This Honourable House

Chapter One

‘I wish,’ said Frank Bridges venomously, ‘that somebody would sort out the bloody cow once and for all.’

He picked up the chunky pint glass and downed the remains of his beer in a gulp. There were clucks of sympathy around him. To many of the thick-set, grizzled men seated at his table and nearby, Frank was the local hero. His successes were theirs, his worries grafted seamlessly on to their own. If Frank was upset, so were they.

The Right Honourable Frank Bridges, fifty years old, overweight, red-faced, crumple-suited and aggressive, should not have been upset. Indeed, he had considerable reason to be hugely pleased with his own situation, and with life in general. Newly elevated to the seat in the Cabinet he could once only have dreamed of, he was trusted by the public, envied by colleagues, and regarded with ragged affection by his constituents, who included the scruffy occupants of the Admiral Benbow, a run-down pub in a Bootle side-street near the now derelict docks.

Vic, Scouser, Bill the Fixer, Mad Max and others had truanted with him from the inner-city school where expectations were destroyed with the cane and sarcasm. As boys, they had scattered down alleys behind his stocky form, their pockets stuffed with illicit loot. But Frank had kept running, beyond the despair and hopelessness. None of the others had followed where he led. He had not gone to the dogs like them but had made something of himself. He had risen to the top, or close to it. Of Frank Bridges they were inordinately proud.

For Frank was a salt-of-the-earth type, the press generally agreed. A police sergeant had once challenged him to make a man of himself. Shamed, he had applied, with the sergeant’s gruff help, to join Liverpool police cadets; to his surprise and the ribbing of his mates he had been accepted. He had worked his way up through the byzantine networks of the force to national prominence, particularly during the bitter dock strike of 1982. In that prolonged struggle, he had contrived to become a solidly admired figure. While speaking in the same strong Merseyside accent as the militant strikers and displaying an understated, dignified disdain for the government of Margaret Thatcher, he had contrived to prevent conflict and bloodshed even as the nation’s trade was brought to a standstill. His erstwhile comrade Arthur Scargill had asked him how he had managed such a feat. Frank had begun to confess that he did not know that chance had played its part. Then he had thought better of it and suggested vaguely that working with the system was better than trying to destroy it, that politics might achieve more than the picket line. Scargill’s derision convinced him. Soon afterwards Frank offered himself as a parliamentary candidate. He had represented the Dockside division of the seaport ever since.

‘It’s a bummer, it is,’ came a voice, as more pints were splashed down on the sticky table top. The air hung thick and acrid with smoke. ‘Salt and vinegar okay?’

Frank nodded glumly and ripped open the packet of crisps, eating them two or three at a time. He brushed crumbs from his midriff, tugged impatiently at his tie and unfastened the top two buttons of his shirt. He was sweating, a damp line visible on the inside of his collar. ‘Mustn’t eat too many of these,’ he mumbled, indicating the crisps. He waved away a cigarette. ‘Look gross on the telly. Gotta keep a new young wife happy. An’ that’s another story.’

‘She’s a peach, your new lady,’ said Scouser respectfully. His accent was so strong that even Frank sometimes asked him to repeat himself. ‘Hazel, innit? You’re a lucky dog, you.’ An elbow was dug into Frank’s ribs.

‘I know, I know.’ Frank sighed. ‘But I could murder Gail. Really murder her. And that slob Melvyn. Spin doctor. The sanitation squad, he’s called. I’d like to sanitise him. Did you hear what happened? I could slaughter them both. Maybe I should arrange with some of me old mates to tie the pair of ’em together with a lump of concrete and chuck ’em in the Mersey one dark and stormy night. They deserve it.’

‘You should’ve told Melvyn where to go,’ said Vic. He wiped a roughened fist across his mouth and flexed his biceps. Vic had tried his hand at boxing in his youth; his convictions were all for GBH. Not a man to argue with.

‘Nah, couldn’t do that.’ Frank brooded. His listeners settled happily in anticipation. They were not to be disappointed.

‘There we were,’ Frank started, ‘all packed and ready to go on holiday, in the VIP lounge at Heathrow. The luggage was checked in. Gail was excited, kept prancing around and ordering more coffee just for the sake of it. God, does she love being important! I thought to myself even then, If you’d taken more interest on the way – not moaned so much about Where are you going, Frank, you off out again, Frank, another meeting is it, Frank? – then I wouldn’t have minded. But she never used to lift a finger. Now she’s Lady Muck and adores every minute.’

