Authors: Gyles Brandreth
Breaking the Code (86 page)
Somewhat surprisingly, Gordon Brown is here. Susie is rather cynical about Gordon. She thinks he's âcome to be seen' and brought the children with him. âHe's burnishing his English credentials.' I suppose David [Sainsbury] is a Blairite and they are all anxious about what will happen when Gordon at long last becomes PM. (I can tell them. It will be a shambles. No one who still bites his fingernails aged fifty-six should be allowed to lead the country. Gordon is an obsessive micro-manager with a short fuse and a vile temper. He can be charming and civilised, but after a six-month honeymoon, it will all unravel â there will be blood on the carpet, if not in the streets. My friend David Cameron will be PM within three years, without a doubt.) Susie offers us the remainder of Gordon Brown's little lemon tarts. They are delicious.
I am here to host the Shakespeare quiz.
Two star-studded teams, both alike in dignity: I appoint Ian McKellen and Juliet Stevenson as captains. In the audience, Harriet Walter, coughing. Ian in very happy form. He's come dressed as a mad scientist â beady eyes, King Lear's beard, lab assistant's coat and the Macbeth tartan tie ⦠He's full of Lear: âDid it last night. It drains you. But then one night we just flew. It simply happened. The question is, once we're there, will I be able to act what I now feel?' ⦠He delivered for us in full measure. When Donald Sinden got the question right about how much older Anne Hathaway was than Shakespeare (eight years), Ian said, âOf course, Donald had the advantage of knowing them both personally.'
Donald told the Frank Benson cricketing story: how Benson advertised for a fast bowler to play Laertes. A fellow applied. Someone said, âHe's a wonderful fast bowler â not sure if he can play Laertes.' Said Benson: âAny good fast bowler can play Laertes.'
Judi Dench told a sweet story about being in
The Promise
with Ian â and so nervous on first night she said to Ian, âI'm just going to concentrate on the front row â focus on
the three seats in the centre of the row and think that the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are sitting there.'
Said Ian, âThey'd be sitting in the one seat, surely?'
Happy event. Des Barrit fun, Tony Sher fun. Michael Wood fun. Also of the party, and sweet, David Warner â my first Hamlet, 1965.
Post-show, no one seemed to know where to go for the fireworks. The riverside â the Swan garden â the Dell? We saw them through the trees with Susie Sainsbury. Then we had a bite of Indian and joined the party in the tent. We didn't stay because it does get repetitive. Alex Jennings â âloved you in
The Alchemist'
, said Michèle; Mark Rylance â âloved you in
Boeing-Boeing'
; Simon Russell Beale â âloved you in ⦠Goodnight!'
And so to bed, weary but mellow. Good to have shared a stage with Ian McKellen and Judi Dench. Long overdue, of course.
By tube to Ladroke Grove. Sit facing Harriet Walter on the train. She comes over. She's on her way to Brick Lane to rehearse a play about Fallujah. I tell her I'm going to Michael Berkeley's house to record
Private Passions
for Radio 3. She says he's nice and I needn't feel intimidated by his musical knowledge: I just have to concentrate on his hair, not so much a comb-over as a pubic ridge across an otherwise totally bald brow ⦠We talked about the National Portrait Gallery and I said she needed to get in to ensure her immortality. She said that didn't bother her any more. It had once. They'd rejected a drawing of her done by Tony Sher. Pity. A cartoon by Irving of Ellen Terry would be of interest, wouldn't it?
Arrived at Michael Berkeley's way too early: a tall, narrow Victorian house where they've been since 1982 â that's when it was decorated. In the kitchen, a huge table covered with old newspapers, books, bills, old cups of coffee ⦠on the stove last night's bread pudding in one pan, the cold greens in another ⦠a stray cat (literally) on the floor ⦠Michael was amiable. We talked of past guests â Harriet, Barry Humphries (as himself & Dame Edna â but not in costume), John Amis and the programme that was pulled because he told the story of Frank Muir saying, when he heard that Donizetti had died through an excess of masturbation, âSo he literally died by his own hand.'
Just now: William Archer called. He said, âIs that Mr Brandreth? This is Mr Archer â William Archer, son of Jeffrey' â he could have been Jeffrey! Extraordinary. He's researching a project on Conan Doyle. I'll help him if I can.
