Jeffrey Archer - First Among Equals

At eight o’clock on the following Saturday morning Simon sat in his office and heard the news that Broadsword had all engines on full speed and was expected to reach Portsmouth by three o’clock, exactly one week after his son had lost his college match eight-nil: they hadn’t had a good second half. Simon had tried to console his downcast son but it didn’t help that he had been the goalkeeper.

He was smiling when his secretary interrupted his thoughts to remind him that he was due in Portsmouth in an hour. As Simon reached the door the phone rang. “Explain to whoever it is I’m already late,” he said.

His secretary replied, “I don’t think I can, sir.”

Simon turned round, puzzled. “Who is it?” he asked.

“Her Majesty the Queen.”

Simon returned to his desk, picked up the receiver, and listened to the sovereign. When she had finished Simon thanked her and said he would pass on her message to Captain Packard as soon as he reached Portsmouth. During the flight down Simon looked out of the helicopter and stared at a traffic jam that stretched from the coast to London with people who were going to welcome Broadsword home. The helicopter landed an hour later.

The Secretary of State for Defense stood on the pier and was able to pick out the destroyer through a pair of binoculars. She was about an hour away but was already so surrounded by a flotilla of small craft that it was hard to identify her.

Sir John told him that Captain Packard had signaled to ask if the Secretary of State wished to join him on the bridge as they sailed into port. “No, thank you,” said Simon. “It’s his day, not mine.”

“Good thing the Foreign Secretary isn’t with us,” said Sir John. A squad of Tornadoes flew over, drowning Simon’s reply. As Broadsword sailed into port, the ship’s company were all on deck standing to attention in full dress uniform. The ship itself shone like a Rolls-Royce that had just come off the production line.

By the time the captain descended the gangplank a crowd of some 500,000 were cheering so loudly that Simon could not hear himself speak. Captain Packard saluted as the Secretary of State leaned forward and whispered the Queen’s message in his ear:

“Welcome home, Rear-Admiral Sir Lawrence Packard.”

The Broadsword factor remained in the memories of the electorate for a far shorter time than had the Falklands victory and the Conservative cause was not helped by the breakdown in Geneva of the disarmament talks between Reagan, Gorbachev, and Thatcher.

The Russians put the blame for the breakdown on Mrs. Thatcher’s “aggressive stance” over Broadsword after they had backed her for a diplomatic solution at the UN. Within six months the Conservative lead in the opinion polls had dropped to three percent.

“The truth is,” noted Raymond at a Shadow Cabinet meeting, “Mrs. Thatcher has had nearly eight years at No. 10 and no Prime Minister has served two full terms in succession — let alone three — since Lord Liverpool in 1812.”

At that time of the year when referees leave the field to be replaced by umpires Raymond watched his predictions become history. Once the Christmas recess had ended he felt sure the Prime Minister would go to the country in late May or some time in June rather than face another winter. When the Conservatives held on to the marginal seat in Birmingham and fared better than expected at the local elections in May no one believed the Prime Minister would delay the announcement much longer.

Margaret Thatcher seemed to care nothing for Lord Liverpool or historical precedent, because she called an election for late June, believing that the month that had been a winner for her in the past would prove to be good for her again.

“It’s time to let the nation choose who is to govern for the next five years,” she declared on “Panorama.”

“Of course, it’s got nothing to do with the fact she’s regained a slight lead in the opinion polls,” said Joyce tartly.

“A lead that could well disappear during the next few weeks,” Raymond added.

He returned to Yorkshire for only three days of the campaign. As one of the party’s leading spokesmen he had to travel around the country addressing meeting after meeting in marginal seats. Many journalists went as far as to suggest that were Raymond leading the party they would be in a far stronger position to win the election. On the few occasions he was back in Leeds he enjoyed the electioneering and felt completely relaxed with his constituents for the first time in his life. He also felt his age when he discovered that the new Tory candidate for Leeds North had been born in 1964, the year he had first entered Parliament. When they met the only insult Raymond suffered at his young rival’s hands was being called “sir.”

“Please call me by my Christian name,” said Raymond.

“Raymond—” began the young man.

“No, Ray will do just fine.”

Charles and Simon also saw little of their constituencies as they too toured the marginal seats, adding more and more to their schedules as the polling day became closer. Halfway through the campaign the Conservatives mounted a massive attack on the Alliance, as opinion polls were continuing to show that they were making considerable inroads into the Conservative vote, while traditional Labour supporters were returning to their old allegiance.

Andrew had to remain in Edinburgh for the entire campaign, to face Frank Boyle once again. But this time, as Stuart Gray informed the constituents of Edinburgh Carlton through his columns in the Scotsman. it was a Frank Boyle without teeth. Andrew felt what was left of those teeth a few times during the final three weeks but at least the Royal Bank of Scotland did not find it necessary to part with a second golden sovereign in their 300-year history. Andrew retained his seat by over 2,000 votes, to be returned to Parliament for the eighth time. Louise claimed that her husband’s majority were the 2,000 people who had fallen in love with the thirteen-year-old coltish Clarissa, who was already fulfilling her father’s prophecy as gauche fifteen-year-old Scots blushed in her presence.

The final result of the election did not become clear until four o’clock on the Friday afternoon as several recounts took place up and down the country.

“It will be a hung Parliament,” David Dimbleby told the viewers tuned into the BBC “Election Special” program that afternoon. He repeated the detailed figures for those people still returning from work:

Conservative 313

Labour 285

Liberal/SDP Alliance 31

Irish/Ulster Unionist 17

Speaker and others 4

Dimbleby went on to point out that there was no necessity for Mrs. Thatcher to resign as she was still the leader of the largest party in the Commons. But one thing was apparent, the SDP might well hold the balance at the next election.

The Prime Minister made very few changes to her front-bench team as she clearly wished to leave an impression of unity despite her small majority. The press dubbed it “The cosmetic Cabinet.” Charles moved to the Home Office while Simon became Foreign Secretary.

Everyone at Westminster was thankful when a few weeks later Parliament broke up for the summer recess and politicians returned home for a rest.

That rest was to last a complete week before Tony Benn rolled a thundercloud across the clear blue summer sky by announcing he would contest the leadership of the Labour party at the October conference.

Benn claimed that Kinnock’s naïveté and gauche approach as leader had been the single reason that the Labour party had not been returned to power. There were many Socialists who agreed with this judgment, but they also felt they would have fared considerably worse under Benn.