You never know how honest a politician is until he gets into government It's easy to be clean in opposition There's no temptation No one feeds the horse's arse when they can feed its mouth. When he read this story, the Prime Minister recognised it from one of the files the head of MI5 had shown him. The same birthday party photograph of the two men was even there. The Watchfinder General had already been on the phone, demanding submissions from No 10 on these cases.Was I naive?' the premier asked his press secretary.
Early contracts awarded by the Ministry of Transport seemed to have favoured companies run by a self-made businessman with roots in a Labour stronghold constituency, where he and a new minister in the department had been closely associated in local government. There was the Gaddafi's Pony' scandal, in which a backbencher was revealed to have bought a farm for himself and a horse for his daughter, despite a pre-parliamentary career as a lowly paid union official. The member's record of support for, and visits to, the Libyan regime led to a tabloid front page picture of the young girl proudly riding Jason', her 12-hands Exmoor cross, beneath the headline: GADDAFI'S PONY?' Another paper referred to the animal as: LIBYA'S TROJAN HORSE.A junior minister was revealed to have spent his first Christmas in power on a Caribbean island as the guest of an industrial giant that had recently made its first ever contributions to the Labour Party. With extracts from his 1996 campaign rallies playing on news bulletins - Please, no sleaze]' the crowd kept chanting - the Prime Minister felt he had no option but to demand his colleague's resignation. Led by their new, young, right-wing leader, the Conservative opposition brayed charges of hypocrisy. From the upper chamber, Lord Heseltine of Henley roared: Labour said they'd give the people change.If only we'd understood they meant the change left over from their sleazy financial deals]'Each day seemed to bring another newspaper story of small or large corruption involving members of the Labour government. The tycoon had been one of the first to edge his allegiances towards Labour in the mid-Nineties, when Conservatism began to seem doomed.The minister insisted that he was innocent, but - unlike Tories in similar, earlier circumstances - too poor to sue.
He had seen the first editions of a Sunday tabloid newspaper, which reported - with photographs and photocopies of cheques and hotel bills - on the friendship between a Labour minister and a businessman. Of course, the corruption charges against his company were never made to stick. I mean, it might be said: why shouldn't a politician go to his birthday party? He's technically innocent. It's just, with the stand you took in your campaign 'The third folder had slithered towards him He batted it back.No,' he said.
I don't even want to know what's in that one 'Much later, when the books about the downfall of this government were written, there would be three theories about why the Prime Minister ignored the advice he was believed to have been given about prospective members of his government.One view was that the basic decency and good nature of the Prime Minister made it impossible for him to believe his colleagues capable of such behaviour: rather as Queen Victoria had declined to make lesbianism illegal because she refused to accept that it occurred. The second theory was that the procedural rules of the Labour Party - by which the first cabinet of the administration is elected by MPs - had left the leader with no option but to use colleagues whose ethics he might know to be dubious. The third interpretation of events was that the security services had cynically seen in the promise of cleaner government a chance to smear, and keep from government, Labour members of whose opinions or lifestyles they disapproved.But, for whatever reason, the Prime Minister kept to the cabinet list that he had originally prepared.Almost a year later, on the evening of the second Saturday in September 1997, the Prime Minister's press secretary telephoned him at Chequers. I think I'll settle for the headline details,' said the premier quickly.He closed the file without comment, and opened the second, which his guest had slid across the blotter. Inside this one, as well as typed sheets, were a number of grainy black and white photographs.
A member of his party, pencilled in for a junior ministerial position at the Home Office, was pictured wearing a paper hat at what was clearly a celebration of some kind.He was chinking champagne glasses with a jowly, red-faced man in middle age.Isn't that?' began the Prime Minister.Yes. It's a sexual act between men, Prime Minister,' said the head of MI5 More common than you might think What you do is, you put your ' Yes, yes. The premier recognised on its cover the name of a colleague, on whose appointment to a senior position of state he had just decided. He read the carefully typed pages, recognising places and the names of individuals and what he assumed to be clubs or restaurants. Soon, however, he reached a wholly unfamiliar noun.What exactly is that?' he asked, indicating the word.Which? Oh, yes, that.
