Breaking the Code (76 page)

‘How’s it going?’

‘It isn’t. I’m treading water. Health isn’t an issue, which is good, but Central Office isn’t using me, which is frustrating. It’s Hezza all the way. And William.’

Yes, and Master Hague is proving very effective.

At 6.00 a.m. we left London.

At 11.00 a.m. we were on parade outside the Chester office. At quarter past, on the dot, the Foreign Secretary’s limo rolled up. Malcolm was excellent – lots of crinkly charm
and beady-eyed interest. Happily we’d planned a proper programme for him and we had a good turn-out, so there were no
longueurs
and a relative sense that something worthwhile was accomplished. These ministerial visits can be hell: you’re advised that a VIP is on his way, it’s an honour and a treat and all that, but what on earth are you going to do with him for three hours? We’ll have this problem with Tony Newton, one of the loveliest human beings on the planet and one of the most effective members of HMG, but unknown, absolutely utterly unknown to the man or woman in the street.

We had a fair press showing – all the local photographers plus a couple of radio stations. The cow from the BBC began by saying, ‘You’ll understand that legally we’re not allowed to mention Mr Brandreth by name’ and then spent most of the interview talking about Messrs Hamilton and Bell. I said, ‘Why can you mention the candidates in Tatton by name, but not the candidates in Chester?’ She didn’t have an answer.

If I’d been desperate to win I’d have found it galling how much of Malcolm’s time in my patch was being taken up with the sleaze saga from the other end of the county. As it was, I was simply content that the Foreign Secretary should have an audience and not feel his journey had been wasted. A couple of weeks ago the Chancellor told me he spent seven hours travelling to and from the West Country to talk to one radio station and forty ageing activists in a dismal village hall … It happens all the time. We avoided it by whisking Malcolm round North West Securities and dragooning a hundred (and more) of our faithful to the Club for a sandwich lunch and questions. Having stifled yawns with the hacks and in the car and on the NWS tour, he summoned up the required energy like a trouper and gave a full-blown stump speech, all stops out. Good jokes, good points, good man. He’s been an MP for twenty-four years, a minister since ’79, but clearly he’s still ready for more.

At 7.00 p.m. we went over to the hall for the adoption meeting. There was a full house, generous, supportive, willing us to win. The faces were all familiar. Of course they were. They are exactly the same faces as gazed up at me five years ago at my last adoption. That’s our problem in a nutshell: the stalwarts are still there, they’re just five years older. Many of my best people are now in their eighties and these are the good folk we call ‘activists’!

We got home by ten and turned on the box for news of Cheshire’s
other
adoption meeting. Neil secured the necessary endorsement: 182 in favour, thirty-five against, four official abstentions and sixty-one sitting on their hands. The media scrum outside the Dixon Arms was wholly predictable. Christine, dismissing a hack wanting Neil to speak into his tape recorder: ‘We do not take orders from
The Observer
.’ Neil: ‘I feel like Liam Gallagher.’ (He cannot resist being funny: it was his joke about the wretched biscuit that really got up the PM’s nose and precipitated his forced resignation.)

The most extraordinary feature of the Hamiltons’ amazing day was the Duel of Knutsford Heath. Neil and Christine, hand in hand, turned up at Martin Bell’s open-air press
conference and photo call. With a steely
sang-froid
that would have done Joan of Arc proud, they marched resolutely towards Bell and the surrounding media posse. They pushed their way through and Neil extended his hand. Bell took it. Neil introduced Christine.

‘Do you accept that my husband is innocent?’

Bell: ‘I don’t know. I am standing because a lot of local people have asked me…’

Christine (lip curling
à la
Dame Edna): ‘I thought it was at a dinner party – in London…’

Bell: ‘There is a question of trust. I cannot judge on questions of innocence until all the facts are made known.’

Portillo, when he’s nervous/stressed/on the ropes, has a problem controlling his voice: the pitch alters, an odd seal-like bray brakes in. Neil, with perfect breath control, in his usual light tone, calmly enquired: ‘Are you prepared to give me the benefit of the doubt?’

Bell (immediately, without thinking): ‘Absolutely.’

