24. Breakfast With The Polls

What Ho Proles!

I want to make it abundantly clear that I had nothing to do with the bugging of Jeremiah Finch’s Morris Minor. No matter what rumours you’ve heard or newspaper reports you’ve read, the simple truth remains that I was too busy stealing the man’s pipe when that decision was taken.
I say this, of course, understanding that the oldest of all the political dark arts has always been the ability to appear virtuous when deep in the proverbial quagmire. And, occasionally, being political astute does mean ignoring the realities of your life. ‘Whiteness at all costs’ is the cry of all Westminster bandits; irrespective of whether we’re actually up to our ears in filth, cavorting with one or more mistress, or being blackmailed by an ungrateful pooch who has incriminating photographs locked away in its lawyer’s safe.

I call this the eternal political condition. It’s been around since the pyramids, or at least, since those ancient Egyptians discovered a thing or two about burying secrets. That’s why their tombs were built with enough elbow room for all the administrators, attendants, and scullery maids, who knew too many of the pharaoh’s peccadilloes to be allowed to go on to star on the late night chat show circuit, peddling their grubby little biographies.

Let me tell you that modern political life is no different, except, instead of being entombed beneath five hundred feet of cut sandstone, those with insider secrets are usually doled off to the European Parliament on a hefty salary and with a title that usually involves some combination of the words ‘commissioner’, ‘inspectorate’, and ‘cheese’.

It’s been said that avoiding bean spillage is a knack that younger politicians usually find the most difficult simply because they haven’t sinned enough to spot a potential newspaper headline. I, on the other hand, can profess to have mastered it at an early age. You might say that I’ve had plenty of practice as I’ve had a few too many secrets to bury.

The key rule in these situations is never to leave anything to chance. You must ensure that you retain a high degree of plausible deniability and this is why, after I discovered what had been done in my name, I left Larry Harris to handle the material coming from the electronic intelligence wing of the Murgatroid campaign. I knew only too well what trouble Nixon found himself over a few tape recordings.

(Let me just add as an aside: I do believe that people have got to know whether or not their MP is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook. I've earned everything I've got. Everything, that is, except the Hall, the estate, my education, the Bentley (won in a shooting contest), My Man (ditto), my job (father does have connections), and the majority of the money I have in my various bank accounts. Everything else came through the old fashioned application of blood, sweat, tears, buckshot, and so on.)

All of this is the longwinded way of saying that when many bad deeds were done in my name that Friday afternoon, I was hard at work in my study and knew nothing about them.
As the rest of the team kept station in Cropper’s small attic bedroom listening post, I was at my desk, where I would stay for the weekend; preparing speeches for the campaign ahead and ghost-writing a column on the life of a politician’s duck for the following week’s edition of the Telegraph (it appears in the edition for April 21st).

When Monday morning came around, I was raring to go and roused myself early to catch breakfast in the dining room.

Despite what you think of me, I don’t take every meal in bed and with so many guests around the house, I thought it only right to set the standard by which I expected my team to work. Since I’d pretty much ignored their comings and goings over that weekend, I thought it time to reconnect with them.

That’s why, on Monday, 17th April, I was up early at eight; washed and shaved by eight fifteen; dressed in the full uniform of the country squire by half past; and enjoying the rousing symphony of fork and knife against eggs, bacon, and plate by eight forty five. Samantha Spoons was sitting reading the newspapers at a corner table, while Colonel Cropper was making the most of a fry up as Cyril Henderson lectured Melvin Jenkins on the benefit of abstinence. I wanted to raise an optimistic flag for these people about my eventual electoral victory and I was quite glad to see that Larry had piped himself onboard the same ship. He appeared on the stroke of nine, a bundle of papers in his left hand and a large cup of black coffee steaming in his right.

‘We have the first results of our polling,’ he said, carefully setting his cup down before rustling a sheet of paper under my nose. I didn’t know what he expected me to do: read the papers or blow my nose into them.

‘How large is my margin?’ I asked as I cut my way into a rasher of bacon.

‘Sizable but not so large that we need to worry at this stage.’

‘Worry? Why on earth would I want to worry? Let the margin get as big as it likes. I’m not too proud to win by a landslide.’

His face darkened. ‘Oh, but you’re not leading the poll,’ he said and, blow me, if he didn’t start to laugh!

The sound of knife and fork falling to plate silenced the dining room for a moment.

‘What do you mean: not leading?’ I hissed.

‘I mean, you’re not first.’

