James Craig: London Calling

‘Yes,’ Murray agreed, a little bemused. His own headmaster – at the Terence Venables Comprehensive in Hammersmith – had been sacked for getting one of the sixth-formers pregnant. Why anyone would want to keep in touch with their old schoolteachers was beyond him.

‘I will be the nineteenth boy from my school to become prime minister,’ Edgar explained. ‘ If I am elected, of course. It’s quite a list: Walpole, Eden, Gladstone, Macmillan…’

‘Indeed,’ Murray nodded.

‘Assuming I do win,’ Edgar continued, ‘all the boys then get a day off in celebration. So there’s a lot riding on this.’ He smiled his most patronising smile. ‘So… no pressure.’

‘Did you see the latest polls?’ Murray asked, trying to move the conversation along. ‘Spectacular.’

‘Another month and we’ll be there, Mr Murray,’ Edgar beamed. ‘I’m heading for Downing Street, and I’m taking you with me.’

‘Absolutely!’ The young man bowed his head slightly, as if in prayer. When he looked up again, it almost seemed as if he might start crying out of gratitude.

‘So,’ Carlton lowered his voice even though there was no one else in the room, ‘let’s just make sure that there are no mistakes during the next few weeks, shall we?’

Murray lent forward to whisper back, ‘Yes.’

‘Now is the time for the utmost focus and complete professionalism,’ Edgar added. ‘We most definitely do not need any slip-ups at this stage.’

‘No.’ Murray smiled. ‘I fully understand.’

‘I know you do, William.’ Carlton stood up and gently grasped the young man’s shoulder. ‘You are a very smart young man. Your parents must be very proud.’

Once again, the boy bowed his head slightly and, for a second, Edgar thought that he could indeed see tears welling in his eyes.

‘Yes, sir,’ he whispered, ‘they are.’

‘Good,’ Edgar murmured. ‘That’s very good.’ Unsettled by such emotion, he took a step backwards. ‘Make sure you tell them just what an important job you are doing here. I know that I can rely on you.’

Xavier Carlton sat listlessly at his kitchen table, watching the second hand tick round on the wall clock. He was resplendent in his cycling outfit, an eye-wateringly tight pair of black and grey Lycra shorts, and a lime-green and pink cycling jersey bearing the logo of an Eastern European biscuit manufacturer. His advisers had been on at him to stop wearing the jersey ever since the cycling team in question had been thrown off the Tour of Italy for a spectacular range of alleged doping offences. But it had been the only clean jersey he could find in the house that morning. And, anyway, he quite liked it. It was just so vulgar…

PR-wise, Xavier couldn’t see how the jersey was much of a problem. The great British voting public knew nothing about bike racing and cared less. As Eddie Paris, his portly communications guru who actually cycled for fun, liked to say, the plebs wouldn’t know the difference between Lance Armstrong and Louis Armstrong. Or Neil Armstrong. Or… well, any other famous Armstrong you could mention.

Xavier was no expert on cycling, but he had worn one of Lance’s yellow ‘Live Strong’ bracelets a while back, when they were briefly fashionable. Signifying that he was cool, compassionate, committed, it was a handy prop for his image at the time.

The jersey was just another prop. In fact, Xavier’s whole life was littered with them. Next to his crash helmet, at the centre of the table, was a pile of thirty-three hardback books. Xaxier knew that there were thirty-three because he had counted them. Twice.

This was Edgar’s summer reading list, which had recently been handed out to all of his MPs in an attempt to raise their standing with the voters, make them seem better read and altogether more… well, thoughtful. Xavier sighed. This morning, one of the books had to go into his right-hand cycle pannier. This would demonstrate willing to Edgar who, Xavier felt, was beginning to question his commitment to their great project. It would also provide a picture for the Mail photographer who would be waiting to snap him on his bike this morning, as he cycled to the House of Commons. The plan, agreed with the paper’s political editor the night before over a couple of mojitos at the Pearl Bar in the Chancery Court Hotel, was to have something suitably erudite peeking out of his bag as he swept into Parliament Square. This nice image, athletic and cerebral at the same time, would be garnished with a headline like ‘ Who’s a clever boy, then? ’ The media beast would be fed for another few hours, and another microscopic gain in the final push for power would be duly recorded.

So which book to choose? For the umpteenth time, he scanned slowly down the heap, searching for one that vaguely attracted his interest:

Terror and Consent: The War for the Twenty-First Century, Philip Bobbitt

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Robert Cialdini

Muqtada al-Sadr and the Fall of Iraq, Patrick Cockburn

Empires of the Sea: The Final Battle for the Mediterranean 1521-1580, Roger Crowley

How Christian Holyrod Won London, Edward Giles and Isabelle Joiner-Jones

Rivals: How the Power Struggle Between China, India and Japan Will Shape Our Next Decade, Bill Emmott

Xavier’s eyes glazed over. His mind evaporated. God, it was impossible! If it had been his own list, it would have been much more user-friendly. With a lot more pictures. He thought of The Big Penis Book, a recent (joke) present from his wife. Now if that had made the list, it would have got people’s attention! Some of their colleagues might even have already read it.

Munich: The 1938 Appeasement Crisis, David Faber

A Million Bullets: The Real Diary of the British Army in Afghanistan, James Fergusson

A Choice of Enemies: America Confronts the Middle East, Laurence Freedman

Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World , Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart

The Rise of Christian Holyrod, Graham Quentin

The Pain and the Privilege: The Women in Lloyd George’s Life, Ffion Hague

Inside the Private Office: Memoirs of the Secretary to British Foreign Ministers, Nicholas Henderson

Good Business: Your World Needs You, Steve Hilton and Giles Gibbons

Dinner with Mugabe: The Untold Story, Heidi Holland

Politicians and Public Services: Implementing Change in a Clash of Cultures, Kate Jenkins

Carlton on Carlton, Joan Dillinger

The BPB aside, Xaxier couldn’t remember the last time he’d read a book of any description. He seriously doubted whether he’d read thirty-three books in total during his whole bloody life. His advisers had provided two-page summaries for him (two lines on each book), so that he had something to say on each, just in case he got quizzed by a journalist, but he couldn’t even rouse himself to look at that briefing.

Vote for Caesar: How the Ancient Greeks and Romans Solved the Problems of Today, Peter Jones

The Return of History and the End of Dreams, Robert Kagan

Five Days in London, John Lukas

Hitler’s Empire: Nazi Life in Occupied Europe, Mark Mazower

Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922: The Destruction of Islam’s City of Tolerance, Giles Milton

1948: The First Arab Israeli War, Benny Morris

Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision Makers, E Neudstadt and Ernest R May

Britain in Africa, Tom Porteous

A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, Samantha Power

Descent into Chaos: How the War against Islamic Extremism Is Being Lost in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia, Ahmed Rashid

None of this stuff mattered a jot, Xavier thought. No one actually expected the books to actually be read. Putting together the list, the thought that went into it, was the thing. It had taken a panel of three of Edgar’s most senior advisers – i.e. the ones aged over twenty-five – three months to trawl the book-review pages of The Times and come up with a satisfactory selection. It was just more quality Carlton content, another small PR morsel, like the list of Edgar’s favourite music downloads or his favourite Premiership footballers; a way to appear in touch without ever listening to an iPod or watching a football match, even on TV. Or, for that matter, reading a book.