Free The House of Cards Complete Trilogy by Michael Dobbs

question like that? I am the Chief Whip, I am totally loyal to the Prime Minister—and his shuffle. Or rather non-shuffle.” The edge of sarcasm was back in his voice.
    “Yes, but what about Francis Urquhart, a man who is very ambitious for his party and is desperately anxious for its success. Does he support it?”
    There was no reply.
    “Mr. Urquhart, in my piece tomorrow I shall faithfully record your public loyalty to the reshuffle and your justification of it. But…”
    “But?”
    “We’re speaking on lobby terms. All my instincts suggest you don’t care for what’s happening. I want to know. You want to ensure that your private thoughts don’t get back to my colleagues, or your colleagues, or become common Westminster gossip. I give you my word on that. This is just for me, because all this might be important in the months ahead. And by the way, no one else knows I came to see you tonight.”
    “You are offering me a deal?” he muttered softly.
    “Yes. I think you want one. Someone like me. A mouthpiece.”
    “And why do you think I would want that?”
    “Because you let me in.”
    He stared with blue eyes that seemed to dig deep inside her, stirring excitement.
    “You want to be a player, not simply a pawn,” she said.
    “Better a man of any reputation than a forgotten one, eh?”
    “I think so,” she said, returning the stare, holding his eyes, smiling.
    “Let us try this, Mattie. A simple tale. Of a Prime Minister surrounded by ambition, not his own but the ambition of others. Those ambitions have grown since the election. He needs to keep them in check, to stifle them, otherwise they might escape and completely obliterate him.”
    “Are you telling me that there’s a lot of rivalry and dissent within the Cabinet?”
    He paused to consider his words carefully before continuing in a slow, deliberate voice. “A great elm waiting to rot. And once that rot has taken hold it is only a matter of time. So there are some who, you might suppose, are wondering what life might be like in another eighteen months, or two years, what position they want to be in if—when—the tree comes crashing down. As they all do in the end.”
    “So why doesn’t he get rid of the troublesome ones?”
    “Because he can’t risk having disgruntled former Cabinet ministers rampaging all over the backbenches when he’s got a majority of only twenty-four which could disappear at the first parliamentary cock-up. He has to keep everything as quiet, as low key as possible. He can’t even move the Awkward Brigade to new Cabinet posts because every time you send a new minister to a new Department they get a rush of enthusiasm and want to make their mark. They become of renewed interest to important people in the media, like you. Suddenly we find that ministers aren’t simply doing their jobs but also promoting themselves for a leadership race that must inevitably come. It’s a cancer. Government thrown into chaos, everyone looking over their shoulders, confusion, disharmony, accusations of lack of grip—and suddenly we have a leadership crisis.”
    “So everyone has to remain where they are. Do you think that’s a sound strategy?”
    He took a deep mouthful of whiskey. “If I were the captain of the Titanic and I saw a bloody great iceberg dead ahead, I think I’d want a change of course.”
    “Did you tell this to the Prime Minister this afternoon?”
    “Mattie,” he scolded, “you take me too far. I am thoroughly enjoying our conversation but I fear I would be going too far if I started divulging the details of private discussions. That’s a shooting offense.”
    “Then let me ask you about Lord Williams. He was with the PM an extraordinarily long time this afternoon if all they were deciding was to do nothing.”
    “A man grown gray in the service of his party. Have you heard the phrase, ‘Beware of an old man in a hurry’?”
    “He surely can’t think he could become Party Leader. Not from the