Lord Bonkers 30 years ago: The Book of Revelation and Earl Russell (but not his Big Band)

"The first of the month," observed Lord Bonkers this morning. I knew what he was hinting at: it's time again for me to see what the old boy was doing 30 years ago.

So here's an entry from Liberator 229 (June 1995):

Sunday

To St Asquith's, where the Reverend Hughes is in particularly good form. His text is taken from the Book of Revelation (3: 15-16): "I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth." I feel that has a great deal to say to all of is in the "Liberal Democrats".

My guest as lunch afterwards is Earl Russell, and the pleasure of his company is only enhanced by his tact in not bringing his Big Band with him. I am no great lover of their music  - it fails to "turn my bird", as Meadowcroft would put it - and they do tend to eat rather a lot.

Our conversation ranges widely, and, as ever, my companion proves sound on every point. In a sensibly ordered country this man would be prime minister.

This Liberator also contains my review of Julian Critchley's memoirs A Bag of Boiled Sweets. Two years later I found myself staying at a hotel in Devon run by the granddaughter of Critchley's prep school headmaster, who was mentioned in the book.

She told me she played in goal for the school football team. When another school complained about this, the rest of her team all said they would refuse to play without her.

The soft man of Brexit? Steve Baker goes on holiday during the election campaign

Steve Baker, who had a majority of 4214 over Labour in his Wycombe constituency in 2019, has flown off to Crete for a holiday, despite the general election.

The Mirror reports:

Northern Ireland Minister Steve Baker defiantly told The Mirror that he had continued with his holiday plans despite Rishi Sunak calling a snap election. He said that before he booked his break, he and fellow MPs were assured by the PM that it would be ok to head off to the beach this week.

Baker has also complained that Sunak's National Service policy was sprung on ministers and MPs by special advisers without being properly discussed.

But let's stay with his holiday because it gives me an excuse to quote one of my favourite passages from one of my favourite political memoirs.

Here's Julian Critchley in his A Bag of Boiled Sweets:

David James, who retired from Parliament as Member for Dorset North in 1979, was dotty. His reputation for eccentricity dated from 1964 when as Tory MP for Brighton, Kemptown, he lost his seat to Labour by seven votes. 

When, a few days after Alec Douglas-Home's defeat (and my own at Rochester), I went to Conservative Central Office to interview the then chairman of the party John Hare, I murmured some words of sympathy. We had, after all, just lost a general election after thirteen years in office.

"It's all that silly bugger David James's fault," cried Hare. "The fool spent most of the three-week campaign in Scotland looking for the Loch Ness Monster." Indeed, he had, and the tabloid press had been full of it. 

The papers claimed that every so often a cable would arrive from some godforsaken Scottish village addressed to the Kemptown Tory agent "Have almost found the Monster. Hope all goes well with the campaign."

Harold Macmillan on why Oswald Mosley failed

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From Julian Critchley's memoirs A Bag of Boiled Sweets, published in 1994:

Macmillan greeted me gravely, and we lunched together. I noticed on the grand piano, among the clutter of signed photographs of heads of state in silver frames, a copy of Mosley's autobiography, which had just been published.

To make conversation, I asked Harold what he thought of Oswald Mosley. Immediately, he came to life: "Ah Tom Mosley, quite the most able man I have ever met, but quite mad. He came to me once and said 'Harold, I'm thinking of putting my people into black shirts.' 'Tom,' I replied, 'you must be mad. Whenever the British feel strongly about anything, they wear grey flannel trousers and tweed jackets.'"

Brexit is the fools' revenge on Harold Macmillan

Visiting Julian Critchley's grave at Wistanstow in Shropshire, I quoted an interview he once gave to Naim Attallah:

"I had two heroes in politics: Macmillan and Roy Jenkins. Macmillan, because he controlled to a very great extent Britain’s decline in power and was responsible for our adjustment in straitened circumstances – something he managed despite a party of fools. 

"My admiration for Roy Jenkins was based on the fact that as a young Labour MP he would advocate the cause of Europe in cross-party meetings, and he advocated brilliantly."

