Humphrey was quietly enjoying his glass of Château Léoville-Barton 1973, a bottle of which he had carefully chosen to go with his roast beef. It tasted okay, though one glass of red is much like another as far as I’m concerned.
Finally Humphrey broke the silence. ‘Mind you, I think we may just be able to contain all this criticism of the corporation, provided the files don’t get any larger. That’s why I am urging my Minister that there is no need to take up the case of the Civil Defence programme formally.’
Francis was looking desperate. He turned the photo of himself face downwards on the pile. ‘Look, you do see my position. The BBC cannot give in to government pressure.’
‘Of course not,’ said Humphrey. This surprised me. I thought that that was precisely what we were trying to achieve. But I had reckoned without the hypocrisy of the Establishment. Or, to put it more kindly, Humphrey was devising some face-saving apparatus for Mr Aubrey.
And that’s how it turned out to be. He looked at me.
‘We wouldn’t want the BBC to give in to government pressure. Would we Minister?’
‘No?’ I asked, slightly cautiously, recognising a clear cue.
‘No, of course we wouldn’t,’ he went on. ‘But the Minister’s interview with Ludovic Kennedy did contain some factual errors.’
Francis Aubrey seized on that. He brightened up considerably. ‘Factual errors? Ah, that’s different. I mean the BBC couldn’t give in to government pressure . . .”
‘Of course not,’ we agreed.
‘. . . but we set great store by factual accuracy.’
‘Indeed,’ said Humphrey, nodding sympathetically. ‘And then, some of the information in the interview is likely to be out of date by the time of transmission.’
‘Out of date?’ he responded eagerly. ‘Ah that’s serious. As you know, the BBC couldn’t give in to government pressure . . .’
‘Of course not,’ we agreed in unison.
‘. . . but we don’t want to transmit out-of-date material.’
I saw that I could help Humphrey now.
‘And since the recording,’ I interjected, ‘I’ve discovered that I inadvertently let slip one or two remarks that might have security implications.’
‘Such as?’ he asked.
I hadn’t expected that question. I thought he’d be too well-bred to ask.
Humphrey came to the rescue. ‘He can’t tell you what they are. Security.’
Francis Aubrey didn’t seem to mind a bit. ‘Ah well, we can’t be too careful about security, I do agree. If the defence of the realm is at stake, we have to be very responsible. I mean, obviously the BBC can’t give in to government pressure . . .’
‘Of course not,’ we chorused enthusiastically one more time.
‘. . . but security, well, you can’t be too careful, can you?’
‘You can’t be too careful,’ I echoed.
‘You can’t be too careful,’ murmured Humphrey.
‘And in the end, it wasn’t a very interesting interview anyway. All been said before. Bit of a yawn, actually.’
F. A. – or Sweet F.A. as I like to think of him now – had brightened up considerably by this time. Colour had returned to his cheeks. His eyes were no longer lustreless and dead. He was now able to expound on the matter of BBC policy and practice with renewed confidence.
‘I mean,’ he explained, ‘if it’s boring, and if there are inaccuracies and security worries, the BBC wouldn’t
want
to put the interview out. That puts a completely different complexion on it.’
‘Completely different,’ I said happily.
‘Transmission,’ he went on, ‘would not be in the public interest. But I do want to make one thing absolutely clear.’
‘Yes?’ enquired Humphrey politely.
‘There can be absolutely no question,’ Francis Aubrey stated firmly and categorically, ‘of the BBC ever giving in to government pressure.’
I think it will be all right now.
April 5th
This afternoon Sir Humphrey popped in to see me. He had just received a message that the BBC had decided to drop my interview with Ludovic Kennedy. Apparently they feel it is the responsible course. Of course they do.
I thanked Humphrey, and offered him a sherry. As I thought about the events of the last few days a new thought occurred to me.
‘You know,’ I said, ‘it seems to me that, somehow, I was trapped into saying those things that would embarrass the PM.’
‘Surely not,’ said Humphrey.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I think I was dropped right in it.’