Neil had got him! Christine bleated again about innocence, but Neil knew it was enough. He was off – and he’d scored. He knew it. We knew it. Bell knew it too: ‘My first mistake was not bringing my flak jacket.’

The first day of the Brandreth campaign. There’s a set pattern to the next twenty-one days: a press conference every morning at nine, two hours walking the streets in one part of the constituency, another two hours in a different part (including a pub lunch), a break for an hour at home (to deal with correspondence, conceive and write tomorrow’s press release, call those who’ve called and have to be called back), two more hours in a third area, another break, then the evening round – tonight it’s the Business Club drinks, the YCs and then a gentle grilling at the hands of the Chester Branch of the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child (three turn up and two of them turn out not to be constituents). At least by planning my own diary I’ve been able to avoid the things I hate – the railway station at dawn, bearding half-awake commuters; primary school gates as the mums deposit their charges and try to race their pushchairs around and past you without catching your eye; the postal sorting office at 5.00 a.m. when they’ve been warned you’re coming and have hoisted the hostile posters in readiness.

The straightforward street-walking and door-knocking I rather like – especially on a day like today when the sun shines brilliantly and you feel that a few weeks of this and you might even lose a couple of pounds. Sir Fergus and Lady Montgomery join us on the campaign trail. He’s a sweetie, a cherubic seventy-one, standing down, as much in love with a certain brand of show business (I first met him at Frankie Howerd’s memorial
service) as with politics. Joyce [Lady Montgomery] had the solution to Tatton: Neil should have stepped aside and let Fergus stand on 1 May on the understanding that Fergus would resign as soon as Neil is cleared by Downey.

We lunched at the Ring-of-Bells in Christleton. The association chairman’s wife is in charge of provisions and she’s toured all the pubs we’ll be visiting collecting the menus so that we can pre-order. I tell her she belongs to the Nick Soames school of canvassing: ‘If you have taken a morale bash in the morning, it is important to have a good lunch. It makes you feel a lot better.’ (I don’t share with her my favourite Soames story. A former girlfriend is asked what it’s like being made love to by Soames … ‘Like having a large wardrobe fall on top of you with the key still in the lock.’)

‘Labour poll lead slashed by the Tories.’ That’s the headline. According to MORI, we’re up six points since last week. I must say it doesn’t feel too bad out there …

The real front page treat in
The Times
, however, is the picture adjacent to the story: a delightful study of Melissa Bell, 24-year-old blonde bombshell daughter of the old fool. She’s gloriously photogenic and looks intelligent too. We’ll be seeing more of Melissa for sure. We’re seeing plenty of Tiger Christine too. Lynda Lee-Potter: ‘If there’d been more women like Christine Hamilton we wouldn’t have lost the Empire…’

It’s Ma’s eighty-third birthday and I remember to call. I’m pleased. She’s pleased – and sounds in cracking form. I remember too to turn up at the Town Hall to register as a candidate and hand over my £500 deposit. I discover we’re getting a Monster Raving Loony Party candidate. I seem to recall that last time the Loonies endorsed me and didn’t put up a candidate of their own – so perhaps this is progress… How many votes do they take and from whom?

Morning with a Duchess, afternoon at the sewage works, evening ploughing through six courses at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet. Such is the candidate’s lot.

The Duchess of Westminster is immensely tall and rather stylish and has skin like bubble-wrap that no one remarks upon because she’s palpably nice, gloriously wealthy and we do love a duchess, don’t we? It was one of the things that struck us most forcibly when we first arrived here: how the Westminsters are treated like local royalty. When Gerald fell out with us (over leasehold reform) and stepped down as Association President, an
audible cry of pain emanated from virtually every branch. There was nothing I could do about it. Peter [Morrison] had warned him off me.

Anyway, this morning Her Grace was delightful, opening a home for the homeless. During the ceremony I sat next to David Hanson,
653
Labour candidate for Delyn, and mentioned my ploy for the Tony Newton visit. He said:

I’ve a feeling the story’s as old as Dan Leno, but it still makes me smile.

The overnight excitement has been Angela Browning’s election newsletter apparently flouting the line on EMU. She doesn’t want our gold reserves being carted off to Frankfurt! Quite right too – but do we need to hear this just as the campaign is beginning to go our way? This is exactly what the PM’s been dreading.

