CAMERON’S SLAP IN THE FACE DAD CAN’T FORGIVE

DAD’S two least favourite Tory leaders were probably Ted Heath, the bounder who took Britain into Europe, and David Cameron (‘very able, but not enough gravitas’). But strong differences of opinion did not lead to bad blood between him and them. Indeed, one of his most treasured mementoes from his time at Westminster is a handwritten note from Ted Heath — whom Dad had voted to replace with Margaret Thatcher — thanking him for the fact that, unlike some other Tory MPs, he had acted ‘openly and honourably’. ‘Heath was an enigma,’ my father remembers. ‘Sexually, he was AC/DC, as I saw it. An unhappy misfit. But he was so lacking in basic communication skills, for such a bright man, that he was his own worst enemy.’ Stories about Heath’s gracelessness were legion. At one point, having been urged to spend more time in the Commons smoking room, talking to more backbench MPs, he did just that — only to tell one of his backbenchers, by way of small-talk: ‘That was a bloody awful speech you made today’. While my father never warmed to Heath, he certainly respected him — and he remained on reasonable terms with David Cameron, too. This was despite a fractious relationship which reached its nadir when, in 2008, in a precursor of the much bigger scandal which engulfed Parliament the following year, a story about their expenses claims hit the headlines. In short, they were accused of claiming the costs of renting a flat, which was owned by a family trust.

Crucially, the arrangement had been cleared with the Commons authorities in 2002 and a parliamentary committee largely absolved my parents from blame. A barrister with two days’ experience could have defended them without breaking a sweat.

But try telling that to a panicky young party leader in the run-up to a general election.

Instead of looking at the issues dispassionately and coming to a balanced judgment, Mr Cameron had already described the arrangement as ‘indefensible’. That was like a slap in the face, the sting of which my parents feel to this day.

Beyond that, Dad despaired of David Cameron’s Tory party and its liberalising tendencies: its priorities were light years away from the priorities of ordinary families in Cheshire.