Breaking the Code Read Online Free

around two dozen to about six. There’s a candidates’ reception on Friday evening (‘for yourself and spouse, lounge suit’) hosted by the Association’s President – i.e. the Duke of Westminster – and a much fuller interview on Saturday. ‘This will take the form of a brief summary of your position on the Community Charge, followed by a fifteen-minute presentation on what would be in your manifesto for the election.’ I asked if I could again be the last one to be seen. She laughed and said yes. She’s rather plain and horsey, but there’s a gawky Carol Thatcher energy to her that I like. Tom Arnold’s office has also called. My meeting with him is postponed to Thursday, but I’m going to Central Office anyway today to pick up briefing material. As I write I can’t pretend to have much grasp of the detail of our policies, but it’s still only Monday…
WEDNESDAY 6 MARCH 1991
    A rather drunken encounter with Wayne Sleep last night was followed by an extraordinarily indulgent lunch with John and Patti Bratby today. They took us to the Savoy to celebrate John’s retrospective at the National Portrait Gallery. Patti was in one of her favourite rubber rigouts and John was looking more like Raymond Briggs’s Father Christmas than ever. We had a wonderful window table overlooking the river and so much champagne that halfway through the main course John began to slide beneath the table – literally.
Kaleidoscope
was coming to interview him at 4.00 p.m. so Patti decided to take him up to bed for a recuperative snooze. He pottered off on her arm beaming benignly and waving to his public as he went.
THURSDAY 7 MARCH 1991
    Castle Point, Brighton and Croydon Central don’t want to see me. Is this because they don’t like the look of my CV or because Sir Tom has warned them off me? I don’t know and I don’t ask. When I’m closeted with him today his manner is more conspiratorial than ever. ‘Mmm, mmm, it’s going well,’ he murmurs,
sotto voce
, ‘Going well. They seem to like you. So far. But it’s early days. Can’t be too careful. Mustn’t take anything for granted.’ He picks up the telephone and turns away from me and whispers urgently into it. A girl knocks on the door and hands him a document. It’s a speech by John Major. He glances around the room. Evidently this is very hush-hush.
    ‘This hasn’t been delivered yet, but there’s a phrase here I think you might find useful.’ He points to the headline and raises a triumphant eyebrow. ‘“A society of opportunity”. Mmm. That’s the line, isn’t it? A society of opportunity. What do you think?’
    ‘Good,’ I say. ‘Very good.’
    ‘Call me on Monday. Let me know how you get on.’
FRIDAY 8 MARCH 1991
    This is my forty-third birthday and John Major’s hundredth day as Prime Minister. We are travelling to Chester on the 11.35 from Euston in the wake of the Ribble Valley by-election. The Lib Dems have overturned our majority of 20,000. ‘Setback to prospect of early election as Conservatives lose their tenth safest constituency.’ The recession and the poll tax are twin killers – but if I’ve got to explain away the one and justify the other, I will!
SUNDAY 10 MARCH 1991
    It’s Mothering Sunday and if Chester went well I’ve got to put it down to the mother of my children. At the Friday night drinks with the Duke of Westminster – in the Venetian Suite of the Grosvenor Hotel – my darling girl was utterly fantastic. She looked exactly right; she played the part to perfection. She was better than the Princess of Wales would have been. She worked the room and they lapped her up. The chairman of the women’s committee was Russian-born and Michèle even managed to charm her
in Russian
. What a woman, what a wife! I tried not to overdo it – not altogether successfully. I said to the Duke (whom I met years ago, around the time of his twenty-first birthday, when I was sent to interview him for
Woman
magazine) ‘May I call you