Bremner hoax ‘could have brought down Major’
IMPRESSIONIST Rory Bremner was so good at doing then-prime Minister John Major it was feared he could end the shaky government, a peer has revealed.
Michael Grade, Channel 4 boss at the time, says he was asked to stop Bremner’s prank calls in case he tricked chancellor Kenneth Clarke into leaking details of his Budget.
Major – now Sir John – was clinging on with a slender majority when Eurosceptic MP Sir Richard Body was tricked by the comic.
Sir Richard was one of the rebels the PM famously described as “bastards”.
It was thought Bremner could go on to hoodwink others and spell electoral disaster for the
Tories. The hoax calls were made in 1993 for the political satirist’s series Rory Bremner,Who Else?
Lord Grade revealed Sir Robin Butler, Cabinet secretary of the time, called him and said: “We have a bit of a problem. Your Mr Rory Bremner. He’s very good at impersonating the prime minister. He’s been ringing MPs.
“We don’t have a problem with that but the issue we have is that he’s so good. He could ring the chancellor and get the
Budget.” Lord Grade, now 76, says he told Sir Robin: “Oh, I get the point. Leave it with me.” Rory’s team agreed not to air the call, which Sir Robin told him was a “great relief”.
Bremner, 58, confirmed he rang Mr Body, saying: “We hadn’t got a script, we were just making it up. It went very well.
“John Major said, ‘Well this is very funny but it could get quite serious’, so there was this hunt going on.” The comic also duped Labour’s Margaret Beckett in 2005 by pretending to be then-chancellor Gordon Brown ringing to discuss Cabinet jobs. Lawyers pulled the broadcast.