Stanley Johnson - Kompromat

‘Why did you need a dossier at all?’ the home secretary asked. ‘Please help me out here.’

So Jeremy Hartley, patiently and without guile, explained the whole scheme.

‘Having the commitment in the manifesto to hold a Referendum was the first crucial step. But that Referendum had to be won, and won convincingly, by Leave. Frankly, at the beginning of this year that simply didn’t look likely. Even the pro-Leave members of the Cabinet, like David Cole, were clinging on to their portfolios and the perks of office, instead of getting out on the road and campaigning for Brexit. I thought, “Good grief, we can’t just let UKIP run this one”. Simon Henley may be a good man to have a drink with. Not bad on telly, I suppose. But UKIP was really a one-man band. I had this feeling of total panic. Here we were with this tremendous opportunity and we were in danger of letting that opportunity slip through our fingers. The Leave campaign needed a leader, and they needed one fast.’

‘So you picked on Edward Barnard?’ Mabel Killick was beginning to understand what Hartley was driving at.

‘Precisely,’ Hartley replied. ‘Barnard may not be the sharpest pencil in the box but he has real leadership qualities. I thought, if Barnard takes up the challenge of leading Leave, things will begin to move in the right direction. So I worked up the Referendum dossier, as you call it, and made sure Barnard got to see it. I was absolutely convinced that, once he did, Barnard would resign on the spot from the government. But he would be driven by a sense of honour and duty not to stand on the sidelines. He would say to himself, “I can’t let the Referendum be won by trickery and subterfuge by that devious bastard, Jeremy Hartley. If it’s going to be won at all, it has to be won fair and square”.’

‘My God!’ the home secretary exclaimed. ‘How devious can you get? You made sure the Russians had the dossier and that they in turn gave it to Barnard. Wasn’t that collusion?’

‘Oh, come on, Mabel. The Russians aren’t bogeymen. We shared the same objective: getting the UK out of the EU. And if the EU, post-Brexit, itself disintegrates, is that such a bad thing? For hundreds of years, British foreign policy has aimed at stopping the creation of a single hegemonistic power on the continent of Europe. We fought Spain, we fought France, we fought the Prussians, and we fought Hitler. Even today, over there in Brussels, they’re talking about a common European defence force to supplement the disastrous Eurozone. Those guns might one day point at us. Can we really let that happen? The sooner the whole thing’s dismantled, the better for everyone.’

‘What you’re basically saying, Prime Minister,’ Mrs Killick tried to sum up, ‘is deep down, you were always a Leaver, not a Remainer even though you stood as a Remainer as far as the electorate is concerned. Your priority, in the so-called renegotiation, was to make sure that you failed, rather than succeeded. “Pretty thin gruel” was precisely what you were hoping for and that was what you got. Of course your brilliant scheme, your wizard wheeze, was almost frustrated when the EU looked as though they had a real plan to deal with migration. Fortunately Helga Brun scuppered that one at the last moment!

‘But to make your plan work, you had to stay undercover. If you had actively campaigned for Leave, you would have split the Conservative Party from head to toe. Tom Milbourne, for example, would have challenged you for the leadership on the spot. So now that you’ve announced your resignation, you’re going down with a smile on your face. Mission accomplished!”

‘Got it in one,’ Hartley said. ‘Didn’t you hear me humming that little tune, when I walked back into Number 10, after my speech this morning? People tell me the mic picked it up.’

The home secretary was curious. ‘What was that tune? I thought I recognized it.’

‘“The Eton Boating Song”,’ Hartley replied. ‘“ Swing, swing together. Tum-ti-ti, tum-titi-tum! ”’

Moments later, the home secretary left Downing Street by the front door. The cameras flashed.

‘Are you going to throw your hat in the ring, Home Secretary?’ Nancy Ginsberg, the BBC’s chief political reporter, called out.

Mabel Killick smiled enigmatically and strode on.

Melissa Barnard let the phone ring for a while. She was listening to the Archers. She wanted to hear what had happened to Helen in her domestic abuse storyline. The phone wouldn’t be for her anyway. Not at 7:00p.m. All her friends knew she would be listening to the radio at that time. And Edward was out for a ride. As a matter of fact, it was the first time Edward had ridden Jemima since that evening at the Oxford Union when Jerry, the security man, had rugger-tackled him. Almost broke Barnard’s leg. He had a socking, great bruise on his thigh.

The phone went on ringing. In the end she picked it up. It was the Downing Street switchboard. ‘The prime minister’s trying to get in touch with Mr Barnard.’

‘Well, I’m afraid my husband’s out with Jemima. He doesn’t have his phone with him.’

‘Does Jemima have a phone? We could maybe get a message to him that way.’

‘Jemima’s his horse.’

Melissa didn’t add that sometimes she felt her husband preferred his lovely bay mare, 16.2 hands, to his own dearly beloved wife. She watched him sometimes, sneaking an apple from the basket, when he headed out to the stable. And he talked to Jemima in a low, crooning way. He never talked like that to her.

‘Could you possibly tell Mr Barnard that the prime minister would very much like to see him at 3:00p.m. tomorrow? We’ll leave his name at the gate, of course.’

‘Of course.’ What on earth was that about, Melissa thought?

Edward Barnard hadn’t the foggiest either. ‘Beats me,’ he said, when Melissa gave him the message. As far as he was concerned, now that the Referendum was over, he was out to grass.

Still, they watched the news on the BBC later that evening. A removal van was parked at the back entrance to Downing Street; men burdened with packing cases streamed out of the house like warrior ants.

‘Tomorrow, Mrs Mabel Killick, Britain’s new prime minister, will kiss hands with Her Majesty the Queen and take the oath of office. This is likely to happen around nine in the morning. She will then proceed to Number 10, Downing Street. She will spend her first day constructing her new Cabinet. There will be good news for some; bad news for others. One thing is sure: Mabel Killick will make up her mind what she wants and then she will stick to her decision.’

Barnard arrived at the Downing Street gate in plenty of time for his 3p.m. appointment with the prime minister. The press and TV were out in force, lined up with cameras pointing at the famous door. Who’s in? Who’s out? That was the story of the hour.

‘We don’t need to see your passport, Mr Barnard,’ the duty-guard said. ‘We know you very well. Good luck.’

A line from Coleridge’s ‘ Ancient Mariner ’ came to him, as he emptied his pockets at security .

‘We were the first /that ever burst/ into that silent sea.’

The door opened as Edward Barnard approached. He had been to Number 10 Downing Street often enough in the past but he always wondered just how they managed to open the door at precisely the moment you got there. Some secret sensor, perhaps. Or PC Plod looking through a spyhole. He’d find out one day, no doubt.

Giles Mortimer met him inside. ‘Very good of you to come in, Mr Barnard. I hope your leg is better. Let’s go straight on up.’

Mortimer had, like his colleague Holly Percy, moved with the new prime minister from the Home Office to Number 10. Barnard followed him upstairs, looking at the photos of former prime ministers on the wall. Mrs Thatcher had already waited more than a quarter of a century for some female company, so a few more days wouldn’t matter.