And news just in â it's on the radio as I write ⦠A decade and a week after the election that swept him in (and swept me out), Tony Blair is resigning. âI've been Prime Minister of this country for just over ten years. I think that's long enough, not only for me, but
also for the country, and sometimes the only way you conquer the pull of power is to set it down.' He steps down officially on 27 June.
The Association of Interior Specialists at the Dorchester. This is my life now. The Drywall has changed the world. The days of wet plaster are long gone! Nice crowd. Afterwards, a cappuccino at Grosvenor House and then I walked all the way to Central Office for the âFinal Farewell to Smith Square'.
704
The sun shone. I walked via Curzon Street (Benjamin Disraeli lived here â and âthe last courtesan', whoever she may have been) and across the park. Around the Home Office a police cordon was being set up â it was chaos, but it wasn't a bomb: a building that had collapsed.
At 32 Smith Square it was all our yesterdays ⦠Past chairmen, past leaders ⦠Chris Patten (he didn't linger), Jeremy Hanley, Michael Ancram, Maurice Saatchi, Norman Lamont, John Gummer, Ken Baker â even Iain Duncan Smith. I was there as MC and to conduct the auction. We raised £155,000. David [Cameron] arrived halfway through ⦠Jean Searle OBE came over and whispered, âThe leader is here'⦠I introduced him â explained that an erotic charge had suddenly shot through the room and that we had to get on with it before his hair began to collapse ⦠He was looking very bouffanted â incredibly crisp: the suit, the shirt, the haircut utterly immaculate â quite perfect, almost unreal.
I introduced âthe next Conservative Prime Minister', who took to the stage and began (unfortunately) with my Anglo-Welsh joke not knowing I'd done it half an hour before
705
⦠It didn't matter. He spoke well â but, curiously, there was no magic in the air. When Mrs T. or John Major spoke I always felt oddly moved ⦠Michèle said later: âHe isn't Prime Minister yet. The office gives the aura.'
When we were both done, David said to me, âYou're brilliant.'
I said to him, âYou're brilliant.'
âYou see,' he said, âwe agree on everything. We always have.' He said he was going to the Ritz to have dinner with the Barclay brothers â âbut I'm going to call you. I need you writing speeches for me. I need new jokes. I can count on you?'
âOf course,' I said. And he can. I will do his bidding â even though I know the jokes I give him won't be used and my best advice (âyou don't need to be funny: you don't even need to be liked; you need to be heroic, you need to inspire') will be routinely ignored.
John Cope (now our Chief Whip in the Lords) stopped me as I was leaving. âI haven't always approved of everything you've done, but tonight I approved completelyâ¦' That was a nice thing to say â and made my day.
This morning I woke up in the City of Chester. Last night I addressed the Chester Business Club. In ten years nothing here seems to have changed â at all.
On the phone from the hotel room just after eight I did a bit on the
Today
programme â about the Queen and her Prime Ministers. Gordon Brown has âkissed hands' on his appointment and completed his Cabinet. David Miliband is Foreign Secretary. Why not? Jacqui Smith is Home Secretary. Why? Alistair Darling is Chancellor â good. And down the list: Des Browne, John Denham, Ruth Kelly, Andy Burnham ⦠some of them will be excellent, I'm sure. Many of the best of the ministers in my time â Tony Newton, John MacGregor, David Hunt, David Curry, Roger Freeman etc. â were outstanding, but barely noticed beyond the villages of Westminster and Whitehall. I wish them well. We need them to do well.
The merry-go-round keeps turning. I enjoyed my ride, but I'm happy not to be on it any more.
657
Frank Dobson, Labour MP for Holborn & St Pancras since 1979; Secretary of State for Health 1997â9.
658
Derek Conway (b.1953), Conservative MP for Shrewsbury & Atcham, 1983â97, and a colleague of GB's in the Whips' Office, eventually found work as chief executive of the Cats' Protection League. He later returned to Parliament as Edward Heath's successor as MP for Old Bexley & Sidcup, 2001, falling from grace in 2008 over the misuse of parliamentary expenses.
659
James Hewitt, former British household cavalry officer and lover of the Princess of Wales.
660
John Whittingdale OBE, Conservative MP for South Colchester & Maldon 1992â7, Maldon since 1997; political secretary to Margaret Thatcher, 1988â92.
661
The referendum, held on 7 May 1998, asked the question: âAre you in favour of the government's proposals for a Greater London Authority, made up of an elected mayor and a separately elected assembly?' Just 34.1 per cent of the electorate voted, with 72.01 per cent voting Yes and 27.99 per cent voting No. Jeffrey Archer was hoping to be the Conservative Party's first London mayoral candidate.
