the point.’ Bless.

  But the Thatcher-ten-years-of-fun party at the Savoy was a pretty dismal affair. I remember appearing in a newspaper diary saying that I was pathetically grateful that there wasn’t a terrorist attack as there were people there I wouldn’t want to appear dead with. For some reason Ted didn’t attend.

  But my favourite Tea Room story is when one of the well-known womanisers peered up from his Telegraph crossword when asked what plans he had for the day.

  ‘Well,’ he said languidly, ‘I think I will go and fuck a Member’s wife.’

  ‘Whom?’ we enquired. This rather nonplussed him.

  ‘Actually, I haven’t decided yet.’

  Not so long ago I was dining at the Ivy with a friend when a well-known Labour politician strolled in. My friend’s face turned ashen. ‘God, I can’t stand that bloody man.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ll tell you later.’ And after we staggered into the sunlight, he uttered words used many times about this particular politician.

  ‘He fucked my wife.’

  This seems to be a bit of a recurring theme in Parliament.

  CHAPTER 3

  THE CHAMBER

  Nothing on earth can prepare you for making your maiden speech in the chamber. Luckily, my area whip was John Major. He gave me some very good advice: don’t be in too much of a rush, just spend a few weeks sitting, watching and learning. And then, when you think you�
�ve got the feel of the place, come to me and we’ll go through your speech.

  The chamber has its own political ecosystem. Like the weather, it can be very unpredictable and change in a flash. It is also a great leveller. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you have achieved, you stand there alone and utterly defenceless.

  Imagine making a speech in front of three hundred bored, cynical old pros who are not there to listen but to make their own point. Start being pompous or clever with that lot and they will shout, heckle, bawl and do just about anything to put you off your stride. Or they might just do it anyway out of devilment.

  Dennis Skinner is a past master of this. Along with the Spitting Image puppet of David Steel sitting in David Owen’s top pocket, Skinner’s merciless heckling was Steel’s nemesis. He should have just laughed it off.

  Humour is the key. When they are baying for your blood, a little self-deprecatory joke doesn’t go amiss. That is why Hague and Cameron are so good at the despatch box and the likes of Iain Duncan Smith and Philip Hammond get a rough time. The only modern exception to this rule is Theresa May, not exactly the Frankie Howerd of the Commons. She can reduce an opponent to a quivering wreck just by one laser-beam stare.

  But the master of the despatch box was Tony Blair. A genuinely nice guy and a mesmerising performer in the chamber, it is desperately sad that this supremely gifted politician will be viewed in history through the prism of the Iraq War and a tragedy that Labour’s most successful leader should be vilified by his own party. Worse, in a nod to North Korea, Ed Miliband’s hounds are gradually airbrushing Blair out of history. Soon all that will be left of him will be the Cheshire Cat grin slowly fading above the shadow Cabinet table.

  Thatcher, like May, was an exception to the humour rule. She had none at all. But her sheer strength of will cowed everything in her wake. In the chamber she was a force of nature. I was sitting ten feet away from her when she made her famous ‘No! No! No!’ speech and pulverised Neil Kinnock.

  I was also sitting in the same place years later, for her final appearance as Prime Minister, when she holed Skinner below the waterline with her ‘I’m rather enjoying this’. It brought a tear to my eye. And I had voted against her.

  One of the golden rules in politics is that those who appear to be rather nice often aren’t and those who seem ferocious are rather engaging.

  Two names come to mind: Dennis Skinner and Norman Tebbit.

  Skinner is regarded by those who don’t know him as a national treasure. In reality he is a ghastly, bigoted, self-obsessed shit. I will qualify that. Even shits would regard him as a shit. He is probably the most unpopular man in the Commons and his own party despise him. But reading his press you would think that he is an institution. Although, in a bizarre unpleasant sort of way, I suppose he is. The sort of institution that requires its guests to wear jackets with buckles round the back.

  What confirmed his copper-bottomed shittery for me was an incident after the Brighton bombing. John Wakeham, the Chief Whip, had lost his wife and was horribly injured. It took weeks for him to return to Parliament. One afternoon, the chamber was packed for an important debate. Suddenly, the main doors swung open and there, standing on crutches, was a very frail Wakeham. Painfully, he hobbled to his place on the front bench. The debate came to a halt. In one movement the House rose in respectful silence for the courage of a man who had suffered so much at the hands of the enemies of this country.

  Well, all of us stood save for Skinner, who sat scowling in his place. What a revolting little man.

  On the other side of the coin is Norman Tebbit. Another man who suffered terrible personal loss at the bombing, he was a Rottweiler in the chamber and was nicknamed the Chingford Skinhead by Kinnock. But actually he is a really nice guy with a twinkle in his eye. And a great sense of humour.

  Although we did have a little falling-out. Just after the 1987 election I’d had a night out with a newly elected mate, Steve Day. I’d spent a night at his flat and we walked to the House the next morning. It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining and we had a spring in our step. As we entered the Members’ cloakroom an enormous bulletproof limo glided to a halt. A gothic gloom descended and party chairman Norman Tebbit, with a smile like the brass plate on a coffin, marched in.

  ‘Morning, Norman. Lovely day, mate,’ I smiled.

  But rather than the cheery grin I expected I received a curt ‘What’s so lovely?’

