An Englishman's Sacrifice
Bright and crisp, it was a morning for which to be thankful. The First Minister was certainly thankful, though that was more because of the limits of the smoking ban than the thawing of winter. He vaped incessantly as he strode through Portcullis House, holding his head as if he owned the place.
He didn’t, of course: Baskerville House was his de jure domain. The old walks through Westminster still drew him back, however, and provoked memories going back to his days advising the Chancellor and the Home Secretary. There was always such an allure to Parliament, David felt. It was where the power was, back in the day, and it’s where he thought he’d begin his climb to the top.
The party had other ideas.
The kamikaze run in Newbury in ’94 had made him a laughing stock, leaving him out in the cold for the crushing loss of ’97 and almost beggaring his career before it even began.
As he darted up the stairs towards the corridors of meeting rooms and conference rooms, he recalled the year the building was finally opened. It was, after all, the year of his second limp attempt. Steve must have been drunk at the time. He must have been. At Hilton’s behest, Cameron took his shot at Nuneaton in the “Orange Surprise” election of 2002. It appeared almost winnable, on the verge of going blue throughout the two months of the campaign. In the end, however, the “Orange Surprise” hit and the swing away from the coalition parties was as striking as a soft pat on the shoulder. I nearly walked away, David thought as he pressed the e-cigarette into his inside pocket. He did walk away – just not from politics altogether.
Uncomfortably tight around the central round table, the whitewashed room would have overlooked the Thames has the Education Secretary not been standing in a dramatic pose by the window. The blonde-haired Cabinet minister wasn’t half as large as his brother about the waist, but he still cut an impressive figure against the scene of London in the early spring. Affront Johnson’s figure was the Prime Minister, drumming his fingers along the round table and watching David’s entrance like a guard dog. Intently, Blunt stared at the First Minister as he made his way forward.
“Ten past ten, is it? We’d agreed on ten to nine, but I’m you have a good reason for why you’re late.” Visibly exasperated, the Prime Minister pretended to pay no attention to David as he looked down at his wristwatch.
“It’s good to see you too, Prime Minister,” he replied. “And you too, Jo.”
Jo Johnson spun around to face the First Minister, extending a hand to shake with his fellow Old Etonian. Backroom boys were like a plague of locusts around Crispin Blunt, for they were the quiet climbers and schemers who held secrets like nuclear codes: always aware of the destruction they could cause. What he personally didn’t want out in public, though, meant Cabinet posts and promotions for the “grey blurs”. The Prime Minister’s eyes were burning into David’s side as he shook Jo’s hand and the First Minister knew exactly why. It’s leverage: nothing more and nothing less. Leverage equalled power, which should have equalled a fair hearing.
“Please, David. Sit, by all means, sit,” the Prime Minister said as he gestured towards a wooden chair directly across from him. “Jo.”
The Education Secretary slipped down into a chair beside Blunt, leaning back and contemplating the Prime Minister as he began to talk.
“We’re seen the poll numbers, David, and we’re worried.” The First Minister felt through the inside pocket of his jacket, brushing over the e-cigarette with the tips of his fingers. He knew what was coming and he needed to vape. “We’re worried that, since Lansley went, the party in England has been falling beyond the point of no return. Trailing Labour by 3% in YouGov’s latest poll and barely ahead with 2% in The Telegraph– you can see why we’re worried, can’t you?”
He could, most definitely, see what the Prime Minister was so worried about. If not for The Telegraph, David would have been back on twenty-a-day. Where the phrase “First Minister, Liam Byrne” had once constituted a tedious piece of speculative fiction, it now seemed the most likely possibility in the event. If Lamb jumps into bed with Byrne, we’re all fucked. The English Lib Dems hadn’t learnt the lessons of its parent party after nine years of the Blair-Ashdown duopoly and the calamity of Hughes’ leadership, it seemed. The men in yellow ties had all but ruled out supporting Cameron and it was no secret that Lamb was angling for the Deputy First Minister post in a hung parliament. In such a situation, it was no real surprise that Cameron looked to be stumbling into second place with every passing day.
“We have a favour to ask, Dave. It’s a big one, but we need you onside with this,” Johnson sighed as he fidgeted in his chair. Eye-lines were crossed, David felt a terrible pang in his neck, and the realisation sank in. It would sound better from Jo. The bastards.
Then, the bastards began.
“We need you to call an election now. If we don’t head off Byrne and keep things steady now, we’ve got no chance in 2016 in the general. An English Labour government is the last thing we want with an election on the way. We’ll have voters deserting us on all sides if they see us lose Baskerville. Do you see?” He saw, but that didn’t mean he wanted to. It was like Newbury all over again: he was the suicide candidate. Once again, Cameron was being thrown to the dogs so the leadership could escape unscathed. In power for barely three months and Cameron, the English Tories’ “worst Christmas present”, was already being hung out to dry.
Twenty years of unrelenting setbacks had come to this. Twenty fucking years. The decades of grinding at CCHQ, the use of his name as a byword for failure, and the past seven years chafing under Lansley’s leadership: it had all come to nothing. If he was to walk out of Baskerville House and proclaim the end of the English Parliament’s term, he’d be walking back to obscurity. If I lose, I’m gone – I’m done. In the history books, he’d be little more than a footnote on a page of courageous losers (or worse, careless losers).
He dived into his jacket and snatched up the vaper. Both Jo and Crispin gave him a curious look, raising their brows as they watched the First Minister of England blow vapour out of his ruddy cheeks in a panicked state. It was an unflattering image, to say the least.
Crispin leaned towards Jo and whispered, “I bet John Swinney doesn’t do this.”
Jo chuckled, but caught his laughing mouth as the e-cigarette dropped to the floor with a thud. Cameron’s eyes were ardent with anger.