662
Nickolas Grace, English actor, still remembered as Anthony Blanche in
Brideshead Revisited.
663
Lynda Bellingham, English actress, still remembered as the mum in the Oxo commercials.
664
Sarah Macaulay married Gordon Brown at his home in Fife on 3 August 2000.
665
Benazir Bhutto (1953â2007), Pakistani politician, President of the Oxford Union, 1976. The first woman elected to lead a Muslim state, she was twice Prime Minister of Pakistan (1988â90, 1993â6); assassinated at an election rally in Rawalpindi.
666
Julian Clary, English camp comedian and writer.
667
At the British Comedy Awards in December 1993; both Lamont and Clary were presenting awards that night.
668
From 16 to 19 December 1998, in response to Iraq's failure to comply with certain United Nations Security Council resolutions, US and UK forces bombed Iraqi targets in an operation codenamed Desert Fox.
669
In the event, Neil Hamilton, having already dropped his libel action against
The Guardian
over the âcash for questions' affair, lost his libel action against Mohammed Al-Fayed in December 1999 and lost the appeal in December 2000. Unable to pay his legal fees, he was declared bankrupt in May 2001 and discharged from bankruptcy three years later.
670
Following his unsuccessful libel action against
The Guardian
, in 1999 Jonathan Aitken was charged with perjury and perverting the cause of justice and sentenced to eighteen months' imprisonment, of which he served seven.
671
On 9 September 1999, in an interview with
The Times
, Michael Portillo, who was hoping to become the Conservative candidate in the forthcoming Kensington & Chelsea by-election, admitted to âsome homosexual experiences as a young person'.
672
Amanda Platell, Australian journalist, press secretary to William Hague, 1997â2001.
673
Adam Boulton, English journalist, political editor of Sky News since 1989.
674
Though a friend of Edwina Currie since their university days, GB had no inkling of her affair with John Major. In March 1997, GB had reported in his diary John Major remarking that he imagined Edwina was then knocking on âquite a few publishers' doors', but he did not realise the significance of the observation until the publication of her
Diaries
:
1987â92
in 2002.
675
On 19 July 2001 Archer was found guilty of perjury and perverting the course of justice. He was sentenced to four years' imprisonment. On 21 July 2003 he was released on licence, after serving half of his sentence.
676
Peter Tatchell, Australian-born political campaigner and gay rights activist.
677
Sir Christopher Lee, leading English film actor, particularly associated with horror films.
678
Geoffrey Atkinson produced
Rory Bremner, Who Else?
from 1993 and, from 1999 to 2010,
Bremner, Bird and Fortune.
679
Paul Burrell RVM (b.1958), former footman to the Queen and butler to Diana, Princess of Wales.
680
Conrad Black, Baron Black of Crossharbour, Canadian-born newspaper publisher and author, later imprisoned on charges of fraud and obstruction of justice; married, as her fourth husband, to Barbara Amiel, British-Canadian journalist.
681
She stood down in 2010, having been caught up in the MPs' expenses scandal. She over-claimed for the mortgage interest on her second home, and was told to pay back some £7,000. She was succeeded as MP for Beckenham by Colonel Bob Stewart, commander of the 1st battalion, Cheshire Regiment, when GB first arrived in Chester.
682
She later became a Liberal Democrat councilor in Plymouth and a Lib Dem parliamentary candidate in the 2005 and 2010 general elections.
683
Portillo returned to Parliament as MP for Kensington & Chelsea (1999â2005) following the death of Alan Clark. He was now shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1 February 2000 to 18 September 2001.
684
Baron McColl of Dulwich from 1989, physician, surgeon and politician; PPS to John Major in the House of Lords, 1994â7.
685
William Hague led the Conservatives to defeat in the general election on 7 June 2001 and resigned as leader on 13 September 2001. The election result gave Labour 40.7 per cent of the vote; the Conservatives 31.7 per cent; and the Liberal Democrats, under Charles Kennedy, 18.3 per cent.
686
The former BBC correspondent, Martin Bell had said he would only serve one term as MP for Tatton (1997â2001) and was now standing as an independent candidate in Brentwood and Ongar, the seat held by Eric Pickles. He came second in the poll, securing 32 per cent of the vote.
687
They were married in July 2002 and divorced in December 2010.
