Gavin Esler - Power Play

‘Look, I simply haven’t got time to listen to Yesterday’s Man.’ Davis smiled that way he has which looks like a smirk. ‘Black and Carr want to continue making the same mistakes in their War on Terror that we made thirty years ago in Ulster. Why, oh why, do these bloody Americans persist in thinking you can wage war on a tactic, for goodness sake?’

The British ability to suck up to the Americans and to patronize them simultaneously should not be underestimated. Janey Masters and Andy Carnwath shook with laughter at this Prime Ministerial aperçu. I didn’t.

‘Prime Minister, you are making a serious mistake,’ I contradicted them all firmly. The chorus of laughter stopped. I was now on the edge of being rude, but I had the floor and so I used it. ‘You should not make unnecessary enemies.’

‘Unnecessary enemies?’ Davis repeated, rolling the words around his mouth like a sip of unexpectedly good wine.

‘Bobby Black wants to meet you,’ I explained. ‘And he is a man who plays favourites and bears grudges.’ I advised that even if Black and Carr lost the presidential election, Senator Black would eventually have a position of considerable leadership, one day Senate Majority Leader. ‘A good friend and a bad enemy. His reputation is as Washington’s silent throat-slitter.’ All eyes were on me now. Very busy people in power remind me of children: self-obsessed, in their own little world. Any device that catches their attention is legitimate. ‘You cross Bobby Black at your peril. He’s coming to London and we should be nice.’

The Prime Minister sighed and then agreed. Reluctantly.

‘Very well then, Alex. If you say so. Fix it. Fix it. Please ruin my weekend at Chequers.’

And so I fixed it. I felt confident that ruining his weekend was the right thing to do and that Fraser Davis would soon be grateful. It really is what I am paid for.

On that day of Bobby Black’s visit I drove myself down to Chequers from central London while Andy Carnwath, Janey Masters and the Prime Minister travelled by helicopter. Another of Fraser Davis’s routine jokes at my expense is that I was brave enough to interrogate IRA suspects face to face but too timid to get on a ‘heavier-than-air machine’. He regards such schoolboy teasing as a sign of affection. I went to a different type of school.

The Chequers event was–how shall I put it in the language of diplomacy?–not a meeting of minds. Bobby Black and Fraser Davis had little in common, except for one fact: each of them always thought that in any meeting, in any gathering, he was the smartest person in the room. On that day, when we brought these two super-egos together at Chequers, at least one of them had to be wrong. Perhaps both of them. Bobby Black had flown from Washington to Heathrow and then helicoptered over to meet the Prime Minister. I remember it as an unseasonably warm day, early October, a day belonging more to summer than the start of autumn. The fine weather put everyone in a good mood. The American helicopter came down on the lawn, picture perfect. Unusually for Chequers, which is by tradition always private, we allowed a tight pool of British and American TV crews to film the occasion. What everyone saw on the evening news on both sides of the Atlantic was Davis and Black greeting each other with all the false bonhomie demanded on such occasions. The American network TV coverage–as I had predicted–helped raise Fraser Davis’s profile in the United States.

We carry out confidential public opinion surveys in key allies once a year, and the most recent showed that when you asked Americans about British prime ministers they could name Churchill, Thatcher, and Blair. Fraser Davis, like the rest of our political leaders, simply did not exist. That night, thanks to me, for a few seconds on the American TV evening news, Fraser Davis did exist. The two men ran their hands up each other’s arms to show how touchy-feely they were. They grinned. They exchanged pleasantries. The Prime Minister said he was ‘delighted’ to meet the grizzled Senator, more than twenty years his senior. Bobby Black, his owlish eyes glinting behind thick glasses, managed to appear as if he had just flown the Atlantic on the off chance he might catch a few words with our own esteemed Dear Leader, the Bright New Thing in London.

‘I’ve come to learn how to win elections,’ he joked for the cameras. ‘Like you did, Mr Prime Minister.’ Bobby Black’s Chief of Staff, Johnny Lee Ironside, winked at me as we stood on the edges of the photo-opportunity, our faces split by broad grins. He’s a tall, lanky southerner with a South Carolina accent that makes me think of the warmth of a hit of Southern Comfort.

‘Good work on this get-together, Ambassador Price,’ he whispered.

‘Please call me Alex,’ I introduced myself. He seemed like someone I could do business with.

‘Johnny Lee.’

I had checked him out beforehand of course. Born Charleston. Rich Old South family, Anglophile, Harvard Law, Rhodes scholar. And now, as I could see, polite and generous. My kind of American. We moved to the main Chequers dining room. It was scheduled to be a half-hour visit before Bobby Black headed to a Republican fund-raising dinner in the City to tap rich donors resident in the UK. Afterwards he was flying to Paris and Berlin for quick photo-calls with the French President and German Chancellor, and more fund-raising, then back to Washington. Well, that was the plan. We sat across the big shiny walnut dining table on the opposite side to the Americans. Bobby Black started talking about the challenges of international terrorism. It was–disappointingly–a cut-down version of his standard campaign speech. I had heard it so often that, like the Lord’s Prayer, I could recite passages by heart.

‘Afghanistan … Taleban … hearts and minds … stay the course … democracy and freedom … al Qaeda … the Worst of the Worst … lessons of Iraq … shared values, shared sacrifice …’

It was warm and stuffy, Senator Black spoke quietly, and my mind wandered. I began to think of my own future.

Another two years as Ambassador to Washington and I would be in line for a knighthood, then promotion to Head of the Foreign Office, and eventually a peerage. Or–as Fraser Davis had hinted–I might be interested in quitting and thinking about going into politics. I could undoubtedly secure a safe seat under his patronage. As Bobby Black droned on, I started thinking of other things–of lunch, of the drive back to London, of seeing Fiona, and of the difficulties we had been having.

‘… Iranian threat … shadow on the Gulf … oil supplies … nuclear proliferation … Islamic bomb … generations to come …’

I love and admire the United States, especially ordinary Americans, but so many of their top-tier politicians struck me as even worse than ours–difficult though that may be to believe. The kind of people with whom, after you shake hands, you feel you should count your fingers just to check none has been stolen. Bobby Black made me especially nervous, which was one of the reasons I wanted him to meet Davis. Besides, it helped me enormously back in Washington that Black and others knew how close I was to the Prime Minister. I tuned in again. Bobby Black was offering clues about a future Carr presidency. It struck me as unlikely that I would ever need this information. Theo Carr worried, he said, that ‘Russia wants its Empire back and we’re not about to give it to them,’ but the main struggle would continue against ‘militant Islam.’ The new President would demand from all America’s allies ‘more commitment of blood and treasure’ in this ‘existential struggle against terrorism.’ Prime Minister Davis rolled his eyes.

‘Guts,’ Bobby Black was saying softly, waggling a fat white finger in our direction. I watched the finger’s reflection in the polished walnut of the table top. ‘Old fashioned guts, when it comes to facing down the Russians, the Iranians or al Qaeda. Guts, and leadership, Mr Prime Minister. Moral fibre.’