Breaking the Code (51 page)

He’s outflanked them all. It’s quite extraordinary. The PM has resigned as leader of the Conservative Party. Rather than wait for the inevitable challenge in November, he has forced the issue. The election will be on Tuesday week. We were given the news at five o’clock. We shuffled in for the regular 1922 Committee meeting, Sir Marcus got up and made a bald announcement. The PM is stepping down as leader, he continues as Prime Minister; nominations for the position of leader should be handed to Sir Marcus by
noon next Thursday. The PM will be a candidate and expects his opponents to ‘put up or shut up’. We all sat there, speechless, wide-eyed and amazed, taken by complete surprise. Bemused, not initially knowing how to react, we stumbled out of the committee room and made our way to the Chamber. There we discovered Stephen, a solitary figure on our front bench, thinking he’d come to give a dozy reply to Graham Allen’s
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adjournment debate on digital television, and suddenly finding himself in the middle of a maelstrom. Assorted Labour rabble were hopping up and down, hysterically claiming the PM was perpetrating a constitutional outrage, furiously demanding to know what was going on. How could the Prime Minister resign as leader of the party and continue as PM? How dare the Prime Minister treat the House in this cavalier fashion? When were we going to get a statement? Dame Janet [Fookes, Deputy Speaker] clucked and flannelled, we had a couple of pointless divisions (‘I spy strangers’),
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Stephen threw in his 2 cents’ worth (he was enjoying the excitement), I threw in a farthing, Banks and Mackinlay
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and Spearing
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and Skinner did their best to keep the pot boiling, but after an hour or so the fever subsided, the Chamber emptied, and we turned our attention to the delights of digitalisation. I have left Stephen to it. I am ditching Hayden’s drinks at the DNH and going in search of ‘further and better particulars’.

It seems the PM decided on this in Canada at the weekend. Douglas Hurd was with him. Douglas is now definitely standing down as Foreign Secretary. Last night the PM called in a handful of trusties – Lang,
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Cranborne, Newton, Mawhinney (no potential rivals, you notice) – and told them the plan. He said nothing at Cabinet this morning. Not a hint. And it was business as usual at PMQs. He was very relaxed, at his best. He is certainly a cool customer. Around 3.30 p.m. he had Sir Marcus and the 1922 executive into his room here and broke the news to them; then he drove straight back to Downing Street for a press conference in the garden.

The initial feeling here is that he’s scored a brilliant coup. If he trounces any stalking-horse, and he will, then the sniping has to stop. And will there be a stalking-horse? Undoubtedly. The sceptics will certainly seize the moment. Incredibly, Barry Field
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may be a contender. I’ve seen Teresa Gorman, ‘I’m ready to stand if no one else will. It’s about time we had another woman at the helm.’ I saw Lamont in the division. ‘What do you think?’ I said. He just gave a wolfish leer.

The PM’s team (Robert Cranborne i/c) have set up shop at 13 Cowley Street. I have just telephoned. An over-excited Bunterish voice answered. ‘John Major’s campaign headquarters.’ It was Oliver Heald.
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How on earth has he managed to get his chubby knees under the table so quickly? I said, ‘It’s Gyles.’ He said, ‘Can we count on your support for John Major?’ I said, ‘Of course. That’s why I’m calling. Who else did you think I was going to support? Is there anything I could or should be doing to help?’ ‘Thank you for your support. We’ll let you know.’ God almighty! To be patronised by that bumptious fat ass.

The word is that Lamont is about to declare. The entire Cabinet (including Portillo) have given the PM a rousing endorsement – except for John Redwood who is at Lord’s watching the cricket and ‘won’t be saying anything until Monday’. The view now seems to be that it isn’t going to be the walk-over we thought last night. The stalking-horse might only get thirty or forty votes, but if there are a hundred or more abstentions what happens to the PM’s credibility then?

We’re driving to Stratford. We’re seeing Anne Wood at Ragdoll
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and then Allied-Domecq are entertaining us to
The Taming of the Shrew
. I’m scribbling this in the car which is a mistake because now I’m feeling sick. (Or is it post-Heald nausea?)

Redwood is the challenger. I’ve just witnessed his extraordinary press conference. JR was quite impressive in his funny Daddy Woodentop way, but his supporters – ye gods! I’ve a feeling they may have kiboshed his campaign before it’s even started. It wasn’t what they said: it was how they looked – Teresa to the right of him in a hideous day-glo green and
Marlow to left in a quite ludicrous striped blazer. Every picture tells a story: this one said, ‘Here’s a truly barmy army.’