He took a prolonged swallow of his beer. His audience sat quietly. Once Frank was embarked on a tale, he needed no prompting.

‘So the phone goes. The mobile. I’d forgotten to switch it off – you know how keen the Boss is that we keep in touch. Oh, Frank, she says,’ he mimicked a woman’s high-pitched voice, ‘"oh, Frank, not again. Surely not. We’re going on holiday. To the Seychelles.’ He raised his voice to show that Gail was determined everyone in earshot should hear. ‘First class. Couldn’t you have left it at home for once?" Only what she didn’t know was that it was that bastard Melvyn. An’ he’s on the line to say the News of the World’s got a story on me and Hazel. Pictures of her coming out of my flat in Westminster. And what do I want to do?’

‘How did they get them pictures? Was it a set-up?’Vic asked.

‘Nah. Not really. She comes to my place regularly in her car, see, and parks it on a meter. So I go out in the morning when my driver comes, and I feed the meter. And there’s a journalist hanging about, and instead of pushing off when I leave, he’s curious. He knows Gail’s in Cheshire. So why’m I feeding a meter? Who’s there? And when Hazel shows and jumps in her car, his nose tells him he’s got a scoop. After that he hovers with a photographer till it happens again, and out they pop and confront her. Bob’s your uncle.’

Heads were shaken at the brazen callousness of the gutter press. ‘They don’t care,’ said Mad Max, and cracked his knuckles.

‘Bastards,’ added Vic, with menace.

‘So then we have Mr Melvyn O’Connor, spin doctor number two – number one, Mr Alistair McDonald, being on duty elsewhere – Mr Melvyn O’Connor, who’s never done a proper day’s grafting ever, calling me to say the Boss is asking which way I’ll jump. Who’s going to be on the guest list in future? Is it the wife, or the girlfriend? He’ll back my decision either way and doesn’t want to push me, but they need an answer so they can put out a statement. Would I mind deciding? Honest, right in the middle of the VIP departure lounge, with me cursing like a trooper and Gail telling me to mind my language. God.’

Frank was breathing heavily. The events he was describing had taken place barely three months before. ‘So I looked at my lovely wife, and all I could see was this mouth with big teeth in it opening and closing, and it was like no sound was coming out. And I thought, I’ve put up with enough. I don’t want to spend another minute with you. At least Hazel’s kind, and takes an interest in politics, and gives me a kiss in bed.’

Conscious perhaps that he had gone a bit far, Frank cradled his glass. His audience shifted restlessly.

‘She’s young enough to be your daughter, you old dog, you,’ came an anonymous voice from the back of the group. Laughter floated in the air, and Frank chuckled.

‘There is that,’ he agreed. ‘But the big difference with this younger generation, compared to, say, the girls we grew up with, is they’re keen on it. Sex, I mean. Take it for granted. You don’t have to negotiate, just perform. With Gail at times, getting a fuck was like taking on the entire TUC in a triple composite motion. Between the two of them there was no contest.’

The middle-aged drinkers contemplated in mute wonder the prospect of readily available sex. Stifled sniggers came from two younger men and were quickly hushed. ‘But now,’ Vic snorted, ‘now she’s getting her own back, isn’t she? Or trying to.’

For answer Frank put his head in his hands. A groan came from the depths of his unshaven jowls. ‘She’s been on every telly programme, on all channels and cable. BBC Radio Two, Four and Five Live, twice. LBC and TalkSport. They had a field day. She’s been to see that Clifford Maxwell. He must reckon there’s mileage in it. Plus something for him. He got her out of those purple suits and costume jewellery and into a soft little cream knitted number. Taught her to keep her mouth shut in answer to questions and just look pained. She must have been practising for bleedin’ hours. I don’t remember Gail ever shutting up long enough for anyone else to get a word in edgeways. On radio she gulps as if she’s going to cry. Christ!’

‘The wronged wife,’ murmured Scouser.

‘Trying to fix you up,’ agreed Bill the Fixer.

‘A woman scorned,’ added Max, the intellectual of the group.

‘And now, to top everything, she’s going to write a book. Says she’ll lay bare the secrets of our unhappy marriage. About my drinking. My womanising, so-called. My tyrannical behaviour. How I put ambition and politics before everything else. How I made her days and nights a misery. I shouldn’t be surprised if we get the screwed-up secrets of the bedchamber, with her as the willing partner and me incapable. Huh!’