688
They didn't and following Hague's post-election resignation the candidates to succeed him included Michael Ancram, David Davis, Michael Portillo, Kenneth Clarke and Iain Duncan Smith. Under new rules, Conservative MPs only voted in the initial rounds of the contest, and the lowest candidate in each round was eliminated; in the final round, involving the membership of the Conservative Party, Iain Duncan Smith secured 60.7 per cent of the popular vote and Kenneth Clarke secured 39.3 per cent.
689
On 11 September 2001 a series of four coordinated attacks were launched by the terrorist group al-Qaeda on the World Trade Center in New York and on the Pentagon in Washington DC. The attacks killed almost 3,000 people and, as a mark of respect, the announcement of Iain Duncan Smith's victory in the Conservative leadership contest was delayed until 13 September.
690
The show was conceived by GB and its title changed to
Zipp! 100 Musicals in 100 Minutes or Your Money Back
. With a cast of five, it won the Most Popular Show award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August 2002, toured the UK and played in the West End at the Duchess Theatre.
691
In the event, Duncan Smith struggled on until 29 October 2003, when he lost a No Confidence vote among Conservative MPs, 75â90. The parliamentary party then coalesced around the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, Michael Howard, who was elected leader, unopposed.
692
In the event, Tony Blair secured parliamentary approval to send UK forces into battle against Saddam Hussein on 18 March 2003 and most Conservatives supported him. 217 MPs â Kenneth Clarke, John Gummer, and thirteen other Conservatives, all the Liberal Democrats and 139 Labour backbenchers â backed an amendment opposing the government's stance on Iraq, with 396 opposing the motion. A motion backing the government's position was then passed by 412 votes to 149.
693
Cook resigned from the Cabinet on 17 March 2003.
694
Ed Vaizey, Michael Howard's speech-writer, MP for Wantage since 2005 and Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries since 2010.
695
American journalist and publisher of
The Spectator
magazine whose three-year affair with Home Secretary David Blunkett was revealed by the
News of the World
in August 2004. Blunkett resigned on 15 December and the
News of the World
revealed that Ms Quinn had also had an affair with the journalist Simon Hoggart.
696
It didn't. David Blunkett resigned from the Cabinet on 2 November 2005 in the wake of press coverage of his extra-parliamentary interests during his time out of government.
697
Four terrorists detonated four bombs: three in quick succession on London Underground trains across the city and, later, a fourth on a double-decker bus in Tavistock Square. As well as the four bombers, fifty-two civilians were killed and over 700 more were injured in the attacks.
698
The first ballot of MPs was held on 18 October 2005. David Davis came top of the poll with 62 votes, followed by David Cameron, 56, Liam Fox, 42, and Kenneth Clarke, 38. Clarke was eliminated and in the second round most of his support went to David Cameron who now secured 90 votes, followed by David Davis with 57 and Liam Fox with 51. Fox was eliminated and the Conservative Party membership was offered a choice between Cameron and Davis. Of the 198,844 members who voted, 32.4 per cent voted for Davis and 67.6 per cent for Cameron.
699
GB's 2004 book,
Philip & Elizabeth: Portrait of a Marriage
, formed the basis of a television series made by ITN for Channel 5.
700
Having worked alongside David Frost at TV-am in the '80s, GB was a regular newspaper reviewer on
Frost on Sunday,
appearing in the 500th and final edition on 29 May 2005.
Sunday AM
with Andrew Marr replaced the Frost programme from 11 September 2005.
701
Labour MP for Darlington 1992â2010; in Tony Blair's Cabinet 1998â2003, 2004â5.
702
The film of GB's 1996 novel
Who Is Nick Saint
? is yet to materialise.
703
Whipping It Up,
starring Richard Wilson, opened at the Bush Theatre, London, in November 2006 and later transferred to the West End. Stephen Thompson went on to write episodes of
Doctor Who
and
Sherlock
.
704
32 Smith Square served as Conservative Central Office between 1958 and 2003. The building stood empty until 2007 when it was sold for £30.5 million to Harcourt Developments who hoped to redevelop it as flats until the 2008 credit crunch derailed the plan. It is now (perhaps ironically, given its heritage) Europe House, the London base of the European Parliament and the European Commission.
705
âI am Anglo-Welsh. My grandparents were Anglo-Welsh. My parents were Anglo-Welsh. Indeed, my parents burnt down their own cottage.'