“Have you got a ten o’clock vote?”
“Afraid so.”
“I see, coffee with the baby-sitter,” she said. She paused. “Simon.”
“Yes, darling?”
“I’m very proud of you.”
Derek Spencer sat behind his massive partner’s desk in Cheapside and listened intently to what Charles had to say.
“You will be a great loss to the bank,” were the chairman’s first words. “But no one here would want to hold up your political career, least of all me.”
Charles noticed that Spencer could not look him in the eye as he spoke.
“Can I assume that I would be invited back on the board if for any reason my situation changed at the Commons?”
“Of course,” said Spencer. “There was no need for you to ask such a question.”
“That’s kind of you,” said Charles, genuinely relieved. He stood up, leaned forward, and shook hands rather stiffly.
“Good luck, Charles,” were Spencer’s parting words.
“Does that mean you can no longer remain on the board?” asked Ronnie Nethercote when he heard Simon’s news.
“No, not while I’m in Opposition and only a Shadow spokesman. Only the Chief Whip receives a salary and is therefore disqualified, but if we win the next election and I’m offered a job in Government I would have to resign immediately.”
“So I’ve got your services for another three years?”
“Unless the Prime Minister goes earlier, or we lose the next election.”
“No fear of the latter,” said Ronnie. “I knew I’d picked a winner the day I met you, and I don’t think you’ll ever regret joining my board.”
Over the months that followed Charles was surprised to find how much he enjoyed working in the Whips’ office, although he had been unable to hide from Fiona his anger at Kerslake taking over his shadow post at Housing and Local Government. The order, discipline, and camaraderie of the job brought back memories of his days in the Grenadier Guards. His duties were manifold and ranged from checking that members were all present in their committees to sitting on the front bench in the Commons and picking out the salient points members made in their speeches to the House. He also had to keep an eye out for any signs of dissension or rebellion on his own benches while remaining abreast of what was happening on the other side of the House. In addition he had fifty of his own members from the Midlands area to shepherd, and had to be certain that they never missed a vote unless paired, and only then when the Whips’ office had been informed.
As Whips are never called on to make speeches in the House at any time Charles seemed to have discovered a role for which he was best cut out. Fiona reminded him once again that Ted Heath had a spell in the Whips’ office on his way to becoming Shadow Chancellor. She was delighted to see how involved her husband had become with Commons life but still hated going to bed alone each night and regularly falling asleep before he had even arrived home.
Simon also enjoyed his new appointment from the first moment. As the junior member of the Housing and Local Government team he was given transport as his special subject. During the first year he read books, studied pamphlets, held meetings with national transport chairmen from air, sea, and rail, and frequently worked long into the night trying to master his new brief. Simon was one of those rare members who, after only a few weeks, looked as if he had always been on the front bench.
Both parties were surprised by the fourteen percent swing to the Conservatives at the Louth by-election toward the end of 1969. It began to look as if the Labour party did not have enough time to recover before they had to call an election. But in March 1970 the Labour party had a surprisingly good result in the Ayrshire South by-election; it caused the press to speculate that the Prime Minister might go to the country early. The May local elections in England and Wales showed a further swing to Labour, which was contrary to every other political trend of the previous two years. Talk of a general election was suddenly in the air.
When the following month’s opinion polls confirmed the swing to Labour Harold Wilson visited the Queen at Buckingham Palace and asked her to dissolve Parliament. The date of the general election was set for 18 June 1970.
The press were convinced that Wilson had got it right again, and would lead his party to victory for the third time in a row, a feat no man in political history had managed. Every Conservative knew that would spell the end of Edward Heath’s leadership of his party.
Andrew and Louise returned to Edinburgh as soon as the Queen had made the announcement. Parliament went into a limbo period while members dispersed all over the country only in order to try and return to Westminster.
Andrew found his local committee had been taken by surprise by the PM’s announcement, and realized he only had a matter of days to prepare himself.
The evening he arrived back in Edinburgh he called his General Purposes Committee together and over coffee and sandwiches mapped out a demanding three-week timetable which would allow him to reach every part of the constituency not once but several times. Street cards were pinned on to an old trestle table, soon to be filled in with crayon of various colors according to the canvassing returns: a red line through a definite Labour vote, a blue line through a Conservative one, a yellow through a Liberal, and a black line through the growing Scottish Nationalist party.
Andrew began each day of the campaign with a press conference at which he discussed local matters that affected his constituents, answered criticisms made by the other candidates, and dealt with any national issues that had arisen during the previous twenty-four hours. He then spent the rest of the morning touring the constituency with a loudspeaker van, entreating people to “Send Fraser back to Westminster.” He and Louise would fit in a pub lunch together before the dreaded door-to-door canvassing began.
“You’ll enjoy this,” said Andrew as they walked up to the first door on a cold Monday morning. The street list of names was on a card in his pocket. Andrew pressed the door bell, and a little jingle could be heard. A woman still in her dressing gown answered it a few moments later.
“Good morning, Mrs. Foster,” he began. “My name is Andrew Fraser. I’m your Labour candidate.”
“Oh, how nice to meet you. I have so much I need to discuss with you — won’t you come in and have a cup of tea?”
“It’s kind of you, Mrs. Foster, but I have rather a lot of ground to cover during the next few days.” When the door closed, Andrew put a blue line through her name on his card.
“How can you be sure she’s Conservative?” demanded Louise, “she seemed so friendly.”
“The Conservatives are trained to ask all the other candidates in for tea and waste their time. Your own side will always say, ‘You have my vote, don’t spend your time with me,’ and let you get on to those who are genuinely uncommitted.”
“I always vote for Fraser,” said Mrs. Foster’s next-door neighbor. “Labour for parliament, Tory for the local council.”
“But don’t you feel Sir Duncan should be removed from the council?” asked Andrew, grinning.
“Certainly not, and that’s what I told him when he suggested I shouldn’t vote for you.”
Andrew put a red line through the name and knocked on the next door.
“My name is Andrew Fraser and I—”
“I know who you are, young man, and I’ll have none of your politics, or your father’s for that matter.”
“May I ask who you will be voting for?” asked Andrew.
“Scottish Nationalist.”
“Why?” asked Louise.
“Because the oil belongs to us, not those bloody Sassenachs.”