‘Cabinet let Eurosceptics off the leash’. Since we have no choice, we might as well make the most of it – and we are. The silence in the Labour ranks reveals the Stalinist nature of New Labour’s high command – we, on the other hand, believe in democratic debate and, by the way (nudge-nudge), our candidates are a whole lot more sceptical than theirs …

One who isn’t is our star turn for today. John Gummer comes to Chester and is a joy – jolly, impish, giving us just what we need for our photo call in the Handbridge butchers. ‘I will gladly inspect the beef, but I will not, repeat not, hold a hamburger.’

Our theme is the importance of local and city centre shops, but John’s happiest moment comes when we encounter a lone Labour activist on the parade. The man mutters something derogatory as JG strides past. John spins round: ‘What does your candidate have to say on abortion then?’

The man is momentarily stunned, and then declares with some conviction: ‘She believes in a woman’s right to choose.’

‘Oh yes, oh yes,’ trills John, voice rising, breath quickening, ‘she believes in murdering babies, does she? Just so we know!’ The Secretary of State for the Environment is
smacking his lips now: ‘You want us to vote for someone who believes in murdering babies. Thank you! Thank you very much!’

At the Cheshire Hunt Point-to-Point the sun shines, 8,000 happy folk cheer the horses (
and
the hounds) and the talk is of the triumph of Aintree rather than the election. Lots of misty-eyed guff about how we defied the IRA last Saturday and proper praise for the police. Lord Leverhulme, still twinkly but struggling on his sticks, tells me he couldn’t make it on Monday for the postponed Grand National because cars weren’t allowed near the course. Bobbie McAlpine looked after the PM who helicoptered in for the race and found the boss in fighting form: ‘Quite extraordinary, considering…’ Alastair [Goodlad] was kitted out in what seemed an Ealing comedy version of the countryman’s Point-to-Point attire – green cords, brown shoes, hacking jacket and cap. He only had three words to offer on the political front: ‘Bloody Angela Browning.’

Michèle called. She’s back from Bologna, and on her way up. Aphra called from Perth in happy-happy form. (‘Dad, did you know some of the kangaroos are six feet tall? We went to the beach today and we saw the dolphins.’) Robert Atkins called, ‘collecting a bit of a picture from the front’ for the boss. I made encouraging noises, both because they were justified and because JM does need to be boosted – his mood does swing. The myth is the even-tempered fellow for ever on an even keel. In fact, he’s up and down, hot and cold – and all too sensitive to signals from the front. Today he’ll be up. The
Sunday Telegraph
headline guarantees that: ‘Labour nosedives in new poll’. How is he? ‘Tired,’ said Robert, ‘but much happier this weekend than last. I told him to remember Gordon Greenidge: it was when he started limping that he went on to score 100.’

Talked to Neil, much happier this week than last. We chuckled at Bell’s protests that
he’s
now the victim of a smear campaign – ‘They have not gone for my politics or for my honesty, which are beyond question. Instead they have gone for my private life. There was an affair, but that was seventeen years ago…’ Much chortling from Nether Alderley: ‘Can we trust a man who breaks his marriage vows?’ cooed Neil. Christine is chirruping in the background. I tell Neil to tell her how magnificent she has been – Boadicea meets Patsy Kensit – and I hear her chorusing, ‘I’m a megastar! I’m a megastar!’ They sound a lot more relaxed. ‘I’ve gone to ground though. I’m not knocking on any doors, but I’m committed to some public meetings and I don’t see that I can get out of them. And there’ll be a bit of a media circus on Tuesday when I’ve got to take in my candidate’s form and deposit. I thought I might wear a white suit…’

‘And why not take a biscuit—’

‘You mean, to give to Bell, say it’s an old custom in these parts?’

‘No, tell him that his coming up to Tatton from his fastness in London really does take the biscuit – so here it is.’ Much guffawing. ‘Obviously I want to keep out of the way, lower my profile and his. I’ve still got a handful of the Association who are making waves, but there weren’t a hundred abstentions – there were four. The mix-up was because the old ladies couldn’t hold their arms up long enough to be counted.’