‘You’re not incapable, are you, Frank?’ Scouser asked anxiously. ‘As you get older …’

‘No, of course not,’ Frank answered brusquely. ‘Don’t talk crap. If I was, Hazel wouldn’t have stuck by me, would she? No sweat in that quarter.’

‘So your Gail’s going to say you were chasing other women but couldn’t get it up with her.’ A note of incredulity had entered Bill’s voice. Frank grunted.

‘You was too young, you and her. She wasn’t twenty-one when you got married.’ Vic had sat behind both Gail and Frank at Toxteth secondary modern school on those few occasions he had attended.

‘Yeah, well, she’d announced she was in the family way, hadn’t she? I couldn’t leave her in the lurch. An’ I wanted to be married, to be truthful. Them days, you wanted sex, it was tarts or the register office. I fancied the idea of having it off every night on demand, and my shirts ironed and a hot dinner on the table to boot.’ Frank grinned wryly. ‘Maybe I was always respectable at heart. Then: no baby. Said she’d lost it. Turned out no babies were possible, ever.’

‘Maybe she’d have been less of a shrew if she’d had some.’

‘Now, now. She’s not a bad woman. We were together over a quarter of a century – remember our silver wedding at the Adelphi? And we did have great times. But if she carries on like this, if she publishes this damned fantasy book she’s threatening, and doing what that sod Clifford Maxwell tells her, she’ll turn me into a laughing stock.’

‘It won’t affect your career, though, will it?’ Scouser pinched Frank’s arm, then collected the empty glasses. ‘I’ll get them in – it’s my round.’

‘Of course it bloody will,’ Frank called loudly after him. ‘Bloody squeaky clean new government, promising Nirvana on earth, got itself elected with the biggest majority for a century and plans to stay there. No more one term and you’re out. The Boss intends to settle in at Number Ten. The Great Project means we’re in for a generation. And that means no mistakes.’

The bartender slouched across, sodden cloth in hand, and made a show of wiping spills. Frank raised his head. ‘You know what else? They’re giving her a column in a women’s magazine. She’s going to offer advice to readers who write in with their problems. Her! She couldn’t sort out her own stupid problems, let alone anybody else’s. But she’ll be the credible one in future, and I’ll be a standing joke.’

His supporters were aware of that already. In nightclubs and comedy routines up and down the country Frank’s amorous antics were the subject of much ribald comment.

‘You could do with her shutting up, then, Frank,’ came from the edge of the crowd. Others clucked again and whispered.

‘I could do with her being scared shitless,’ Frank growled. His speech was becoming slurred. ‘Never mind bloody woman scorned. I could do with somebody telling her that hell hath no bloody fury like a Cabinet minister driven to distraction. I’ve only been in the job five minutes, for heaven’s sake. Never thought I’d get this far. In the Cabinet! Hundred grand a year, chauffeur-driven Jag, first-class travel, all found. Everybody grovelling, yes, sir, no, sir, three bags full, sir. Worked fucking hard for it, mind you. But bloody Gail’s doing her best to spoil it. And bloody Gail’s got to go.’

‘Understood, Frank. Now don’t you upset yourself any further,’ Bill the Fixer soothed. A fistful of filled glasses was deposited on the table. ‘Drink up. Would you like a chaser?’

Chapter Two

Mrs Maddie Ashworth adjusted her son’s grey silk tie, lifting it out from his neck in an exaggerated arc. The shoulders of his black tail coat had acquired bits of fluff, which she swept off with gloved fingers and an expression of distaste. She stood back. ‘That’s better,’ she announced, and allowed herself a satisfied nod.

Benedict flattened the tie to its original position. His nose wrinkled discreetly against his mother’s perfume: too much, and too girlish a scent, for a mature woman. Avoiding her fluttering hands, he pinned the carnation to his lapel without mishap, then brushed his thinning hair and turned his slim frame to and fro in front of the mirror.

‘So, will I do, Mother?’

‘Oh, yes, m’dear. You’ll do,’ said his mother. As usual she made no attempt to hide the north Devon accent. For years her son had squirmed at his speech and tried to eradicate it, but more recently its lilt had marked him out as distinctive without being outlandish, and he had allowed it to emerge once again.

Her bosom swelled beneath the orange tulle, and the cartwheel hat dipped in pride. She had also, Benedict noticed, applied far too much lipstick; soon it would be transferred to glasses, cups and whatever cheeks she could reach. He resolved to avoid it on his own, though that would require as much tact as he could muster. Smudges of facial apricot in the press photos would never do.

