'A great pity the Chancellor wasn't a little more cautious before allowing us to run off and make rash commitments,' the Education Secretary commented, dripping acid.
The Chancellor muttered defiantly that it wasn't his fault the election results were worse than even the cynical Stock Market had expected, a comment he had instantly regretted making although he knew it was precisely what all his colleagues were thinking. Collingridge had knocked their heads together and instructed the Secretary of State for Health to prepare a suitable explanation for the change of plans, which would be announced in a fortnight's time during the last week before the August recess.
'Let us hope,' said the septuagenarian Lord Chancellor, 'that everybody's minds will by then be on the lighter follies of summer rather than the more depressing follies of their political masters.'
Cabinet overran by twenty-five minutes, which meant that in turn the Prime Minister's briefing meeting with officials for Question Time was also late, and his ill-temper ensured that he took in very little of what they were saying. When he strode into a packed Chamber just before the appointed time of 3.15 p.m., he was not as well armed or as alert as usual.
This did not seem to matter for the first thirteen minutes fifty seconds of combat, as he batted back questions from the Opposition and accepted plaudits from his own party with adequate if not inspired ease. The Speaker of the House, in charge of parliamentary proceedings, decided that with just over a minute left there would be time for just one more quick question to round off the session.
'Stephen Kendrick,' he called across the Chamber to summon the Member whose question was next on the Order Paper. It was the first occasion on which the new Member had been involved at Question Time, and many older Members were nudging their colleagues to find out who this new man was.
'Number Six, sir’ Kendrick rose briefly to his feet to indicate the question from the Order Paper he wished the Prime Minister to answer: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for the day'. It was a hollow question, identical in form to Questions One, Two and Four which had already preceded it, and designed not to elicit information but to hide from the Prime Minister the nature of the following supplementary thrust. Such is the nature of the combat
The Prime Minister rose ponderously to his feet and glanced at the red briefing folder already open on the Despatch Box in front of him. He read in a monotone.
‘I refer the Honourable Member to the reply I gave some moments ago to Questions One, Two and Four’ Since his earlier reply had said no more than that he would spend the day holding meetings with ministerial colleagues and hosting a dinner for the visiting Belgian Prime Minister, no one had yet learned anything of interest about the Prime Minister's activities - which was precisely his intention.
Collingridge resumed his seat, and the Speaker summoned Kendrick once more to place his supplementary question. The gladiatorial courtesies were now over, and battle was about to commence. Kendrick rose to his feet from the rear row of the Opposition benches.
Kendrick was a gambler, a man who had found professional success in an industry which emphasised ostentatious reward, yet who had decided to risk his expense account and sports car by fighting a marginal parliamentary seat. Not that he had really expected or indeed wanted to win; after all, the Government had been sitting on a pretty reasonable majority. Fighting the seat, he reasoned, would give him a platform and a prominence which would help him both socially and professionally, and would certainly give him a higher profile in the public relations trade magazines. The man with the social conscience' always made good copy in an aggressively commercial industry, and the ability to be able to drop a name or two usually helped.
His majority of 76, after three recounts, at first had come as an unpleasant shock as suddenly he was forced to contemplate the reduced income and additional hours of a parliamentary career. It would not be much of a career at that, either, since he knew the odds were that after the next election he would probably be looking for a new seat or a new job. In either case he knew that the plodding progress of a loyal and patient backbencher was not for him. He would have to make his mark, and make it quickly.
Kendrick had spent all of the previous evening and much of that morning turning over O'Neill's remarks in his mind. Why cancel a publicity campaign promoting a vote-winning policy which had been sold heavily during the election, when the campaign was all set to go? Whichever way he looked at it, the pieces would only fit together into a pattern suggesting that it was the policy rather than the publicity campaign which was in trouble. But should he enquire or accuse? To question or condemn? Or simply take the course expected of new Members and be completely anodyne? He knew that if he got it wrong, the first and lasting impression he made would be that of the House fool.
His momentary uncertainty caused the general commotion of the House to die away as MPs sensed indecision and surprise. Had the new Member frozen? But Kendrick felt calm and at ease. He remembered his small majority, and he knew he must gamble. What had he got to lose, except his dignity, which in any event was a commodity of little practical value in the modem House of Commons? He took a deep breath.
'Will the Prime Minister explain to the House why he is not implementing the promised hospital expansion programme?'
No criticism. No elaboration. No added phrase or rambling comment which would allow the Prime Minister to dodge or divert the question. Kendrick had thrown his grenade and he knew that if his gamble were wrong the grenade would be picked up by a grateful Prime Minister and thrown directly back to explode in his own lap.
A murmur went up as he resumed his seat. The sport had taken an interesting new turn, and the 300-odd spectators turned as one to look towards Collingridge. He rose aware that there was nothing in his red briefing folder from which to draw inspiration. The whole House could see the broad smile with which Collingridge accepted the challenge; only those sitting very close to him could see the whites of his knuckles as he gripped the Despatch Box.
‘I hope that the Honourable Gentleman will be careful to avoid being carried away by the summer silly season, at least before August arrives. As he is a new Member, may I remind him that in the last four years under this Government the health service has enjoyed a substantial real increase in spending of some 6 to 8 per cent?' Collingridge knew he was being inexcusably patronising, but he could not find the right words. 'The health service has gained more than any Government service from our success and continuing determination in defeating inflation, which compares...'
