71: The speech

Charlotte stood over my right shoulder, reading her tablet. ‘I don’t get it. None of this makes sense.’

‘Well, you know Rory...’

‘Yes, I get why he’d need a speech written for him.’

‘Not written, spoken, foretold if you like, at a time when he was highly suggestable.’

‘Yes. I get why words like these might be spoken by a right-wing MP. I just don’t see why he should go up against the PM. He’ll just draw attention to himself, I mean if anyone challenges him, he’ll fall apart in five seconds.’

‘Ah, but he’s under pressure to get on, from you know who.’

‘But if the PM prompted you, to get Rory to attack him, Rory won’t be going anywhere.’

‘Oh, I don’t know.’

‘So, what is the plan?’

‘Well Buffy just thinks it’s better PR to be seen to be pressured by others into doing the right thing, than suggesting it himself. Odd I know, something about the parliamentary party asserting itself, feeling it is really in charge, which of course it’s not.’

‘I can’t pretend to get all that, but what’s in it for us?’

‘Favoured status for the Park, a cooperative - if not particularly friendly - Chief Constable. All sorts of things that oil the wheels.’

‘Some people will notice these are not Rory’s words, and some of this is a blatant give away, “I won my seat by taking on the retired commissars of the metropolitan left who litter the English Riviera”. Quite a few people know that’s the sort of thing you’d say when taking the piss! And what of; “For you can only put the Great back into Great Britain, tackle the mountain of debt, and make us a going concern again with high and sustained economic growth. The Prime Minister has already spent all we can afford on the pandemic and stimulus packages for the North, the so-called Red Wall. The rest must come from becoming a low tax, low spend economy again. Yet as traditionalists it is our duty to maintain the military, the police and our security forces. Now the PM may not permit the word austerity to pass his lips, in this he is correct, for shaving budgets here and there for a few years will never be enough. The only way out is to cut absolutely the bloated and unnecessary state apparatus, the mindless bureaucracy which has grown around us all over the last fifty years. But, unlike entrepreneurial led growth, cutting the state is not a bottom-up process, quite the reverse.” The Beacon doesn’t normally reprint political speeches like this.’

‘Quite!’

‘Now this is just plain silly; “Number Ten must lead by example, the very cabinet table of which we are so proud, only comfortably sits eleven or twelve minsters, plus the Prime Minister himself and the Cabinet Secretary, there to record the minutes. With a reduction in ministries, there would be the chance of real cabinet government, again. Such was the situation the last time this country could call itself great. Now, we have a Cabinet Office employing a staggering eight thousand people.” This is the new Victorians thing I suppose?’

‘Absolutely, sounds a bit mad when Rory says it, but seen in cold print...’

‘And what about; “A Colonial Office of a few hundred administered an empire, now the same number hand out aid we can ill afford, for projects where we never discover whether they worked or not.” Is that true?’

‘It’s what the tabloid press believes to be true.’

‘Blimey, “a policy of intervention in the affairs of others is an outrageous foreign policy, hugely expense and merely encourages antipathy towards the West. I say trade, not aid.” There’s more, “the NHS has become a monster out of control, creating endless demand, as the population gets ever unhealthier. How wrong, Bevan and the men from the ministry were, to believe that the real cost of the NHS would fall over time as less people got ill.” Was that true?’

‘Oh, yes!’

‘I’ve had enough of this; we must get back to the garden.’

‘Is that your considered political position or a practical suggestion?’

‘Shut, up.’

‘Hang-on a second, does he get a mention in the editorial?’

‘Oh, yes. “A rare true-blue speech from the unknown MP who is only recorded as having spoken twice in the House of Commons. Perhaps he should assert himself more often for he goes straight to the heart of issues long championed by this paper.” A ringing endorsement then.’

Later that day I took a call; ‘I have the Prime Minister for you.’

‘Carrie!’

‘He’s using me as a bloody secretary now.’

‘You should get out more.’

‘Tell me about it, darling! It’s all right for him, he’s always out and about. Although, I rather think he wishes I could do a Charlotte and transform myself into a valette, when required.’

There was a sudden pause. Then Buffy came on the line. ‘Anthony! Just to say, marvellous job regarding young Rory, just the right tone, makes me sound like a sober minded judge. Ha! We can take it from here.’

‘But what will become of him?’

‘Well, he can’t very well accept a ministerial job now, after saying all he did about making cutbacks, can he? No, Chair of the parliamentary Whitehall watchdog committee should suit.’

The following week, Prudence approached me at the club. ‘Wasn’t he wonderful Tony? And I’ll let you in on a secret, it was all his own words, I had no involvement at all! I didn’t even see the script. What about that. You never believed it possible he could be his own man. As chair of this committee, he can call anyone to account, any minister, even Buffy himself. He is a force to be reckoned with. Now he’s being talked of as a future leader of the party.’

She seemed proud of her man, in a deeply unfashionable way. Feeling that perhaps life was getting just a tad too easy, I headed for the bar in search of a stiff drink.

‘Tony!’

‘Don! You’re spending a lot of time in this next of the woods, for one who’s meant to be a columnist for our leading national paper.’

‘I’ve been sent by my editor. He said; “You’ve got the connections, go be a reporter, find out about this MP who’s making the headlines.” Hoisted by my own petard. Having built Rory up at your request, now I’m being asked to knock him down.’

‘So, we are forced to ask, from whom does your editor take his orders?’

‘Better not to ask. Rather, why is it, that whenever I ask questions in this place the answers always seem to lead back to you! Or rather, you and your sidekick. Yet it also seems I’m in your debt, I hadn’t realised it was your recommendation that got me in here.’

‘We’re more than happy to have you.’

‘Rory is a chump. You contrived to get him elected, seemingly as a favour to his wife. As a consequence, this place, in which you have a financial stake, becomes a hive of political activity following on from the new MP’s support for the nation’s most notorious politician who in short order becomes the next PM. Now, I can’t write all that up, because it’s all too far fetched even for our readers.’

‘But you can’t go home empty handed. What you need is a nice little human-interest story about the life and loves of a chump, perhaps with a few choice anecdotes from an old school chum.’

‘Let me buy you lunch.’

‘I thought you’d never ask.’