Free An Unexpected MP by Jerry Hayes Page B

desperately sad.

CHAPTER 7
BIG BEASTS
    L ooking back on my days in the Commons is like reflecting on my childhood. All the days seemed to be sunny and the characters larger than life. But I am pretty sure that they were always far more interesting than today’s lot. Many of them are pretty vanilla.
    Nick Soames is a case in point. Larger than life in every sense. I am not sure how much he weighs, but were he the Aga Khan, who balances himself against a tray of gold and diamonds every year (God knows why), he would be a very wealthy man. Being the grandson of Winston Churchill mercifully hasn’t given him airs and graces. It is also surprising that he is not some hang ’em and flog ’em man of the shires. He, like me, is very much a One Nation Tory (not in the ridiculous Miliband sense), which basically means that we are not obsessed with the certainty that the Germans will soon be jackbooting their way down the Mall and big fat sweating Belgians ordering that our railway timetables be translated into Walloon. In other words, we see the world and its problems pragmatically.
    But Nick does have his delightful moments of innocence. In the 1980s in a BBC recording studio the sound man alwaysneeded to have a ‘level’, so he would ask what we had had for breakfast and adjust the sound accordingly with our reply. One of Nick’s earliest broadcasts went like this.
    ‘For the level, Mr Soames, what did you have for breakfast, sir?’
    ‘Oh, some cold grouse and half a bottle of breakfast claret. What about you, old boy?’
    Once, he came into the Smoking Room rather ashen-faced and sank a large gin and tonic.
    ‘I’m afraid I’ve done something quite unforgivable,’ he wailed.
    He had just received a delegation of single mothers and had been rather sniffy about feckless women.
    ‘Feckless, Mr Soames? We are all Falklands widows.’ The poor fellow was utterly mortified.
    He once told me his father’s advice on marriage: ‘Get your cock in the till, son.’
    Not that either did. And, of course, no paragraph on Nick Soames could ever be complete without the words, which I am sure are apocryphal, of his first wife: ‘Having Nick make love to you is like having a wardrobe fall on top of you with the key still in.’
    But my favourite story was when, as a young man, he went up to his grandfather asking if he was the most famous man in the world.
    ‘Yes. Now sod off.’
    I know Nick can be a bit bombastic in the Toad of Toad Hall sense, but I have a soft spot for him because, beneath all the bluster, he is rather a sensitive soul.
    Unlike some others. I suspect that John Prescott has a sensitiveside to him; it’s just that it is not very apparent if you are a Tory, since he thinks we really are lower than vermin. It was probably being a steward on the cruise liners and having to serve Anthony Eden and his ghastly braying entourage that gave Prescott his hatred not just for the policies but for the class. Although he did get his own back on a particularly patronising Eden by ‘accidentally’ spilling scalding-hot soup onto his crotch.
    I often attempted to be jolly with him but never succeeded in breaking through the barrier. Once, we both appeared (in different studios) on the
Today
programme. I was being at my most irritatingly jovial and gave Prezza a few playful metaphorical jabs. I thought nothing of it until I bumped into him in the Members’ lobby later that day. With my legendary judgement and timing I thought this was the time to complete my charm offensive. So I bounced up to him with a grin.
    ‘Hi, John, that was a bit of fun this morning, wasn’t it?’
    All I can remember is a jab in the solar plexus and a low primal growl. ‘You little Tory cunt.’
    And then Labour Chief Whip Derek Foster grinning from ear to ear, saying, ‘Nice fellow, isn’t he?’ I’ve been boring friends with this story for years.
    But Thumper once did come a cropper in the chamber.
    It was a dozy, balmy afternoon, with a