A knock on the door heralded his cousin Lawrence who had volunteered to be best man. Lawrence avoided the lipstick with an adroit air kiss, and grinned over his aunt’s head.

‘Got everything?’ Benedict whispered. ‘The ring? Your speech?’

Lawrence patted his morning suit breast pocket. ‘Everything’s in order.’ He turned to Mrs Ashworth. ‘You must be immensely proud of your son today. What a summer it’s been for him! First the election, then becoming leader of the party, and now –’

‘Trust you to think of politics first,’ Mrs Ashworth chided. ‘Today of all days. With that adorable girl waiting for him too. Shame on you.’

‘It hasn’t been quite so brilliant. True success would have meant we ended up holding the balance of power. Then I might have had a seat in the Cabinet.’ Benedict was distractedly collecting wallet and keys as he spoke, but his tone was mild.

‘You doubled the number of seats. You made the party a force to be reckoned with.’ Lawrence was firm. Maddie Ashworth snorted her impatience but was ignored. ‘The government has to take you seriously now, and the media. That’s more than can be said for your predecessor.’

‘But I didn’t win those seats. I can’t take the credit. We did best where the turnout was low, where the voters hated the old government but didn’t trust the new lot. So we New Democrats benefited from a plague on both your houses mentality. If we’re to get to the stage where Cabinet office is automatically mine, we have a mountain to climb. Not least since the official Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition is after it too.’

‘I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes,’ Lawrence remarked, a tad smugly. ‘You’re leading success, he’s leading failure. Sleaze, incompetence, indecision – they lost the plot, didn’t they? And they’re still fighting like cats over who to blame. The old Prime Minister’s been air-brushed from history, while his predecessor thinks she’s still in the driving seat. Poor Johnson has a helluva job on, if he’s to knock that rabble into shape by next time.’

‘No chance. Not unless the Prime Minister comes a complete cropper. And I don’t think he will – only a few weeks into the job, but he’s been very sure-footed so far – The Grand Project! He plans to be there till his dotage.’ Lawrence looked rueful. Then, realising that perhaps this was not the most encouraging comment to make to the leader of one of Westminster’s minority parties, he added hastily, ‘By which date he’ll be relying heavily on you, and us, to hang on. We’ll be calling the shots.’

‘I do hope so,’ said Benedict graciously, but his eyes were amused.

‘You’ll be Prime Minister some day, I’ve often said so,’ said his mother stoutly. ‘You could’ve joined either party. You could’ve been Prime Minister yourself already.’ Benedict exchanged wry glances with his cousin. ‘I’d rather you didn’t go round suggesting that my commitment to the New Democrats is less than sincere, Mother,’ he said smoothly. ‘I joined them at college because I believed in what they stood for.’

‘But you’ve met the Queen. Kissed hands! What was it? Some council?’ His mother’s nervous energy, which Benedict had inherited and regularly obliged himself to quell, surfaced in her hectoring tone.

‘The Privy Council. All that means, Mother, is that I’m a Right Honourable. And that the Prime Minister can tell me state secrets, if he should so choose. Not that he will, naturally. It’s an honour, no more. Power does not reside in anything so simple.’

At a warning glance from Lawrence, who tapped his watch, Mrs Ashworth’s mouth snapped shut. Benedict found her bag and gave it to her. ‘Meanwhile, Mother, we have other matters to attend to today.’

He opened the door and ushered her through. She began to march down the hall. As soon as she was out of earshot, Lawrence put an urgent hand on his cousin’s arm. ‘You absolutely sure you’re doing the wise thing, Benedict?’

Benedict glanced away, his face sombre. ‘Of course I am. Christine is a wonderful person. She understands. We have talked about it. I’m not a complete idiot, nor would I mislead her. What do you take me for?’

Lawrence stepped back, squared his shoulders, hesitated, then smiled. ‘A happily married man, in a few minutes,’ he offered. ‘Let’s go.’

The wedding of a second-rank politician would not normally have caused a stir. But, as Jim Betts of the Globe had to admit, there was something so fresh and charming about Benedict Ashworth that his doings attracted more than their fair share of interest. He was the type of public figure who restored the faith of a jaded electorate. Every man’s neighbour, every mother’s son, the journalist reflected, as the cable television cameras caught Benedict emerging from his flat near Trafalgar Square into the sunshine.

