`HAVE YOU SEEN THIS?'

. . . said the Clerk of the House to the novelist on his staff

Philip Hensher. But by then the author of the offending words,

about homosexuality among MPs, knew that the game was up

PHILIP HENSHER was a parliamentary clerk when he gave a brief interview to Atti- tude, the glossy monthly magazine for homo- sexual men, shortly before publication of his new novel, Kitchen Venom, which is about an MP and a male prostitute. Among other questions, the magazine asked him: 'How many gay MPs are there?' He was quoted as replying: More than in the general popula- tion. About 60? There's a slight bias towards the Tories, because lots of poofs adore Mrs Thatcher. I'm not convinced there are any in the Cabinet.'

Asked: 'Who is the most fan- ciable MP?' he mentioned one, and said of him: 'It's his shagged-out look I like.' Asked about another MP, he said: He's got very short legs, his torso goes down to his knees ... Generally MPs are unusually ugly. ...'

His remarks seemed to be intended to amuse. But, as he now explains, his employers at Westminster took a different view.

In the end, I worked for the House of Commons for about five and a half years. It was at least three years longer than I'd intended to, and a good deal longer than I'd expect- ed to have my presence endured by the authorities. I'd never had much in the way of loyalty or respect for most of the people I worked for. And, besides that, it couldn't have been plainer to me that I wasn't much interested in the job and wasn't prepared to take pains to be much good at it. But when I attained the dubious distinction of being the first House of Commons clerk in living memory to be sacked from the job, it wasn't for being no good at it.

Incompetence and laziness can be passed over; being scandalously indiscreet, howev- er, as I always knew, is not a failing one can expect to be regarded in a grown-up way.

From time to time people used to say, your job' to me with a mixture of amaze- ment and amusement; other, simpler peo- ple would say, 'Do you mean to say you have a job?' Sometimes, it must be said, it seemed as if I didn't. I'd always drifted along lazily, from school to Oxford and from Oxford to Cambridge. But after three years of mouldering away in the rare books room of the Cambridge University library, I realised I'd had enough — something I'd assumed would be good enough for the rest of my life suddenly wasn't. I knew that I would go mad with boredom if I stayed in a university much longer; I knew that I loathed the laborious effort of trying to interest undergraduates in Cowper and Smollett, and that I could perfectly well carry on with anything I was interested in while doing something else.

In short, I had to get a job. But there was nothing I wanted to do except write, and that wouldn't do as a job. Fifty letters of application, fired off at random to advertis- ing agencies, management consultancies and publishers — the fashionable jobs of the day — brought 20 interviews, but no more. A German university offered me a three-year job, but I was determined not to do that. I should have realised that a 25- year-old with a half-finished PhD and a badly faked enthusiasm for advertising, management consultancy or whatever, is not much of a bet in the job stakes. What these dubious qualifications did, apparent- ly, fit me for was becoming a House of Commons clerk.

Few people know about the clerks, and I got used to explaining my job at some length over the next five years. They exist, in theory, to give procedural advice to the Speaker and to MPs, or Members, as they call them. In offices behind the Speaker's chair, they bicker politely with Members about what exactly may be put in a ques- tion, they write the Vote (the minutes of the House), in its curious 18th-century dialect, on the third floor and steer, with expert cau- tion, between the probable disasters which await the passage of a Bill through the House. They may be seen sitting, wearing wigs, before the Speaker in the chamber, where they are commonly mistaken for lawyers, or sit- ting next to the chairmen of committees, trying, more often than not, to entertain them through the dull pro- ceedings of the day.

But procedural advice isn't the half of it. Select committee clerks write and, largely, direct the questions which committees ask of their quaking witnesses (it's a source of constant, muted irritation among the clerks that Members will insist on asking their own questions, and not the ones handed out to them). They invite wit- nesses, they advise on subjects of inquiry and they draft a report for the chairman at the end of the inquiry. That doesn't sound too bad, but these bland forms of words disguise quite how far the clerks direct the work of the House. In many cases, they actually decide what the committee is going to look into, and their choice is ratified after a dutiful discussion by the committee. The reports they write often pass directly from their pen, guided by a vague sense of `what the committee will wear', under the nose of the chairman through the commit- tee and into print without much alteration. Clerks have their own agendas, and a really sharp journalist could undoubtedly trace the progress of a particular clerk from one select committee to another, continuing to pursue ancient obsessions with one particu- lar corner of government policy through different groups of hapless Members.