‘Not first? You mean I’m...’ I tried to swallow the word rather than speak it aloud but my throat had gone dry. ‘You mean I’m second?’ I said, my voice now reduced to a whisper.

‘Secondish,’ said Larry handing the polling statistics to me. ‘Actually, you’re third. The Lib Dems are still out ahead with a good six point lead. But it’s neck and neck between you and Mrs. Granger for second.’

That was enough to put me right off my French toast. I ran my eyes over the results.
‘I’m neck and neck with a lollipop lady who’s running on a manifesto meant to see me off?’

‘T.H.U.M.P. appears to have a strong following in some areas of the constituency,’ he explained before his face brightened at some hint of optimism that I had yet to see. ‘But when you look at the figures, you’ll see that you’ve narrowed the gap with the Lib Dems since the last election, especially in one of the key demographics.’

‘And which demographic would that be?’

‘Illiterate farm workers,’ he said. ‘They love your anti-Europe message and general intolerance. And the good news is that in all other demographics, Mr. Mullins is proving a winner.’

‘So, I trail in the polls except for people who cannot read, but Mr. Mullins is proving popular with the rest?’

‘That’s about it,’ he said before sipping his coffee. I almost wished it even hotter when he winced as it scalded his tongue.

‘Well, we need to improve matters,’ I said, setting my eyes to my breakfast. ‘We need proper plans to overcome my two opponents.’ I picked up a toast soldier and jammed it into the yolk of one of my fried eggs. I felt faintly ill as the yolk ran and I imagined the yellow expansion of Liberal Democrat victories over John Snow’s election night map.

‘Well, on that score,’ said Larry, ‘we’ve got an ace up our sleeve,’ he said.
‘What form of ace?’

‘Cropper,’ he said, nodding to the man slurping at his morning tomato. ‘You remember the little device he planted in Finch’s car?’

‘It was not my idea,’ I said, ensuring that plausible deniability I went on about for so long at the head of this chapter.

‘Well, I swear on Margaret Thatcher’s handbag that the man’s a genius. He tells me he can pick up military communications with his equipment and though I can’t confirm that, I can confirm that he can twiddle with a knob in a way that it would unfair to describe as anything but professional.’

I picked at the bacon and chewed it without enthusiasm. I hadn’t been happy with Cropper’s assumption that he could erect his radio masts wherever he liked. I didn’t mind them fixed to the chimneys but when I looked out of my window and saw the ornamental fountain and the nymph Diana waving a parabolic antenna, I did wonder if it had gone a little beyond the neoclassical look of the garden. It might also have been my imagination but I swear there had also been more low flying jumbo jets above our heads that weekend and a couple had looked ready to make their final approaches.

‘Are you telling me that he’s discovered something?’ I asked, turning back to Larry.

‘He did tape a rather interesting conversation lat discussion last night,’ he said and began to page through his file. He pulled a sheet clear and slid it across the table. It wedged itself under my plate. ‘This is a transcript between Finch and his sister.’

‘So?’

He tapped the page. ‘His sister has some pretty strong opinions about car drivers.’

‘As have we all,’ I replied. ‘I’ve told you on many occasions we should be running with a word of two about Fiats in my manifesto. They should be stopped at the border.’

‘No,’ he said, tapping the page again. ‘Look at the name.’

I peered where his finger sat on the page and read the word.

‘Milly?’

‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘Milly.’

‘So?’

‘So? So her full name is Millicent Granger.’

‘The lollipop lady!’

‘One and the same,’ he smiled. ‘The person currently sitting in second place in the polls happens to be the sister of the man hounding you about the harvest festival and your campaign mascot.’

It took me a moment or two to clear a piece of bacon that had become trapped in my incisors before my brain turned all its resources to the discussion at hand. Finally, things began to spark and I came alive.

‘The rotten lot!’ I cried. ‘It’s a conspiracy!’

‘Of course it is!’

‘The dirty rotters!’

‘But information is power, Jacob.’

‘It damn well is. I’m going to see him this very afternoon.’

‘I wouldn’t advise that.’

I threw down my napkin. There are few things in life you should try to restrain than a Murgatroid on the offensive and dressed in English tweed.

‘And why not?’ I asked. ‘Let me march in on him and see how he likes those apples.’

‘But we have a better idea.’

‘Such as?’

He sat back and pulled a cigar from his inner pocket. He made me wait as he lit it and then smiled.

‘I think I’ll let Cyril tell you about that,’ he said before disappearing into a cloud of smoke.