With Lawrence on one side and his outlandishly dressed mother coquettish on his arm, Benedict started to walk along Whitehall towards St Margaret’s. The New Democracy Party leader was quite tall, though on television that often did not register. He had risen to prominence not by brilliance in the Commons chamber (though his quips were earning a place in anthologies), but because he pursued the bywaters of popular communication: daytime television, live radio, the satellite channels, whose audiences adored him. Like many others in the trade he was handy with a sound bite, but his remarks were distinguished by their pointed humour and intelligence. Benedict did not claim to talk common sense, like ‘poor Johnson’, the struggling opposition chief. Benedict simply went ahead and did it. In the studio he had rapidly mastered the techniques of the small gesture, the slight shrug of self-deprecation that made him the darling of matrons like his mother and the target of the affections both of younger women and of some men.

Jim Betts paced restlessly about the Globe’s newsroom. The monitor on the wall showed Benedict’s progress past the statues of Montgomery and Allenbrooke outside the Ministry of Defence, past Whitehall Palace and Richmond House. Police officers kept well-wishers and the curious at bay. At the Department of Health a gaggle of protestors on abortion waved banners at him but he acknowledged them without breaking his stride. Already the Democrats’ new leader was widely recognised, with hands held out to him to be shaken. A teenage girl detached herself from a family cluster, darted forward and gave him a hug, leaving the recipient obviously startled; but the cameras caught his half-smile even as he sidestepped out of harm’s way.

Betts stroked his upper lip pensively, then remembered that the moustache had gone. He had taken a razor to it the day he had achieved his own ambition, promotion to political editor. It wouldn’t do: hair round the mouth looked louche and a senior post-holder needed gravitas. The lips had to be seen to move cleanly, as if this guaranteed the probity of the words spoken. Ken Livingstone and Peter Mandelson had gone the same route; indeed, in the months leading up to the election, many of the new Prime Minister’s acolytes had done exactly the same thing. Beards and facial hair, once the badge of left-wing defiance, had vanished. Out, too, went denim jackets and T-shirts. If the future Prime Minister chose to be photographed in a white shirt and neatly anonymous tie, as if he’d trained at McKinsey’s, then that was the official style. His troops, apart from a few Neanderthals, had adopted it with alacrity.

That left a problem for the women. But after some confusion and a spate of unflattering grey and beige, Betts had been intrigued to observe their increased adherence to the sartorial styles of a previous incumbent of Number Ten, whom the new Prime Minister was known to admire. The lady Members turned to power dressing in bold colours with big shoulders. It was no accident that many of them began to resemble the first woman Prime Minister.

The performance was all. Betts had to guess what was genuine and what wasn’t. On his off-days, of which this was one, his task was reduced to reporting what the politicians wanted him to report. For once his editor Pansy Illingworth, the chain-smoking, scatty-haired, husky-voiced survivor of feminist writing and life, who was usually a straightforward cynic, wouldn’t have it any other way. A warm human story about the Ashworths was what she had demanded at the morning conference, and she had instructed him to tell it straight. ‘We congratulate the happy couple, wish them every happiness, their perfect day’ – sentiments of that sort. The notion made Betts feel quite ill.

A commotion behind him and the reek of a Gauloise announced Pansy’s arrival in the newsroom. Only she dared defy the no-smoking notices throughout the building. Mostly she kept moving fast enough to outwit the smoke detectors, but security staff were aware that, should a fire alarm sound, they should check her location first. It was believed that Pansy had had a smoking clause written into her contract; the newspaper’s proprietors, keen to stem falling circulation and frantic to secure her services, had not quibbled.

‘Hi, Jim!’ Pansy pinched his arm. ‘How’s it going? How are the lovebirds?’

Betts controlled a grimace. He preferred to be called James, or even the more manly Betts, and he did not like being patronised by his superiors. For answer he pointed at the screen. The camera outside Christine’s Chelsea home showed her resplendent in white, being helped into a Rolls-Royce by her father. The future Mrs Ashworth was thirty, curvaceous, brainy and ambitious. Quite a catch.

It was generally assumed that this was a political marriage with shared ideals and objectives. They had been seen out together for a year or two, and had reportedly met at party conferences where she had been head of communications while Benedict was in charge of research. It was rumoured, however, that pressure from his formidable mother plus hints from the constituency had led to his proposal. A man of thirty-five should be married, especially if he wished to preserve his wholesome image. Of course, in the new century such considerations shouldn’t matter, but they did, especially outside the metropolis. Christine, it was said, had needed no persuading.

