Bribery? Count me in, minister!
Oh the joy of being an MP when leadership rivals race to offer you plum jobs for your vote, reveals a Tory veteran in this wickedly funny account
ANyONE phoning me at the end of 1990 would have heard the following: ‘If you’re one of the candidates for PM, I would like to be Governor of the Cayman Islands, but if you have a better offer, please leave it after the tone . . .
This was the answerphone message I recorded after Margaret Thatcher’s defeat in the first leadership ballot, following her resignation that November.
Having been a trouble-making, but devoted, Thatcherite since my election to Parliament in 1979, I was now going to have one of only 372 votes in the subsequent ballot to decide who would succeed her.
Little nonentity backbench Brown had it in the power of his stubby pencil to choose the next Prime Minister — and I milked it for all it was worth.
I had no particular preference between Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd, Michael Heseltine or John Major. I was up for grabs and, boy, did I savour every moment of those frenetic days. After demanding that Hurd came to my broom-cupboard office, I relented and went to his tennis courtsized room at the Foreign Office.
‘Who’d have thought a secondary modern-educated, 11-plus-failed oik like me would be interviewing you, the Foreign Secretary, for the job of Prime Minister,’ I told the stunned grandee with a winning smile. He went very pink and looked horribly embarrassed.
Soon after, I received a call at home from Latex line-up: Spitting Image’s 1990 leadership candidates Heseltine, Major and Hurd the beard (Stephen Crabb), and his sidekick — the ugly bald one (Sajid Javid).
We will see bizarre decisions. Hapless Nicky Morgan, the Education Secretary, has persistently called for a woman leader.
Thankfully, she has not stood herself. But now that she can choose from Theresa May or Andrea Leadsom, she’s voting for Gove. Watch the cat-fight over her Cabinet future if Theresa wins.
The magisterial Old Etonian, Sir Nicholas Soames, meanwhile, called Boris ‘an ocean-going clot’, but came out quickly for . . . Boris, a fellow Old Etonian.
Where does Soames’ vote go now? Gove, May and the Bearded One are all stressing their humble roots. Sir Nicholas generally votes for good lunches and grandeur, not for humility.
Very often, loyalties will be swayed by previous acts of kindness, and favours done for backbenchers by leadership candidates.
In my case, what stuck in my mind was Michael Heseltine’s visit to my constituency association annual dinner (after which he stayed overnight at my home near Scunthorpe) when he was Secretary of State for Defence in 1985.
He stayed at my house with all his security bells and whistles. I loved the whole fandango, and I made sure his favourite tipple, pink champagne, was on offer.
He asked my gardener to show him my trees and, shortly afterwards, he sent me a small sapling from his arboretum. He also came to speak for me at the subsequent