First Among Equals Read online

  Alf Abbott felt assured enough to challenge Simon to a public debate. Although it was usual for the sitting member to refuse to be drawn on such occasions Simon jumped at his opponent’s challenge and prepared for the encounter with his usual diligence. Seven days before the election Simon and Elizabeth stood in the wings behind the stage of Coventry town hall with Alf Abbott, Nigel Bainbridge, and their wives. The three men made stilted conversation while the women eyed each other’s outfits critically. The political correspondent of the Coventry Evening Telegraph, acting as chairman, introduced each of the protagonists as they walked on to the stage, to whipped-up applause from different sections of the hall. Simon spoke first and held the attention of the large audience for over twenty minutes. Those who tried to heckle him ended up regretting having brought attention to themselves. Without once referring to his notes, he quoted figures and clauses from Government bills with an ease that impressed even Elizabeth. Abbott followed him and made a bitter attack on the Tories, accusing them of still wanting to tread down the workers at any cost, and was greeted by large cheers from his section of the audience. Bainbridge claimed that neither understood the real issues and went into an involved dissertation on the problem of the local sewers. During the questions that followed Simon once again proved to be far better informed than Abbott or Bainbridge, but he was aware that the packed hall only held 700 that cold March evening while elsewhere in Coventry were 50,000 more voters, most of them glued to “Coronation Street.”

  Although the local press proclaimed Simon the victor of a one-sided debate he remained downcast by the national dailies which were now predicting a landslide for Labour.

  On election morning Simon and Elizabeth were up by six and among the first to cast their votes at the local primary school. They spent the rest of the day traveling from polling station to committee room to party checking posts, trying to keep up the morale of their supporters. Everywhere they went the committed believed in his victory but Simon knew that the national swing would be impossible to ignore. A senior Conservative back-bencher had once told him that an outstanding member could be worth a thousand personal votes and a weak opponent might sacrifice another thousand. It wasn’t going to be enough.

  By nine o’clock the last polling station had been locked and Simon and Elizabeth collapsed into a local pub and ordered two halves of bitter. They sat and watched the television above the bar. The commentator was saying that during the day a straw poll had been taken outside six constituencies in London and from those figures they were predicting a Labour majority of sixty to seventy seats. Up on the screen flashed the seventy seats most vulnerable to siege by Labour. Ninth on the list was Coventry Central: Simon ordered the other half.

  “We should be off to watch the count soon,” said Elizabeth.

  “There’s no hurry.”

  “Don’t be such a wimp, Simon. And remember you’re still the member,” she said, surprisingly sharply. “You owe it to your supporters to remain confident after all the work they’ve put in.”

  In the town hall black boxes were being-delivered by police vehicles from every ward in the constituency. Their contents were tipped on to trestle tables which made up three sides of a square on the vast cleared floor. The town clerk and his personal staff stood alone in the well made by the tables, while council workers sat around the outside carefully stacking up the votes into little piles of a hundred. These in turn were checked by party scrutineers who hovered over them, hawklike, often demanding that a particular hundred be rechecked.

  The little piles grew into large stacks which were then placed next to each other, and as the hours passed it became obvious even to a casual observer that the outcome was going to be extremely close.

  The tension on the floor mounted as each hundred, then each thousand, was handed over to the clerk. Rumors that began at one end of the room had been puffed up like soufflés long before they had reached the waiting crowd standing in a chill wind outside the hall. By midnight, several constituencies’ results around the country had been declared. The national swing seemed to be much as predicted, around three percent to Labour, which would give them the promised majority of seventy or over.

  At twelve-twenty-one the Coventry town clerk invited all three candidates to join him in the center of the room. He told them the result of the count.

  A recount was immediately demanded. The town clerk agreed, and each pile of voting slips was returned to the tables and checked over again.

  An hour later the town clerk called the three candidates together again and briefed them on the result of the recount; it had changed by only three votes.

  Another recount was requested and the town clerk reluctantly acquiesced. By two o’clock in the morning Elizabeth felt she had no nails left. Another hour passed, during which Heath conceded defeat while Wilson gave an extended interview to ITN spelling out his program for the new Parliament.

  At two-twenty-seven the town clerk called the three candidates together for the last time and they all accepted the result. The town clerk walked up on to the stage accompanied by the rivals. He tapped the microphone to check the speaker was working, cleared his throat, and said:

  “I, the undersigned, being the acting returning officer for the constituency of Coventry Central, hereby announce the total number of votes cast for each candidate to be as follows:

  Alf Abbott 19,716

  Nigel Bainbridge 7,002

  Simon Kerslake 19,731

  “I therefore declare Simon Kerslake to be the duly elected Member of Parliament for the constituency of Coventry Central.”

  Even though the Labour party ended up with an overall majority in the House of ninety-seven, Simon had still won by fifteen votes.

  Raymond Could increased his majority to 12,413 in line with the national swing, and Joyce was ready for a week’s rest.

  Andrew Fraser improved his vote by 2,468 and announced his engagement to Louise Forsyth on the night after the election.

  Charles Seymour could never recall accurately the size of his majority because, as Fiona explained to the old earl the following morning, “They don’t count the Conservative vote in Sussex Downs, darling, they weigh it.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  IN MOST DEMOCRATIC countries a newly elected leader enjoys a transitional period during which he is able to announce the policies he intends to pursue and whom he has selected to implement them. In Britain MPs sit by their phones and wait for forty-eight hours immediately after the election result has been declared. If a call comes in the first twelve hours they will be asked to join the Cabinet, the second twelve given a position as a Minister of State, the third twelve made an Under-Secretary of State, and the last twelve a Parliamentary Private Secretary to a Cabinet minister. If the phone hasn’t rung by then, they remain on the back benches.

  Andrew Fraser had not bothered to be anywhere near a phone when the BBC midday news announced that Hugh McKenzie had been promoted from Minister of State to Secretary of State for Scotland, with a seat in the Cabinet. Andrew and Louise Forsyth decided to spend a quiet weekend at Aviemore, he to relax and climb other mountains before returning to the House, she to make plans for their forthcoming wedding.

  It had taken Andrew countless trips to Edinburgh to convince Louise what had happened to him at Bute House that night had not been mere infatuation that would soon pass, but held long-term conviction. When the one weekend he couldn’t travel to the Scottish capital and she came down to London he knew she no longer doubted his resolve. Andrew had found in the past that once the conquest was achieved interest soon waned. For him, though, his love for “the wee slip of a thing,” as his mother had come to describe Louise, grew and grew.

  Although Louise was only five foot three she was so slim she appeared far taller, and her short black hair, blue eyes, and laughing smile had many tall men bending down to take a closer look.

  “You eat like a pig and look like a rake. I don’t know how you manage it,” grumbled Andrew over di