Humphrey derided this as a ridiculous thought, and asked how I could even think it. I asked him why it was ridiculous to think that Ludo tried to trap me.
‘Who?’ he asked.
‘Ludo. Ludovic Kennedy.’
Humphrey suddenly changed his tune. ‘Oh,
Ludovic Kennedy
tried to trap you. I see. Yes. I’m sure he did.’
We both agreed that everyone who works for the media is deceitful, and you can’t trust them an inch. But, now I think about it, why was he so surprised that I was talking about Ludo? Who did he
think
I was talking about?
Still, he has got me out of a frightful hole. And it was quite clear what the
quid pro quo
was expected to be. I had to suggest that we lay off the local authorities.
‘It must be admitted,’ I was forced to concede, ‘that local councillors – on the whole – are sensible, responsible people, and they’re democratically elected. Central government has to be very careful before it starts telling them how to do their job.’
‘And the failure standards?’
‘I think they can manage without them, don’t you think?’
‘Yes Minister.’
And he smiled contentedly.
But I don’t intend to let the matter drop for good. I shall return to it, after a decent interval. After all, we had a little unspoken agreement, an unwritten
détente
– but no one can hold you to an unspoken, unwritten deal, can they?
1
Senior Citizens.
2
OAPs.
17
The Moral Dimension
May 14th
I am writing this entry, not in my London flat or in my constituency house, but in the first-class compartment of a British Airways flight to the oil sheikhdom of Qumran.
We have been en route to the Persian gulf for about four and a half hours, and we should be landing in about forty-five minutes.
I’m very excited. I’ve never flown first-class before, and it’s quite different. They give you free champagne all the way and a decent meal instead of the usual monosodium glutamate plus colouring.
Also, it’s nice being a VIP – special lounge, on the plane last, general red-carpet treatment.
We’re going there to ratify the contract for one of the biggest export orders Britain has ever obtained in the Middle East.
But when I say ‘we’ I don’t just mean me and Bernard and Humphrey. In fact, I asked for an assurance in advance that we couldn’t be accused of wasting a lot of government money on the trip. Humphrey assured me that we were taking the smallest possible delegation. ‘Pared to the bone’ was the phrase he used, I distinctly remember. But now I realise that there may have been some ulterior motive in keeping me in the VIP lounge till the last possible minute.
When I actually got onto the plane I was aghast. It is
entirely
full of civil servants. In fact it transpires that the plane had to be specially chartered because there are so many of us going.
I immediately challenged Humphrey about the extravagance of chartering an aircraft. He looked at me as though I were mad, and said that it would be infinitely more expensive for all of us to go on a scheduled flight.
I’m perfectly sure that’s true. My argument is with the size of the party. ‘Who are all these people?’ I asked.
‘Our little delegation.’
‘But you just said the delegation has been pared to the bone.’
He insisted that it was. I asked him, again, to tell me who they all are. And he told me. There’s a small delegation from the FCO because, although it’s a DAA mission, the FCO doesn’t like any of us to go abroad except under their supervision. I can’t really understand that, foreign policy is not at issue on this trip, all we are doing is ratifying a contract that has already been fully negotiated between the Government of Qumran and British Electronic Systems Ltd.
Anyway, apart from the FCO delegation, there is one from the Department of Trade, and one from Industry. Also a small group from Energy, because we’re going to an oil sheikhdom. (If you ask me, that’s completely irrelevant – I reckon the Department of Energy would still demand the right to send a delegation if we were going to Switzerland – they’d probably argue that chocolate gives you energy!) Then there’s a Dep. Sec. leading a team from the Cabinet Office, a group from the COI.
1
And finally, the whole of the DAA mission: my press office, half my private office, liaison with other departments, secretaries, those from the legal department who did the contract, those who supervised the contract . . . the list is endless.
One thing’s certain: it’s certainly not been pared to the bone. I reminded Humphrey (who is sitting next to me but has nodded off after going at the free champagne like a pig with his snout in the trough) that when we were going to meet the Qumranis in Middlesbrough there were only going to be seven people coming with us.