'Answer the bloody question,' came the irreverent growl from below the gangway on the Opposition benches, which was immediately echoed by several Members around the interrupter. Kendrick was no longer alone.
‘I shall answer the question in my own way and in my own time,' snapped the Prime Minister. It is a pathetic sham for the Opposition to whine on about such matters when they know that electors have reached their own conclusions and only recently voted with their feet for this Government. They support us and I can repeat our determination to protect them and their hospital service’
Increasingly rude shouts of disapproval began to rise from the Opposition benches, most of which would go unrecorded by Hansard but which were clearly audible to the Prime Minister. His own backbenchers began to shift uneasily, uncertain as to why Collingridge did not simply reaffirm often stated party policy.
The House will be aware that it is not the custom of Governments to discuss the specifics of new spending plans in advance, and we shall make an announcement about our intentions at the appropriate time’
You have. You've bloody dropped it, haven't you?' the Honourable and usually disrespectful Member for Newcastle West shouted, so loudly that even Hansard could not claim to have missed it.
The Opposition Front Bench smiled and chuckled, beginning to appreciate that the Prime Minister's increasingly taut smile hid inner turmoil. The Leader of the Opposition, not six feet from where Collingridge stood, turned to his nearest colleague and whispered loudly. T)o you know I think he's fluffed it. He's running away!' Opposition Members began taunting him from all around, slapping their thighs and chortling like old hags around a guillotine.
The tension and pain of a thousand such encounters in the House welled up inside Collingridge. He was unprepared for this. He could not bring himself to admit the truth, yet neither could he lie to the House, and he could find no form of words which would tread that delicate line between honesty and outright deceit. As he observed the sneers and smugness on the faces in front of him and listened to their jeers, he remembered all the many lies they had told about him in the past, the cruelty they had shown and the tears they had caused his wife to shed. As he gazed at the sea of waving Order Papers and contorted faces just a few feet in front of him, his patience vanished. He had to bring it to an end, and he no longer cared how. He threw his hands in the air.
‘I don't have to take comments like that from a pack of dogs’ he snarled, and sat down.
Even before the shout of triumph and rage had a chance to rise from the Opposition benches, Kendrick was back on his feet.
'On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Prime Minister's remarks are an absolute disgrace. I asked a perfectly straightforward question about why the Prime Minister had reneged on his election promise to patients and nurses, and all I have got are insults and evasion. While I understand the Prime Minister's reluctance to admit to the House that he has perpetrated a gigantic and disgraceful fraud, is there nothing you can do to protect the right of Members of this House to get a straight answer to a straight question?'
A roar of approval grew from Opposition members as the Speaker struggled to be heard above the commotion. "The Honourable Member, although he is new, seems already to have developed a sharp eye for parliamentary procedure, in which case he will know that I am no more responsible for the content or tone of the Prime Minister's replies than I am for the questions which are put to him. Next business!'
As the Speaker tried to move matters on, a red-faced Collingridge rose and strode angrily out of the Chamber, gesticulating for the Chief Whip to follow him. The very unparliamentary taunt of 'Coward!' rang after him across the floor. From the Government benches there was an uncertain silence.
'How in Christ's name did he know? How did that son-of-a-bitch know?'
The door had barely closed upon the Prime Minister's .office just off the rear of the Chamber when the screaming began. The normally suave exterior of Her Majesty's First Minister had been drawn back to reveal a wild Warwickshire ferret.
'Francis, it's simply not good enough. It's not bloody good enough I tell you. We get the Chancellor's report in Cabinet Committee yesterday, the full Cabinet discusses it for the first time today, and by this afternoon it's known to every snivelling creep in the Opposition. Less than two dozen Cabinet Ministers knew, only a handful of civil servants knew, but now every single Member of the Opposition knows. Who leaked it, Francis, who? I'm damned if I know, but you're Chief Whip and I want you to find out who the hell it was.'
Urquhart breathed a huge sigh of relief. Until the Prime Minister's outburst he had no idea if the finger of blame was already pointing at him, and the last couple of minutes had been distinctly uncomfortable.
It simply astonishes me that one of our Cabinet colleagues would want deliberately to leak something like this,' Urquhart began, implicitly ruling out the possibility of a civil service leak and narrowing the circle of suspicion to include each and every one of his Cabinet colleagues.
They've got us by the balls now, and it's going to hurt. Whoever is responsible had humiliated me, and I want him out, Francis. I want-I insist- that you find the worm. And men I want him fed to the crows.'
I'm afraid there's been too much bickering amongst our colleagues since the election. Too many of them seem to want someone else's job.'
‘I know they all want my job, damn them, but who would be so - cretinous...' — the words were spat out — 'as to deliberately leak something like that?'
‘I can't say for sure, Prime Minister.'
'Can't you even give me an educated guess, for Chris-sake?'
That would not be fair.'
'Life's not fair, Francis. Tell me about it.'
'But...'
‘No "buts", Francis. If it's happened once it can and almost certainly will happen again. Accuse, imply, whatever you damned well like. There are no minutes being taken here. But I want some names!' Collingridge kicked a chair in frustration.