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘You, you cunt. I saw you on the News at Ten last night. Asking for more money for pensioners and the health service.’

  ‘But I was only being reasonable.’

  At that, Norman came up close and started prodding me in the chest, and gave me the full hairdryer.

  ‘It’s not your job to be reasonable. Your job is to unquestioningly support your leader and your party, in that order.’

  And, with a snarl, off he strode. Norman was not having a good day. And now neither was I.

  A few years later I was making a film for Newsnight. John Major was Prime Minister and the Amish wing of the party was causing him grief over Europe. Tebbit made a speech of such disloyalty towards Major that it would have led to summary execution in Zimbabwe. Afterwards he was surrounded by the usual dandruff-flecked ghastlies, who were in a state of damp-gusseted ecstasy over his words. I sauntered up with a mischievous glint in my eye.

  ‘Unquestioning loyalty to your leader, eh? Who’s the cunt now?’

  It didn’t go down well.

  One little ritual that all Cabinet ministers perform is to invite new MPs in for a drink. I suspect the idea is that if ever they had pretensions of becoming Prime Minister (you’d be amazed how many do, which shows they are masters not of mass- but of self-delusion) they at least got a brownie point for giving you a couple of glasses of warm white wine. These first ministerial encounters could be tremendously revealing.

  Keith Joseph (nicknamed the Mad Monk) was delightful, but tortured. He would sit there as Education Secretary, a vein throbbing rhythmically on his temple, raging that his civil servants wouldn’t let him actually do anything.

  Transport Secretary Nick Ridley (grandson of Lutyens and a gifted artist himself) was a wily old fox with a great sense of humour. But he did have the unnerving habit of sitting on top of his desk, chain-smoking and scratching his crotch.

  Michael Heseltine, the classiest of class acts, of whom I’m a great fan, was far too grand to bring us in in small groups. He got the whole ghastly experience (for him, not us) over in one go by inviting all the new intake en masse. Then, in his great room at Defence and standing by a portrait of Lloyd George (Hezza is Welsh too), he made a cracking, rousing and inspirational speech. It was a not-terribly-subtle hint that one day he wanted to be leader. But we loved it.

  After his resignation over the Westland affair I bumped into him at a party conference and he offered to give me a lift back to my hotel. As we were walking towards the exit he was accosted by a pack of journos. ‘What’s it like not being in the Cabinet, Mr Heseltine?’ was the deeply insightful question.

  ‘Well, I do miss my ministerial car,’ he said with sadness as he led me to a magnificent limo, bristling like a porcupine with aerials and far, far grander than anything the government could provide. He also had the same driver.

  Hezza was kind enough to campaign for me in Harlow in 1992. He was then Deputy Prime Minister and I was on the IRA death list so we both had armed security at the time. He is the master of the walkabout and I was very excited about leading him through the main shopping centre. However, our security guys sounded a word of warning. They were worried that there could be trouble. That there were some left-wing agitators and a lot of press and television. ‘Best avoid,’ was their advice, ‘but it’s up to you guys.’ ‘Press’ and ‘trouble’ are two words which have the same effect as ‘dog’ and ‘doorbell’ to Hezza and me. Our eyes sparkled, and in unison we shouted, ‘We’ll do it!’ And what an experience. No hand was unsh
aken. No baby unkissed. Young mothers and pensioners alike melted to his charm. I remember some poor old dear being backed into a corner by the crowd. Hezza, eyes ablaze and hand extended, came to the rescue.

  Many years before, when he was at war with Thatcher, my favourite Mirror front page was a cartoon of him swinging through the jungle in a loin cloth with Margaret dressed as Jane. The caption was ‘Me Tarzan, you pain’. It will be a long time before we see his like again.

  Always at the end of first ministerial drinks we would be treated to the parting words ‘Feel free to knock on my door; you will always be welcome.’

  There was one exception to this: Tebbit, whose parting words were, ‘Always feel free to knock on my door. I will, of course, tell you to fuck off.’

  He was joking. I think. Actually, I’m rather fond of the old devil.

  The chamber can be a cruel and heartless place, where reputations can be shredded in a single debate and hopes dashed by a crass question or an incompetent answer. But it can be capable of great compassion, forgiveness and humanity. The sad and unexpected death of Labour leader John Smith is a case in point. One morning I was in the gym and I saw his secretary receive a phone call. She went as white as a sheet and burst into tears. She had been told that John had just died of a heart attack. I quickly showered and dressed and saw on the annunciator that the Leader of the House would shortly be making a statement. An hour later, the chamber was crowded. Everyone had heard. And when Tony Newton, the Leader of the House, made his speech, most of us were in tears, as John was loved by us all. Yet despite our distress, in the back of our minds we knew that politics was going to change forever. Tony Blair was the hot favourite to win the leadership and he would be lethal.

  John Smith was seriously good news, but was a little overweight and treated white wine as a soft drink. Once, he was on a train up to Glasgow and found himself sitting next to Gordon Brown and a very rough-and-ready Glaswegian MP called Tommy Graham. Tommy was a nice bloke but perhaps not a candidate for Brain of Britain. You weren’t likely to drown in his gene pool. The journey was coming to an end and, as Tommy was not involved in the high-octane conversation between Brown and Smith, he felt he needed to make an impression. As the train was pulling in to Glasgow, he made an announcement.