‘Yes Minister,’ he had nodded understandingly. ‘But Teesside is perhaps not quite so diplomatically significant as Qumran.’
‘Teesside returns four MPs,’ I remarked.
‘Qumran controls Shell and BP.’
Then, suddenly, a most interesting question occurred to me.
‘Why are
you
here?’ I asked.
‘Purely my sense of duty free,’ is what I thought he had replied. I interrupted gleefully. ‘Duty free?’
He held up his hand, asking to be allowed to finish what he was saying. ‘Duty, free from any personal considerations.’
Then, changing the subject suspiciously quickly, he handed me a document headed
Final Communiqué
, and asked me to approve it.
I was still silently fuming about over a hundred Civil Service freeloaders on this trip. The whole lot of them with their trip paid for,
and
getting paid for coming. Whereas when I’d asked if Annie could come too I’d been told that a special dispensation would be needed from the King of Qumran before she could attend any public functions with me – and that, in any case, I’d have to pay for her fares, hotel bill, everything.
These bloody civil servants have got it all completely sewn up to their own advantage. This trip is costing me hundreds of pounds because Annie really wanted to come. She’s sitting opposite, chatting to Bernard, looking as though she’s having a thoroughly good time. That’s nice, anyway.
Anyway, I digress. I suddenly realised what was in my hand. Humphrey had written a final communiqué
before
the meeting. I told him he couldn’t possibly do that.
‘On the contrary, Minister, you can’t write the communiqué
after
the meeting. We have had to get agreement from half a dozen other departments, from the EEC Commission, from Washington, from the Qumrani Embassy – you can’t do that in a few hours in the middle of the desert.’
So I glanced at it. Then I pointed out that it was useless, hypothetical, sheer guesswork – it may bear no relation to what we actually say.
Sir Humphrey smiled calmly. ‘No communiqué ever bears any relation to what you actually say.’
‘So why do we have one?’
‘It’s just a sort of exit visa. Gets you past the press corps.’ Oh, I forgot to mention, the back third of this mighty aeroplane is stuffed with drunken hacks from Fleet Street, all on freebies too. Everyone except my wife, for whom I have to pay! ‘The journalists need it,’ Sir Humphrey was saying, ‘to justify their huge expenses for a futile non-event.’
I wasn’t sure that I liked my trade mission to Qumran being described as a futile non-event. He obviously saw my face fall, for he added: ‘I mean, a great triumph for you. Which is why it’s a futile non-event for the press.’
He’s right about that. Journalists hate reporting successes. ‘Yes, what they really want is for me to get drunk at the official reception.’
‘Not much hope of that.’
I asked why not, and then realised I’d asked a rather self-incriminating question. But Humphrey seemed not to notice. Instead, he replied gloomily, ‘Qumran is dry.’
‘Well, it is in the desert, isn’t it?’ I said and then I suddenly grasped what he meant. Islamic Law! Why hadn’t I realised? Why hadn’t I asked? Why hadn’t he
told
me?
It seems that we can get a drink or two at our own Embassy. But the official reception and dinner are at the Palace. For five solid hours.
Five hours without a single drinkie
.
I asked Humphrey if we could manage with hip flasks.
He shook his head. ‘Too risky. We have to grin and bear it.’
So I sat here and read the communiqué which was full of the usual guff about bonds between our two countries, common interests, frank and useful conversations and all that crap. Humphrey was reading the
FT
.
2
I was wondering what we would do if the talks were
so
far removed from what it says in the communiqué that we couldn’t sign it. Suppose there were to be a diplomatic incident at the reception. I’d have to contact London somehow. I’d need some way of directly communicating with the Foreign Secretary, for instance, or even the PM.
And then the idea flashed into my mind.
‘Humphrey,’ I suggested tentatively, ‘can’t we set up a security communications room next door to the reception? At the Sheikh’s Palace, I mean? With emergency telephones and Telex lines to Downing Street. Then we could fill it with cases of booze that we’ll smuggle in from the Embassy. We could liven up our orange juice and nobody would ever know.’