‘She needs watching, Jim. It doesn’t feel real to me.’ Pansy sniffed. ‘Why should a smart young woman like that be willing to throw up her own career to follow her husband? If economic policy and the constitution fascinate her so much, why doesn’t she stand for Parliament herself?’

‘She’s not throwing up a career,’ Betts pointed out. ‘She’s simply taking on a new one, that of the official Mrs Ashworth. She’s set up her own PR company. She intends to give her clients excellent service.’

‘So naturally, Jim, you’ll keep an eye on which clients. Conflicts of interest, for sure.’

Betts nodded. This assumption of the amorality of anyone who might merit a headline suited him fine.

‘It’s more independent than slaving in her husband’s office, I guess,’ Pansy conceded. She flicked cigarette ash on the floor. ‘But there’s something rotten in that woodwork, I can feel it. She’s got class. She could be a leading light of the piddling little New Democrats herself. Why the hell would she want to ride around on her husband’s coat-tails?’

‘Love, maybe?’ Betts said, but the suggestion made them both guffaw. He became bolder. ‘Look, Pansy, it may be hard for you rabid feminists to accept that some women prefer to float around in somebody else’s jet-stream, but it makes for an easy life. Used to be standard practice for all Tory wives, for instance. Till their husbands’ infidelity exposed it for the sham it was.’

Pansy snickered. ‘And you were in the forefront of the exposers, Jim.’

Betts preened himself. The Press Gallery Award for Journalist of the Year was framed above his workspace. ‘Mrs Christine Ashworth, as she’s about to become, is no fool. She’s figured out what’s in it for her. She’s not in competition with her hubby. But if she, or those like her, get to play hostess at Chequers or Number Ten, then it’ll be as a spouse, not as an office-holder in her own name. They play dumb but they ain’t. They can avoid responsibility for what’s dodgy but bask in reflected light when things go well. That’ll keep her very happy.’

‘Mmm. I bow to your judgement. Our readers might agree, the older ones, but remember our target audience is much younger, Jim. So, Ashworth himself, what do you make of him? What makes our Benedict everybody’s darling?’

‘He comes across as nice. Genuine, if you like. A polite boy, sweet to that ghastly ma who’d try the patience of a saint. Basically decent.’ Betts shrugged.

‘God save us from decent politicians. They’d put us out of business in no time – we’d have nothing to write about. Only the mad, the bad and the stupid want to go into Parliament. Isn’t that the view you peddle at every morning conference?’

‘Correct. I can’t figure out why anybody normal would sincerely want to be an MP.’ Betts waved away the offer of a Gauloise. ‘The money’s terrible, the hours anti-social, the rewards dismal. They’re blamed for everything that goes wrong and get no credit for any success – certainly not from us. The daily thrust of the job’s a chore, answering all those whingeing letters from constituents and pressure groups. Waiting to catch the Speaker’s eye for five seconds of prime time. When light dawns on the brighter ones, it’s too late. Outside politics, most are unemployable.’

‘With a few exceptions who write for the Guardian or get jobs on talk radio,’ Pansy joined in, laughing.

‘How many ex-MPs did we discover had ended up on the dole? About forty, wasn’t it? And those are the guys who were running the country last year,’ Betts agreed.

‘It’s a funny old world,’ Pansy drawled, in a passable imitation of Margaret Thatcher.

She pinched his arm again and scurried away. The discussion had served to focus Betts’s own doubts about the fairytale pictures unfolding on the screen. He watched Benedict’s arrival at the church. Like so many others of his ilk the man had read politics at university, been active in the student union, got a job, probably unpaid, in some MP’s office, done a stretch in the party’s research department and been hooked for life. It was a sickness, an infection. Whether they were born with oversized egos or acquired them along the way was a moot point. There should be a government warning issued with every college politics course that the condition was catching, dangerous and incurable, and would leave sufferers the object of ridicule for as long as they were remembered. Their opiate was public adulation. Being forgotten, of course, was the ultimate humiliation.

Nobody sane would see Parliament as a respectable occupation, Betts reasoned, not if he or she could earn a living doing anything else. They should be out running a business or tossing money around in the City, or in the wig and gown of a lawyer. Betts shuddered. He hated lawyers. In a just world, newspapermen would be