Barnard was genuinely touched. He had given his hosts a hard time. It was clear to him now that they had planned the one-on-one encounter with Minister Zhang down to the last detail. What on earth did they think? That he could change his mind at the drop of a hat?
Still, it was nice of them to give him a video of the Terracotta army. Melissa would be pleased. He’d taken some photos that morning but it would be good to have a proper video.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The plane from Xian landed as dawn was breaking. As a last gesture of goodwill to a departing minister, the government had laid on a car. Barnard scanned the papers as they sped west along the M4. He frowned. The Observer’s ‘Poll of Polls’ had Leave at ten points behind.
Harriet Marshall, director of the Leave campaign, was already waiting when Barnard’s car rolled into the drive of Coleman Court: the splendid Georgian house which Barnard had bought on first being elected for the South Wiltshire constituency.
‘Ni hao!’ Harriet said. ‘The wanderer returns!’
‘Hello to you, too!’ Barnard smiled at the young woman who held the door open for him and then helped him with his bag. He congratulated himself, not for the first time, on the fact that the Leave campaign had managed to tempt Harriet to join them. The financial inducement had not been impressive – Harriet Marshall could have earned a much higher salary in the City.
Harriet was a profound thinker, a high-level chess player, and indeed, by general repute, probably the cleverest woman in years to have made her name in politics. Not as an MP, but as a Special Political Adviser or SPAD.
She was also a superb strategist, with an ability to create – and then capitalize on – opportunities long before most people even realized they existed.
But she was far from easy to work with. In fact, she was notoriously difficult. Harriet made it abundantly clear that she thought most MPs were time-servers, jobsworths, interested in their own career and not much else. Even ministers, from time to time, felt the lash of her tongue. From her point of view, the people who were the ‘extremists’ were the people who lived in the Westminster ‘bubble’, who believed – for example – in an immigration policy that guaranteed free movement rights, even for murderers.
Harriet got results. She had seldom been on the losing side. She didn’t intend to be on the losing side now.
There was so much to do and so little time to do it.
The government had all the big guns. Tom Milbourne, the chancellor of the exchequer, was firing one broadside after another, using some convenient – and often heavily massaged – Treasury statistics. With Brexit, the chancellor argued, the economy would take a severe tumble. The National Health Service, staffed by foreign doctors and nurses, would collapse; crops would go unpicked in East Anglian fields owing to the sudden absence of migrant workers from the countries of Eastern Europe. One million Poles and half a million Romanians would vanish overnight. The country would go to pot.
The Bank of England, though legally independent, joined in the fun, producing economic forecasts or ‘scenarios’ of the consequences of Brexit, each one more alarming than the last.
This morning, when Harriet Marshall had her first meeting with Edward Barnard, now officially chairman of Leave, she showed no sign of being deterred by the size of the challenge they faced if they were to win on June 23rd.
‘Let’s give them a kick in the balls,’ Harriet said. ‘We’ll put out our own analyses proving that their analyses are wrong. We’ll say they are offering a diet of fear while we are offering a veritable smorgasbord of hope.’
‘Who’s going to crunch the numbers for us?’ Barnard asked. ‘We don’t have much money.’
‘We don’t need much money. We’ve got amazing technicians – top mathematicians and computer specialists – working on our database. We know precisely who to hit with direct door-to-door canvassing. And we’ll get the message out too via social media: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, that kind of thing. Did you know that Ron Craig has twenty million followers on Twitter? No wonder he’s leading the pack.’
‘I’ve met Ron Craig,’ Barnard said. ‘Last time I saw him was in a hospital in the Russian Far East. President Popov had shot him in the left buttock with a tranquillizing dart.’
Melissa Barnard brought them coffee and stayed with them while Harriet rolled out a large calendar and spread it on the table.
‘I’ve blocked in at least two major speeches a week,’ Harriet said. ‘Not in London, of course. We’re not going to win in London, so there’s no point in wasting a lot of time and energy there. And Scotland’s not friendly territory. The SNP is likely to outplay the Labour Party there, but both will be voting Remain.’
She got up, fumbling in her pocket for some drawing pins, and fixed a large map of the UK to the wall.
‘If we win at all, we’re going to win with English votes. People who like fish and chips, fly the flag of St George, go down to the pub for a pint on Sunday morning, and watch Coronation Street on telly.’
‘Oh dear,’ Barnard murmured. ‘I’m not sure I’m going to be much good at winning over that kind of voter.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Marshall returned to her seat. ‘We’ve plenty of rabble-rousers gagging to sign up to our speakers list. I’m told that Harry Stokes, the mayor of London, or former mayor I should say, is ready to join us. That’ll be a tremendous coup.’
‘Are you sure he’s made up his mind?’
‘Of course, I’m not sure. I don’t suppose he is either. But that won’t necessarily prevent him taking the plunge.’
‘That is good news.’
Barnard felt suddenly much more cheerful. If Harry Stokes, the charismatic ex-mayor of London, decided to throw in his lot with the Leavers, that was very good news indeed. The mayor, whose ebullient exterior concealed a razor-sharp mind and a pronounced streak of political cunning, would be a tremendous catch. The best proof of that was the fact that he had won twice in the London mayoral elections. Given that London had voted overwhelmingly for the Labour Party in all recent General (as opposed to Mayoral) Elections, this was an incontestable example of Harry Stokes’ Heineken effect: the ability to reach parts of the electorate that others couldn’t reach.
‘Don’t get too excited.’ Harriet Marshall pricked the bubble with surgical skill. ‘Even with Harry Stokes leading the charge, it will be an uphill battle.’
She pulled a piece of paper from her pocket. ‘Have you looked at the bookies’ odds recently? The betting is overwhelming for Remain. Look, Paddy Power is offering 5 – 1 on a Remain victory. The gap’s as wide as that.’
While Melissa fixed the coffee, Harriet looked at the calendar.
‘We’ve got fewer than one hundred days left before Thursday June 23rd,’ she said. ‘And we’ve got to make sure that every one of them counts. Speeches, rallies, TV appearances. We’re going to be flat out.’
‘Our job is to change the odds, then?’ Barnard said.
‘Our job is to win the vote.’
They worked on through the morning, pencilling in potential speakers on the spreadsheet and blocking off key dates on the calendar. At twelve noon, they took a break.
Melissa returned with glasses, tonic water and a bottle of gin. She poured a stiff one for herself, then – glass in hand – cast an eye on the spreadsheet and calendar.
‘But how are you going to use Edward?’ she asked Harriet. ‘I don’t see a lot of days blocked off for him? He hasn’t given up a Cabinet job to stand idly by on the sidelines while others fight the battles.’