He has some more credible backers as well – Lamont and Edward Leigh were on parade – and in the Tea Room suddenly everybody is much more tight-lipped. There’s a sense now that anything could happen. According to Willetts, who was keeping his counsel at our Wednesday Club cabal, Richard Ryder has apparently upset the Major camp by insisting that the whips remain totally neutral and above the fray. ‘We have to be ready to serve the Prime Minister of the day – whoever he may be.’

I was standing behind the Speaker’s chair just now, when a gangly Labour MP sidled up to me. I thought he was going to offer me some dirty postcards. I don’t know his name, but he was at the Allied-Domecq do on Friday. ‘Are you going to declare it in the register?’ he asked, all
sotto voce
. ‘If you don’t, we won’t.’ There are some pretty tawdry types round here.

Breakfast with Stephen, Danny and Tim Bell
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– who volunteered his services to ‘advise’ the Major campaign. Afterwards I said to Stephen, ‘I think we should drop in on Cowley Street, don’t you? Take them the message from Tim Bell, nail our colours firmly to the mast, see and be seen.’ In brilliant sunshine we sauntered over and were gratified to be filmed going in and coming out. The house itself is tiny and the ‘campaign HQ’ is packed into a couple of rooms on the ground floor and the kitchen in the basement. We squeezed past various smug young men wearing striped shirts and red braces and found Ian Lang. He was fairly distracted, took Tim Bell’s number, thanked us for our interest but made it abundantly clear that he’s got more helpers than he knows what to do with. At least we showed a face.

Major, Hurd and Clarke are at an EU gathering in Cannes – echoes of Mrs T. in Paris in November 1990?

Heseltine has been on the radio this morning telling us that Major will win ‘convincingly’ on the first ballot. But what if he doesn’t? Hezza would not be drawn.

Talking to Richard Ottaway, it’s clear that if Major stumbles Heseltine is ready. Talking to David Amess, it’s equally clear that Portillo is standing by and is convinced he could
make it too. The Tea Room fantasists (Fabricant, Greenway, Uncle Tom Cobley) are conjuring up a Heseltine–Portillo pact, Hezza as PM, Portillo as Foreign Secretary, with Peter Lilley as Chancellor, and the promise of a referendum on EMU.

Out on the terrace we are gathering in twos and threes, enjoying the gorgeous sunshine, revelling in the sense that ‘something is happening’. The banter is genial, but no one really trusts anybody at all. Nigel Evans is adamant he’ll vote for Major, but do we believe him? David Davis, who has wheedled his way into the heart of Cowley Street, said to me, ‘I don’t trust anyone, but I trust some even less than others.’ Of course, DD likes to play up his Machiavellian credentials. The official Cowley Street line is that a majority of one will be enough, but they know that isn’t true. If Major only squeaks to victory, he’s fatally wounded – then anything can happen. I’ve spotted Gillian Shephard in a couple of cosy corners. She’s as loyal to the PM as they come, but if it goes to a second ballot … ah, that’s different. She’ll be there, offering an alternative for those who can’t stomach Hezza. John Major in skirts – and she believes she could make it. I reported this to Stephen. His jaw fell, ‘
Please
– spare us.’

And talking of falling jaws, here’s the real news of the day: Hugh Grant has been arrested in Hollywood and charged with ‘lewd conduct’. ‘At last,’ said Michèle, ‘something interesting to read in the paper.’ Cruising along Sunset Boulevard in the early hours yesterday Hugh picked up one Divine Marie Brown and offered her ready money for oral sex. ‘Vice officers walked up on the car and observed the act.’ Funny old world.

‘I am bewildered and alone,’ says Liz Hurley. If Major wins, we can picture
la belle
Bottomley saying something similar. Poor Virginia has put her foot in it by declaring that she could and would serve in a Redwood Cabinet. The official line, of course, is that such a possibility won’t arise. Norman Tebbit has clambered out of his coffin to urge us to vote for JR, praising his ‘brains, courage and humour.’ Norman Lamont has just left a message on my answering machine saying he’d be ‘very grateful for a chat’. The Redwood camp has produced a telling flyer that may well concentrate the minds of some of the waverers: ‘No change = No chance. The choice is stark. To save your seat, your party, and your country, vote for John Redwood.’

