To: Peter Gascoigne
Dear Peter,
We can only think of one technical way around this problem: make Buckingham Palace notionally an extension of the French Embassy. Then the dog could still be on foreign territory.
Reactions please.
Dick
[Hackers diary continues Ed.]
I gave them my bloody reactions! I told them that, as always, they had revealed themselves to be weak, indecisive and stupid in the face of a genuine emergency. I reminded them that I am currently engaged in a fight for the sovereignty of the Channel Tunnel. What did they suppose I felt about the sovereignty of the Palace?
The Civil Service is usually so frightfully smart and condescending -- especially the Foreign Office. Life is simple when you have so many precedents to follow; but theyre like computers: put them into a new crisis, for which theyve not been programmed, and their brains short-circuit.
[It must have been very painful for senior Foreign Office officials to be told that they were weak, indecisive and stupid. What would have made it more painful was being told by someone as weak, indecisive and stupid as Hacker. What would have made it most painful was that Hacker was correct Ed.]
Meanwhile, Number Ten was in a frenzy all day. All the phones were ringing in the Private Office all the time.
Bernard was on excellent form. He remembered to phone the Palace and check that her Majesty was never told officially that this gift has been proposed -- that way, she cannot be implicated in refusing it.
But even Bernard was at a loss on the matter of this damn dog. All he could suggest was that our Ambassador in Paris tried to nobble it slip it some poison, borrow some umbrella tips from the Bulgarians. [A reference to the murder in 1978 of Gerogi Markov, a Bulgarian dissident working for the BBCs [British Broadcasting Corporation] External Services, who was stabbed with a poisoned umbrella tip at a London bus stop Ed.]
This sounded like an extremely tricky covert operation, with profoundly embarrassing consequences if discovered. The British voter can stomach rising unemployment, rising inflation, rising taxes, a falling pound, a falling stock exchange -- but it would never re-elect me if I were thought to be implicated in the demise of a Labrador puppy, dispatched to meet its Maker in the Great Kennel in the sky under mysterious circumstances. The British know their priorities!
Meanwhile, in the absence of a solution to the problem with the French, other arrangements continued apace today. We have laid on interpreters for numerous meetings. There were even interpreters listed for my meeting with the American Vice-President, but I assume that was just a typing error. [Almost certainly correct. After all, the English-speaking nations can, with a certain generosity of spirit, be said to include the Americans. In fact, it may be thought that the special relationship between us is purely due to the fact that the Americans are no more noticeably multilingual than we are Ed.]
The Prime Ministers are flying in tomorrow and Bernard tells me that the Band of the Royal Marines is going crazy -- it has had to learn to play all the national anthems. There was great relief when we learned the Argentinians werent coming -- not because we defeated them in the Falklands but because the Argentinian national anthem is in three movements and lasts six minutes. [In fact, the long version lasts for about four minutes (depending on the speed at which it is played) and the shortened form one minute forty-eight seconds. It is interesting to note that Hacker was given this incorrect information by the anti-Argie lobby in the FO Ed.]
Seating in the Abbey was the big question today. I had to approve it. Incredibly, they had done it alphabetically, which would have resulted in Iran and Iraq sitting next to each other, plus Israel and Jordan in the same pew. We could have started World War III.
Bernard rang through to the Abbey, and was told that it had been noticed that they were all sitting together but that the feeling at the Abbey was that as they were all from the same part of the world they might feel more at home. Bernard was forced to explain that proximity does not equal affinity.
Somebody else pointed out that as Ireland was in the same pew it might make things better. I pointed out that Ireland doesnt make anything better. Not for us. Ever!
Peter, my Foreign Affairs Secretary, came up to the study to brief me on the various issues we could expect to encounter. Bernard was there too, of course.
The Spanish Ambassador says his Foreign Secretary will want a word about the unity of nations. And the Italians want a word about the European ideal.
These were clearly coded messages. I asked what they meant.
Peter translated. The Spanish want Gibraltar back and the Italians want to enlarge the EEC wine lakes. [When EEC Foreign Ministers returned home after top-level meetings, it would come as a surprise to their governments if they claimed that their time had been spent trying to promote the European ideal. The EEC was just a customs union -- politicians won brownie points only by heroically defending their national interest Ed.]
The New Zealanders, continued Peter, want an ad hoc meeting of Commonwealth leaders to discuss alleged British racist support of South Africa.
I asked why they were raising this again. It was explained to me that there were two possibilities: it was either because of their anger over EEC butter quotas which exclude New Zealand dairy products -- or maybe it was a manifestation of the guilt they feel over their about-turn on nuclear policy.
Peter proposed a royal visit for New Zealand. Send the Queen herself if possible. An excellent idea, though rather a long-term solution and no help to the immediate embarrassment unless the offer of the royal visit shuts them up. And Peter warned me that we could expect serious trouble from the South Africans anyway.
Problems with human rights? I asked.
No. Theyre trying to unload more grapefruit.
I was briefed about correct modes of address. Apparently the correct mode of address when speaking to a Cypriot Archbishop is not Your Ecstasy, its Your Beatitude. And if the Papal Envoy says We desire to wash our hands it means hes been caught short.
In the middle of all this Bernard received an urgent call from the palace. We all held our breath. Had she heard about the puppy and, if so, did she have a view?
But no: the Palace had heard that there was a problem with the red carpets at Heathrow. (Which there was, but had been solved, I know not how.) And Her Majesty was worried that the President of the Ivory Coast wishes -- apparently -- to award her the Order of the Elephant.
I boiled over. Bernard, Peter, for Gods sake! I shouted. We cant have another animal. Especially an elephant! The whole of Whitehall, the Foreign Office, the Home Office, the Cabinet Office and the DHSS [Department of Health and Social Security] have been tied up with one puppy for nearly a week. Government has been paralysed. No elephants!!
But I was mistaken. Apparently its not a real elephant that the Ivory Coast wants to send -- it's a medal. The problem is that the honour is conveyed by a wet kiss.
Im leaving that one to the FO.
September 7th
Tomorrow is the funeral of my illustrious predecessor. And today we licked the French. I dont know which of these events gives me a greater feeling of satisfaction.
But things did not start auspiciously.
First thing this morning Bernard entered the Cabinet room with two files -- one of them one inch thick, the other six inches thick.
What on earth is that, Bernard? I asked.
He indicated the slim file. The Channel Tunnel file, Prime Minister.
No, I said. The thick one.
Oh. He looked hopeless. Thats the puppy file.
How far have we reached with it?
It weighed in at three and a half pounds this morning.
The puppy?
The file, he replied seriously.
We had told the French that airport security would regretfully have to impound the puppy and quarantine it at Heathrow. The French had not replied. But in order to make it sound a little better the FO had let the French know that, as Heathrow Airport is en route from Buckingham Palace to Windsor Castle, the Queen will be able to visit it on the way.