“Oh, fuck John Swinney!”
Truly, he was England’s First Minister.
He didn’t, of course: Baskerville House was his de jure domain. The old walks through Westminster still drew him back, however, and provoked memories going back to his days advising the Chancellor and the Home Secretary. There was always such an allure to Parliament, David felt. It was where the power was, back in the day, and it’s where he thought he’d begin his climb to the top.
The party had other ideas.
The kamikaze run in Newbury in ’94 had made him a laughing stock, leaving him out in the cold for the crushing loss of ’97 and almost beggaring his career before it even began.
As he darted up the stairs towards the corridors of meeting rooms and conference rooms, he recalled the year the building was finally opened. It was, after all, the year of his second limp attempt. Steve must have been drunk at the time. He must have been. At Hilton’s behest, Cameron took his shot at Nuneaton in the “Orange Surprise” election of 2002. It appeared almost winnable, on the verge of going blue throughout the two months of the campaign. In the end, however, the “Orange Surprise” hit and the swing away from the coalition parties was as striking as a soft pat on the shoulder. I nearly walked away, David thought as he pressed the e-cigarette into his inside pocket. He did walk away – just not from politics altogether.
Uncomfortably tight around the central round table, the whitewashed room would have overlooked the Thames has the Education Secretary not been standing in a dramatic pose by the window. The blonde-haired Cabinet minister wasn’t half as large as his brother about the waist, but he still cut an impressive figure against the scene of London in the early spring. Affront Johnson’s figure was the Prime Minister, drumming his fingers along the round table and watching David’s entrance like a guard dog. Intently, Blunt stared at the First Minister as he made his way forward.
“Ten past ten, is it? We’d agreed on ten to nine, but I’m you have a good reason for why you’re late.” Visibly exasperated, the Prime Minister pretended to pay no attention to David as he looked down at his wristwatch.
“It’s good to see you too, Prime Minister,” he replied. “And you too, Jo.”
Jo Johnson spun around to face the First Minister, extending a hand to shake with his fellow Old Etonian. Backroom boys were like a plague of locusts around Crispin Blunt, for they were the quiet climbers and schemers who held secrets like nuclear codes: always aware of the destruction they could cause. What he personally didn’t want out in public, though, meant Cabinet posts and promotions for the “grey blurs”. The Prime Minister’s eyes were burning into David’s side as he shook Jo’s hand and the First Minister knew exactly why. It’s leverage: nothing more and nothing less. Leverage equalled power, which should have equalled a fair hearing.
“Please, David. Sit, by all means, sit,” the Prime Minister said as he gestured towards a wooden chair directly across from him. “Jo.”
The Education Secretary slipped down into a chair beside Blunt, leaning back and contemplating the Prime Minister as he began to talk.
“We’re seen the poll numbers, David, and we’re worried.” The First Minister felt through the inside pocket of his jacket, brushing over the e-cigarette with the tips of his fingers. He knew what was coming and he needed to vape. “We’re worried that, since Lansley went, the party in England has been falling beyond the point of no return. Trailing Labour by 3% in YouGov’s latest poll and barely ahead with 2% in The Telegraph– you can see why we’re worried, can’t you?”
He could, most definitely, see what the Prime Minister was so worried about. If not for The Telegraph, David would have been back on twenty-a-day. Where the phrase “First Minister, Liam Byrne” had once constituted a tedious piece of speculative fiction, it now seemed the most likely possibility in the event. If Lamb jumps into bed with Byrne, we’re all fucked. The English Lib Dems hadn’t learnt the lessons of its parent party after nine years of the Blair-Ashdown duopoly and the calamity of Hughes’ leadership, it seemed. The men in yellow ties had all but ruled out supporting Cameron and it was no secret that Lamb was angling for the Deputy First Minister post in a hung parliament. In such a situation, it was no real surprise that Cameron looked to be stumbling into second place with every passing day.
“We have a favour to ask, Dave. It’s a big one, but we need you onside with this,” Johnson sighed as he fidgeted in his chair. Eye-lines were crossed, David felt a terrible pang in his neck, and the realisation sank in. It would sound better from Jo. The bastards.
Then, the bastards began.
“We need you to call an election now. If we don’t head off Byrne and keep things steady now, we’ve got no chance in 2016 in the general. An English Labour government is the last thing we want with an election on the way. We’ll have voters deserting us on all sides if they see us lose Baskerville. Do you see?” He saw, but that didn’t mean he wanted to. It was like Newbury all over again: he was the suicide candidate. Once again, Cameron was being thrown to the dogs so the leadership could escape unscathed. In power for barely three months and Cameron, the English Tories’ “worst Christmas present”, was already being hung out to dry.
Twenty years of unrelenting setbacks had come to this. Twenty fucking years. The decades of grinding at CCHQ, the use of his name as a byword for failure, and the past seven years chafing under Lansley’s leadership: it had all come to nothing. If he was to walk out of Baskerville House and proclaim the end of the English Parliament’s term, he’d be walking back to obscurity. If I lose, I’m gone – I’m done. In the history books, he’d be little more than a footnote on a page of courageous losers (or worse, careless losers).
He dived into his jacket and snatched up the vaper. Both Jo and Crispin gave him a curious look, raising their brows as they watched the First Minister of England blow vapour out of his ruddy cheeks in a panicked state. It was an unflattering image, to say the least.
Crispin leaned towards Jo and whispered, “I bet John Swinney doesn’t do this.”
Jo chuckled, but caught his laughing mouth as the e-cigarette dropped to the floor with a thud. Cameron’s eyes were ardent with anger.
“Oh, fuck John Swinney!”
Truly, he was England’s First Minister.