Free Letters from London by Julian Barnes Page B

field backing onto his eighteenth-century Gloucestershire rectory. Even more embarrassing was his remark a few days after a cross-Channel ferry (named, ironically, the
Herald of Free Enterprise)
sank off Zeebrugge with the loss of 193 lives. Ridley made a joke about a fellow-minister going full steam ahead: “Though he is a pilot of the bill, I hasten to add he has not got his front doors open.” He confessed the comment to be “inappropriate, inopportune, insensitive,” and was permitted to survive. So he was never low-profile, and with a less understanding PM he might well have departed earlier. He entertained the right—for instance, by calling the Greens “pseudo Marxists”—and he infuriated the left with his dismissive, patrician air and his art of taking laissez-faire—as during the Harrods saga—to the point of inertia. Even his chain smoking (a reported four packs of Silk Cut per day) seemed designed to infuriate. When he arrived at the Department of Trade and Industry and said that in the long run his policy was to abolish the place, Labour dubbed him the minister with “no in-tray, no out-tray, only an ashtray.”
    But this Grand Guignol figure, officially licensed to scare the lefties, finally overstepped. He gave an interview to the right-wing weekly
The Spectator
(no danger there, surely); the editor asked him a few questions, and Ridley said what he thought. About European monetary union: “This is all a German racket designed to take over the whole of Europe. It has to be thwarted.” About the EuropeanCommissioners: “Seventeen unelected reject politicians.” About the French: “Behaving like poodles to the Germans.” About the Germans: “Uppity.” About the Irish: “Ireland gets six per cent of their gross domestic product [from the Community, by way of subsidy]… When’s Ireland going to stand up to the Germans?” On Helmut Kohl: “I’m not sure I wouldn’t rather have the [air-raid] shelters and the chance to fight back than simply being taken over by economics. He’ll soon be coming here and trying to say this is what we should do on the banking front and this is what our taxes should be. I mean, he’ll soon be trying to take over everything.” On Britain, Germany, the EC, the European Commissioners, and the question of national sovereignty: “I’m not against giving up sovereignty in principle, but not to this lot. You might just as well give it to Adolf Hitler, frankly”.
    Now, it is a well-established convention of British politics that you are allowed to mock the Irish and are positively encouraged to vilify the French (who understand the rules of the game, and react to being called poodles with the most urbane of shrugs), but Germany is another matter. So first there was the official denial, and then the resignation. This being Ridley, however, the “official denial” didn’t relate to the words allegedly spoken but to the level of alcohol in the blood at the time. Count Otto Lambsdorff, the leader of the German Liberal Party, declared that the Trade Secretary “was either drunk … or he could not stomach England’s World Cup defeat at the hands of the Germans.” But Ridley was not known for his interest in soccer, so the initial conclusion, drawn even by some of his Conservative colleagues, was that he must have been plastered. Not so: the editor of
The Spectator assured
the world that during their lunch together Ridley had imbibed only “the smallest glass of wine.” This left unanswered one interesting question: if insulting the Germans while sober is a matter for resignation, is insulting the Germans while drunk a greater or a lesser offense? Would Ridley have survived if it could have been proved that he was sozzled out of his skull? But, no, he was sober, and soon jobless. Tracked down in Budapest on the day
The Spectator
came out, Ridley commented, “This time I’ve really gone and done it.” Hehad: two days later, Mrs. Thatcher was tenderly accepting