Free An Unexpected MP by Jerry Hayes

wonderful wheezes to arrange his sock drawer and reorganise the paper clips. Ask for a drink and Satan had entered the room. From a few stiff whiskies and a couple of bottles of red to mineral water and sandwiches. Smooth PR guys with plastic smiles and an eye for the main chance. I was not there to be educated nor to bounce ideas off, but to assist in the next stepping stone of their ghastly careers. They didn’t want to discuss policing but policy. Ye gods.
    However, there was one little ray of sunshine. One senior officer was having an affair with one of the girls in the finance department. They used to have passionate trysts in the glades of Epping Forest – until it hit the red tops. All caught on film and sound. How could this have happened? The officer forgot that he had approved a surveillance operation of somevery dodgy people … in Epping Forest. One sergeant who led the surveillance team said to me after the miscreant had retired over ill health, ‘I think the boys need counselling. It was enough to put you off tapioca and cocktail sausages for life.’
    Harlow Council was a funny old set-up. It was outrageously left-wing when I was elected. Ken Livingstone would have been regarded as a bit of a Tory. Back in the day, they used to have late-night debates over the Vietnam War.
    At first they regarded me as a terrible right-wing aberration (I think the Lady might have disagreed). My first story in the
Harlow Gazette
seriously upset the comrades. The mere fact that I had been mentioned almost favourably led the council to threaten their advertising revenues if I was ever mentioned again. The reporter, the lovely Ailsa Macintyre, whose fearless reporting I am indebted to, has now moved horribly down-market . She is now Ailsa Anderson, formerly the press secretary to the Queen and now press secretary to the Archbishop of Canterbury. She is very good news.
    Eventually, I rather warmed to the council. We eyed each other very suspiciously. They had never engaged with a Tory before. And then they found one who didn’t want to grind the faces of the poor into the dirt and who had a social conscience. It made them very, very confused.
    The man I had to do business with was their general manager. Many councillors couldn’t understand why he had to talk to me at all. Actually, he was a really good guy and was at pains to explain to them that although I was a wicked Tory I would be willing to try and help them. His name was Dermot Byrne and his son is the well-known Labour politician Liam. Both are good blokes.
    But I can understand why the local Labour Party viewed me with such suspicion. These people had come from the East End of London. The boss classes had ripped the heart out of them. The unions, and eventually Labour, had given them a voice and dignity. In those days the Tory politicians were a pretty grim bunch. In fact, my grandmother and most of her family were socialists. She was married to the welterweight world boxing champion, Jimmy Hicks. Sadly, he practised on her. As a working-class woman she went to the police many times to tell them about his brutality. They told her that’s what happens in marriage. It’s what a woman should expect. Bravely, she divorced him in 1905. Strange that so many years later they both ended up with dementia in the same hospital in adjoining beds. Neither had a clue who the other was. It was desperately sad. My grandmother was a very brave woman. To keep her family of seven in food and clothes she scrubbed the floors of an orphanage. It is now the Snaresbrook Crown Court. When I appear there I feel proud that my grandmother once cleaned those floors to keep my mother alive.
    But enough of sentimentality, let’s get back to Harlow. I was amazingly lucky to have such great ground troops. Mind you, they were getting on a bit. But they were loyal and hardworking. In the run-up to the 1997 election, which I was doomed to lose, I had a phone call from the chairman of a safe seat.