151: Constitution

‘Where are you going?’

‘Brenda is demanding a crash meeting.’

‘About what?’

‘If I had to guess, this week’s political machinations at the Park!’

‘I’d better watch your back.’

‘Okay.’

‘Where?’

‘Back of the marina, I’ll try and steer her into the other cafe.’

‘Where you used to take Mary Tufnell back in the day. Piece of cake.’

‘I’m under pressure from the party; they want to know about this Constitution Group meeting at the Park.’

‘And what do you want?’

‘I want to be left alone to get on with building local support so I retain my seat whenever the election comes.’

‘As of now you probably will, since the opposition is so divided.’

‘So, what do you know?’

‘Well, this group has booked in for three days. Longer than usual and the founder of the group, Lord Coates, club member, isn’t exactly over the moon about it. He’s always had this belief that Brexit benefits won’t happen unless you repeal legal and constitutional changes dating back twenty-five years. But now the pressure from below is to forge an alliance amongst all the disaffected groups on the Right, but that means all sorts of people who have failed in the past are now creeping out of the woodwork, looking for a second chance. Coffee?’

We settled in the cafe, my phone pinged with a message, looking up I said; ‘Do you have any security with you?’

‘No. I’m too junior, and at home in my constituency. Why?’

‘Oh, just routine. No, I think the real point is this fringe conference is just the sort of thing that will get the national media buzzing, especially if they spot ex-prime ministers dropping by. People conspiring, that will be their angle. You just need to keep your head down. And the message to your bosses must surely be, infighting on the Right is good for us. How’s your minister?’

‘Feeling the heat, he’s begun to realise that any future delays to local road and rail are going to be squarely blamed on him! Says all that steel girder-ing in your bridge has cost a fortune.’

‘Of course, electric vehicles weigh a ton! Still, our authentic stone facade is well underway.’

‘A watching brief.’ I said to Charlie as she drove us to the club on day one. ‘We stay out of it as much as possible, simply loiter in the lounge and bar, hoping to gather useful intelligence.’

There was a uniformed police presence in the carpark. Requests for ID. And low and behold as we entered the lounge; ‘I want a word with you two!’

‘Don! How are you?’

‘I thought the three of us were friends. But twice you’ve handed royal scoops to your aunt’s coffee table, ladies mag.’

‘We do have to try and be even handed. Besides, there are two autumn stories likely to break before Christmas, where I’m sure we can give each other a helping hand.’

‘Like what?’

‘Well, give you an off-the-record comment.’

‘I meant, what stories?’

‘I suppose both could be called celebrity stories.’

‘Charlie, what’s he talking about?’

‘No idea Don, first I’m hearing about it!’

A while later I saw Frimley emerge from the office looking harassed. ‘Anthony, just the chap. Do help get the club sec off my back, I really can’t be held responsible for attendees, let alone pay for their peccadilloes. You’re the only one with enough authority to put the boot-in.’

‘I’ll do what I can. Charlie and I will be here each day keeping an eye out.’

‘What a fine fellow you are. By the way, the rumour at Westminster is that Brenda’s minister is slowly going mad, begging the PM to reshuffle him, but of course the PM wants him to stay put and carry the can.’

‘Don’t you mean kick the can down the road, from one end of the county to the other.’

‘That’s rather good. Twenty-five years sounds about right then.’ He said, drifting off.

‘Anthony! Here you are.’

‘Buffy.’

‘Still content being a big fish, in a small pool?’ He said, looking around with an air of disdain.

‘Call me old fashioned, but I have this strange liking for getting the job done. Why are you here, your fellow attendees must wish to skin you alive.’

‘Men need to be led; they enjoy the smack of firm government. Talking of which, has Rory arrived yet?’

‘I’ve no idea. As usual I’m merely here to keep an eye on the family silver.’

‘That motorway of yours will never get built.’

‘Oh, but it will, as far as our great cathedral city, along with the old rail link.’

‘How come?’

‘Beyond the point of no return, legally and financially. If they follow our advice then it will come in reasonably on time, and budget. The twenty-five years is for all points West, beyond our bridge over the Morestead line.’

‘What makes you so sure?’

‘Think how many constituencies lie beyond, dependant on that road. And our local MP is ideally placed, to keep the minister in harness.’

‘What has she got on him?’

‘You do not wish to know!’

Once the conference was in session, Charlie and I hung around the hall, otherwise known as the games room. Between games of pool, we’d watch events on the modest, head-high monitor just to one side of the ballroom doors. But there were moments of boredom too, at such times one ends up reading the club noticeboard; ‘Notice to staff. No Lanyards Permitted. ID must be concealed but presented on request.’ Amen to that I thought.

‘Tony, come and listen to this.’ I wandered over. ‘Rory is making his speech, but it’s just his old speech from five years ago!’

‘It’s been billed as the “Flotterton manifesto”; he must have updated it.’

‘No, you can see where he hesitates, realises it’s a topical reference from back along, fluffs the line. Listen.’

‘Now the PM may not permit, er, did not permit, the word austerity to pass his lips, in this he is, was 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. Number Ten must lead by example, the very cabinet table of which we are so proud, only comfortably sits eleven or twelve ministers, 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 embarrassing, and I'm not even in the room!’

‘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. A policy of intervention in the affairs of others is an outrageous foreign policy, hugely expensive and merely encourages antipathy towards the West. I say trade, not aid.’

‘Your fantasy of the Anglosphere, the new Victorians...’

‘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.'

At which point, one of the ballroom doors opened gingerly, and a shock of blonde hair stuck its head out; ‘Ah, Charlie, Anthony!’

‘We’ve been watching on the screen.’

‘Yes, I was wondering if anyone... I say, no secrets between us three, not for years, right?’

‘It’s word for word; he’s just reading it out!’ Exclaimed Charlie.

‘Yes, I told him to develop it a bit, perhaps he picked up the wrong draft, nerves no doubt, that’ll be it. Lady Prudence is in the front row after all. You surely don’t want the credit for it, Anthony?’

‘By no means! Besides, it was your idea. I was thinking of the rumour mill.’

‘Who have you told?’

‘No one. Do you talk in your sleep? I understand Carrie’s reminiscences, taped by the Don, were heavily redacted for publication.’

‘Good God! Still today’s speech is just the basis for an argument, the great historian is up in a minute, he’ll put flesh on the bones, repeal and restore, that’s the ticket, kick the new puritans into the street, proper restoration, no need for civil war, anyway I must get back...’

‘I thought he’d been cancelled?’

‘No, no he’s here, sat next to Prue, bright as ever, can’t be a day short of eighty.’