One way of seeing the whole Brexit episode is as the fools' revenge on Macmillan.

The average Conservative MP has not an ounce of Macmillan's statesmanship or his realistic view of Britain's place in the world. 

Or at least, that MP has learnt not to get on wrong side of colleagues with these negative qualities.

Nor does that average Tory MP have any of Macmillan's concern for the poor. They believe that the good things of the earth should be kept for them and their neighbours and that is about as far as their political philosophy goes.

No doubt the Tories have always had dozens of MPs like this, it's just that they used to have the sense not to have too many of them in positions of power.

As Julian Critchley died 20 years ago and is now largely forgotten, I had better introduce him to younger readers. 

He was Conservative MP for Rochester and Chatham between 1959 and 1964, and for Aldershot between 1970 and 1997. He became a sort of internal dissident under Margaret Thatcher, winning him admiration from people in other parties but from few in his own.

There was a good obituary of him in the Guardian by John Biffen.

Harold Macmillan on Oswald Mosley's uniform

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Marina Hyde, in her demolition of Katie Hopkins, quotes P.G. Wodehouse's immortal paragraph on Roderick Spode's Black Shorts:

Katie’s spiritual analogue is Roderick Spode, PG Wodehouse’s piss-take of Oswald Mosley, and a chap to whom Bertie Wooster is moved to remark: 

“The trouble with you, Spode, is that just because you have succeeded in inducing a handful of half-wits to disfigure the London scene by going about in black shorts, you think you’re someone. You hear them shouting ‘Heil, Spode!’ and you imagine it is the Voice of the People. That is where you make your bloomer. What the Voice of the People is saying is: ‘Look at that frightful ass Spode swanking about in footer bags! Did you ever in your puff see such a perfect perisher?’”

Which reminds me of Harold Macmillan's remark when the real Oswald Mosley told him that he was going to put his supporters into a black-shirted uniform:

"You must be mad. Whenever the English feel strongly about anything they wear grey flannel trousers and tweed jackets."

I first read it in Julian Critchley's memoirs A Bag of Boiled Sweets.

Theresa May is the opposite of Harold Macmillan

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Writing about Julian Critchley after visiting his grave at Wistanstow, I quoted an interview he gave to Naim Attallah:

I had two heroes in politics: Macmillan and Roy Jenkins. Macmillan, because he controlled to a very great extent Britain’s decline in power and was responsible for our adjustment in straitened circumstances – something he managed despite a party of fools. 

My admiration for Roy Jenkins was based on the fact that as a young Labour MP he would advocate the cause of Europe in cross-party meetings, and he advocated brilliantly.

Leaving Roy to one side, it strikes me that Theresa May is doing the precise opposite of what Macmillan did. She still has a party of fools to contend with, but she is allowing them to indulge their fantasies of glorious isolation or Empire 2.0.

Macmillan came to power because of Suez. Will it take a similar national humiliation to bring the Conservative leadership to its senses?

Julian Critchley's grave at Wistanstow

The churchyard at Wistanstow is probably not the site of the martyrdom of St Wystan, but it does contain the grave of one of my favourite MPs.

Julian Critichley sat for Rochester and Chatham between 1959 and 1964, and for Aldershot between 1970 and 1997. As his Guardian obituary by John Biffen suggested:

The broken Westminster service between 1964 and 1970 was crucial to Critchley's political career. He was a liberal Tory, supporting one-nation social policies, membership of the European Community, and a defence policy based on Nato and a nuclear strategy. He would have been a natural and able young ally for Edward Heath, campaigning for him against the Conservative right, which was increasingly hostile to the Rome Treaty and current levels of public spending. No one can say how Critchley would have handled his opportunities had he remained in Westminster between 1964 and 1970 ... 

He was always vulnerable because of his irreverent humour, which could lead to incautious and overt disrespect. If he had been able to reign back this, and with application surely he could, then opposition service during the parliaments of the 1960s could have ensured office in the 1970-74 Heath administration. This was not to be. Soon, he was politically marginalised by the triumph of Margaret Thatcher. He doubted her policies and even more the self-righteous way in which they were promoted.