Ottoway is adamant: Heseltine is whole-hearted in his support for the PM. Ken Clarke
is very funny: ‘The party can’t seriously be considering voting for this Martian.’ ‘I think he’s supposed to be a Venusian, Ken. Or a Vulcan.’ ‘It’s another planet, that’s for sure.’ But the man with green blood has fought a good campaign. Sir George Gardiner (Pluto’s representative on earth) is rallying the 92 Group behind him. Even if he doesn’t make it tomorrow (and he won’t) in the longer term he’s positioned himself to overtake Portillo as the champion of the right. Tom Arnold: ‘John Redwood had the courage to do it. In politics you need courage more than almost anything else.’ JR is certainly inspiring devotion among his followers. I saw Walter Sweeney
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(a huge, overweight walrus in a rather shabby suit) and there were tears in his eyes. He’d just been listening to JR: ‘He has greatness. He has the qualities of Margaret Thatcher.’ Portillo has been very quiet in recent days.

Later I wandered along to the Smoking Room in search of company and a glass of wine. (John Taylor/Sydney Chapman can usually be relied on – kind hearts, familiar stories, another round.) The place was deserted. Just as I’d ordered my drink and ensconced myself in a corner behind the
Evening Standard
, in came Archie Hamilton, from the little chess room no one uses, between the Smoking Room and the Dining Room. He lighted on me.

‘Aah. Are you eating?’

‘Er –’

‘Good. Go through now. Keep the PM company. He’s on his own.’

‘But he’s got my vote. There are people he
needs
to talk to.’

‘Go on. He’s on the Irish table. I’m going to drum up a few more.’

I did as I was bid. Archie is my dark horse candidate for Chief Whip. But my heart sank. Making small talk with the PM is never easy. On such a night as this…

I found him gazing blankly into the middle distance. He looked pasty-faced and weary.

‘I think it’s going pretty well,’ I said.

‘Do you? Do you?’ He shook his head. ‘I just don’t know. I just don’t know.’

He thinks the
Daily Mail
is going to come out against him in the morning.
The Sun, The Times
, the
Telegraph
, they’re all saying he should go. ‘But the
Mail
? There you go … This time tomorrow, who knows?’

Silence fell. He looked at his plate. I burbled stupidly. He was monosyllabic. I burbled some more. Silence fell again. I thought, ‘Poor sod, this could be his last night as Prime Minister and he’s spending it with me,
like this!
’ And then a gallant knight rode to the rescue. In came the Rt. Hon Peter Brooke CH and sat down beside me. He looked across at the PM and said he had just finished reading an article about a certain Surrey cricketer whose heyday was in the 1930s. The name meant nothing to me, but the PM
brightened at once. Peter continued, describing some particularly memorable match from the glorious summer of ’37, and within a minute the pall that had engulfed the table lifted and Peter and the PM talked cricket – talked ’30s cricket! – in extraordinary, animated, fascinated, happy detail. For half an hour or more, until the division bell went at around 9.30, Peter distracted the PM with an absorbing conversation he truly enjoyed. I had no idea what they were talking about, but tonight, no question, Peter served his Prime Minister well. I knew I’d been useless. I sat silent in admiration.

He’s done it:

I’ve just been on the radio hailing it as a ‘resounding victory’, a ‘personal triumph’ for the PM and the ‘defining moment’ when we put our divisions behind us. The truth is it’s good enough, just. It allows the PM to carry on, but it shows the world that at least 111 of his foot-soldiers – a third of the parliamentary party – don’t support him.

The voting was in Committee Room 12. I went first thing. It was just like the mock elections at school, rows of brown wooden desks and Sir Marcus as Mr Chips at the front of the class, collecting the ballot papers. Given all the talk of people saying they would vote one way, then voting another, rather ostentatiously I displayed my ballot paper as I handed it in. Outside hordes of hacks were gathered in the corridor hoping to pick up droppings from the electorate. Steve Norris duly obliged with something along the lines of, ‘I’m voting for Major. He’s the least bad option. Besides I owe him one.’ The feeling is this may be a quip too far.

We’ve just had a division. The PM looked suitably relaxed and cheery. As we trooped through the No lobby there was much jostling to pat the victor’s back. I murmured ‘Well done’ and had my shoulder squeezed. I saw Redwood who looked quite buoyant too – I told him what he knew, that he’d had a good fight and put himself in serious contention for next time. He was clear that he now plans to ‘row in firmly behind the Prime Minister’.