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First Among Equals

Page 100

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Enough time has now passed for us to try and treat each other in a civilized way. Alexander and I wish to marry and Veronica Dalglish has agreed to an immediate divorce and has not insisted we wait the necessary two years to establish separation.

“You’ll have to wait every day of the two years, you bitch,” he said out loud. Then he came to the one sentence for which he was searching.

I realize this might not immediately appeal to you but if you felt able to fall in with our plans I would be happy to return the Holbein immediately.

Yours ever,

Fiona.

He crumpled up the paper in the ball of his hand before dropping it on the fire.

Charles remained awake into the early hours considering his reply.

At a Thursday morning Cabinet meeting James Callaghan informed his colleagues that the Liberal leader, David Steel, was not willing to continue the Lib/Lab pact after the end of the current session.

“That can only mean one thing,” the Prime Minister continued. “We must all be prepared for a general election at any time from now on. I am confident we can hold out until Christmas, but not for much longer after that.”

Raymond was saddened by the news. He felt after two years in the Cabinet that he was just beginning to be of some use to the Department of Trade: the changes he was implementing were starting to take effect. But he knew he needed considerably more time if he hoped to leave a permanent impression on his ministry.

Kate’s enthusiasm spurred him on to work even longer hours and to push through as many of his innovations before the next election as possible.

“I’m trying my damnedest,” he told her. “But do remember that the speed of the bureaucratic machine makes British Rail look like Concorde.”

The Labour Government struggled on through a session dubbed by the press as “the winter of discontent”: trying to push bills through the House, losing a clause here and a clause there, Raymond was only too delighted to have reached the recess in one piece.

Raymond spent a cold Christmas in Leeds with Joyce. He returned to London early in the New Year aware it could not be long before the Conservatives felt assured enough to put down a motion of no confidence. When it eventually was tabled no one in Parliament was surprised.

The debate caused a day of intense excitement, not least because a strike had caused the Commons bars to run dry and thirsty members were huddled together in the lobbies, the tea room, the smoking room, and the dining rooms. Harassed Whips rushed hither and thither checking lists, ringing up hospitals, boardrooms, and even great-aunts in their efforts to track down the last few elusive members.

When Mrs. Thatcher rose on 6 April to address a packed House the tension was so electric that the Speaker had considerable difficulty keeping control of the overcharged conductors. She addressed the House in firm, strident tones which brought her own side to their feet when she resumed her place. The atmosphere was no different when it was the turn of the Prime Minister to reply. Both leaders made a gallant effort to rise above the petulance of their adversaries but it was the Speaker who had the last word:

“The Ayes to the right 311,

The Noes to the left 310.

The Ayes have it, the Ayes have it.”

Pandemonium broke out. Opposition members waved their order papers in triumph, knowing the Prime Minister would now have to call a general election. James Callaghan immediately announced the dissolution of Parliament and after an audience with the Queen election day was set for 3 May 1979.

At the end of that momentous week those few members left at Westminster were stunned by an explosion in the Members’ Car Park. Airey Neave, the Shadow spokesman on Northern Ireland, had been blown up by Irish terrorists as he was driving up the exit ramp to leave the Commons. He died on his way to hospital.

Members hurried back to their constituencies. Both Raymond and Andrew found it hard to escape from their departments at such short notice, but Charles and Simon were out in their respective high streets shaking hands with the voters by the morning following the Queen’s proclamation.

For three weeks the arguments about who was competent to govern went back and forth, but on 3 May the British people elected their first woman Prime Minister and gave her party a majority of forty-three in the Commons.

Andrew’s sixth election turned out to be his most unpleasant to date and he was on

ly glad that he had left Louise and Clarissa in London. Jock McPherson, still the SNP candidate, called him every name under the sun and added one or two new ones in the evening, while the Trotskyites who had voted against him on the committee proved no help when it came to gathering in the votes on election day. But the citizens of Edinburgh, knowing nothing of the committee’s opinions, sent Andrew back to Parliament with a majority of 3,738. The Scottish Nationalist vote crumbled, leaving only two members in the House—and Jock McPherson back in Scotland.

Raymond’s vote in Leeds was slightly reduced, while Joyce won the office pool for predicting most accurately what her husband’s majority would be. He was beginning to accept that she knew more about the constituency than he ever would.

A few days later when Raymond returned to London Kate had never seen him so depressed and decided to hold off telling him her own news when he said, “God knows how many years it will be before I can be of some use again.”

“You can spend your time in Opposition making sure the Government doesn’t dismantle all your achievements.”

“With a majority of forty-three they could dismantle me if they wanted to,” he told her. He placed the red leather box marked “Secretary of State for Trade” in the corner, next to the ones marked “Minister of State at the Department of Trade” and “Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Department of Employment.”

“They’re only your first three,” Kate tried to reassure him.



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