His political ambitions thwarted, Critchley became increasingly popular as a journalist and broadcaster on politics.

Critchley's biography A Bag of Boiled Sweets is one of the most human political memoirs I know and also expresses his love of Shropshire.

He also gave a revealing interview to Naim Attallah:

I had two heroes in politics: Macmillan and Roy Jenkins. Macmillan, because he controlled to a very great extent Britain’s decline in power and was responsible for our adjustment in straitened circumstances – something he managed despite a party of fools. My admiration for Roy Jenkins was based on the fact that as a young Labour MP he would advocate the cause of Europe in cross-party meetings, and he advocated brilliantly.

My speech to Leicester Writers Club annual dinner

Last Thursday I gave the speech at the dinner of Leicester Writers Club. I won't reproduce the whole thing here, but it leant heavily on some of my old House Points columns in Liberal Democrat News.

It also included two of my favourite jokes:

Two prawns talking: "I'm really worried about Mum and Dad. They went to a cocktail party last night and they haven't come home yet.

And:

My friend drinks brake fluid. But it's all right: he says he can stop any time he wants.

I leaned heavily on Julian Critchley's no doubt greatly exaggerated anecdote about the Conservative MP David James. In the general election of 1964, where Harold Wilson scraped in with a majority of three, the closest result was at Brighton Kemptown where James lost to Labour by seven votes.

According to Critchley, he spent the campaign by the shores of the loch, sending occasional telegrams to Sussex saying: "Have almost found the monster. Hope all goes well with the campaign." Happily this did not prevent his finding another seat.

Oh, and I repeated my favourite political story:

A keen new Conservative MP is sitting in the house, staring intently at the Labour benches.

"What're you doin', young Tompkins?" asked an old buffer, sitting down next to him.

"Staring at the enemy, sir."

"No, that's the opposition. The enemy is on this side."

I also won one of the club's awards: The Penfold Media Trophy, which takes the form of an optical toy (a sort of kaleidoscope, except that it distorts the view) I can keep for a year. It was chiefly for my trip to New York for Oxfam.

Two years ago I won the Trudy Dubb Award for non-fiction - the first cup I have won since my chess-playing days. This is all very generous of them, considering how rarely I read my work at the club. These days as soon as I have written something I press Publish or Send.

Hunting on election day

Paul Walter is aghast that Dick Cheney has spent polling day hunting. "You couldn't make it up," he writes.

That is nothing.

Julian Critchley wrote in his memoirs A Bag of Boiled Sweets:

David James, who retired from Parliament as Member for Dorset North in 1979, was dotty. His reputation for eccentricity dated from 1964 when as Tory MP for Brighton, Kemptown, he lost his seat to Labour by seven votes. When, a few days after Alec Douglas-Home's defeat (and my own at Rochester), I went to Conservative Central Office to interview the then chairman of the party John Hare, I murmured some words of sympathy. We had, after all, just lost a general election after thirteen years in office.

"It's all that silly bugger David James's fault," cried Hare. "The fool spent most of the three-week campaign in Scotland looking for the Loch Ness Monster." Indeed, he had, and the tabloid press had been full of it. The papers claimed that every so often a cable would arrive from some godforsaken Scottish village addressed to the Kemptown Tory agent "Have almost found the Monster. Hope all goes well with the campaign."

A big, affectionate slap on the rump

Before the waters of oblivion close over its head, let's celebrate yesterday's Simon Hoggart sketch from the Tory Conference:

For the first time I can recall Ken Clarke seemed, in his own rough and ready way, to be wooing the Conservative party. It's not exactly fine wines and Belgian chocolates offered on bended knee, more "how does a Scotch egg and a pint sound?" while bellied up to the bar - but at least he showed he cared.

In the past he has given the impression that he knows he's the best, the only real choice; if the party doesn't agree, that's their problem, not his, and he's got a Charlie Parker album to listen to. Yesterday he got to work on them, hitting their hot buttons, stroking their hopes, fears and prejudices. The late Julian Critchley said Michael Heseltine knew exactly where to find the clitoris of the Conservative party. Clarke is less subtle; instead he gave them a big, affectionate slap on the rump.