They're a curious bunch: most have developed eccentricities over the years. I shared an office with someone who spent most of his time calling his butcher to dis- cuss the day's stock; another had interests extending to the biannual acquisition of steadily more elaborate assemblages of record players but not, it seemed, to liking any music. For many clerks there is little or nothing to do during parliamentary recess- es; if no one can put down a question, there's no point in manning the Table Office. If a select committee isn't meeting, there may be a report for the clerk to write, but that can easily be done at home, and, in any case, there very often isn't a report to write, or much correspondence to deal with. From time to time, some brave soul sug- gests ways to find work for the clerks during the recesses — donate them to government departments, perhaps, or waste their time with spurious training exercises — but these always founder at the first stage.

Of course, some clerks do work extreme- ly hard all year round; others, as I did, find the long recesses useful for other purposes. The strange rhythm of the work, which for many clerks means half a year's hard labour, followed by half a year sitting at home watching daytime television — not for nothing does the present Clerk of Com- mittees list 'watching soap operas' as his chief recreation in Who's Who — has meant that many of them have developed great expertise in odd areas. Some certainly spend August and September doing noth- ing better than travelling in South America, or watching the cricket. Others, more industrious, are widely respected 17th-cen- tury historians, and write huge tomes about transport in history, or produce handsome editions of minor literary figures. I had rather different plans. After the 1992 election, my select com- mittee disappeared from under my feet with the abolition of the Department of Energy. There was no prospect of anything to do for seven months or so, and no rea- son to go into the office more than once a week. Seven months' peace and quiet is plenty; I'd already been thinking about writing a novel, and here was a heaven-sent opportunity to finish the thing without hav- ing to worry about money. Disgraceful, I know, to write novels at the taxpayer's expense. But if I had had a job, no doubt I would have done it.

The result, Other Lulus, was taken up and appreciated by most reviewers and, as far as I could tell, by the people who read it. This was all right as far as the clerks were concerned, for a small, respectable, clever novel fell within the category of acceptable occupations. Wasn't their great hero the clerk, IRA martyr and Great War novelist Erskine Childers? Eyebrows might have been raised a little at the regularity with which book reviews were appearing under my name. People who met me out- side the House often evinced surprise that I had a full-time job at all. What began, I think, to infuriate the clerks was the differ- ence between my obvious and congenital idleness and the frequency with which they read my name in the less-read corners of newspapers. I lost count of the number of times I was asked, in atmospheres of great seriousness, 'Do you think you have a long- term future in this department?' and forget how many times I told an easy lie in response.

The question, I realised, was not a ques- tion at all, and there seemed little point in not numbering my own days, if necessary, by just writing about what I wanted to write about. Powder Her Face, an opera with Thomas Ades for the Almeida and Chel- tenham (the first time, as several critics helpfully pointed out, the act of fellatio had been depicted on the operatic stage) went sedulously uncommented on in the tea room and at the Clerks' Table. And, in the meantime, I was breaking the ultimate taboo by writing a novel about them. Kitchen Venom, as it finally became, cer- tainly isn't an attempt to outrage, and I doubt it would shock anyone who wasn't a clerk. No, I was struck by how close clerks were to the great, and how little they knew, really, about these people they saw every day; how, behind the concealing mask of anonymity and the ceaseless shuffle of offices, private passions and obsessions were ceaselessly working themselves out. Few novelists, now, it struck me, have observed the offices of state at first hand, and few observers have the ambition to write seriously about them. I thought — it may seem absurd — that though I had a duty to the House of Commons, I had a bigger duty: to write the best novel I possi- bly could.

Word, inevitably, got out, and it was a silly bit of publicity that finally did for me. I'd known I was for the chop, known it for two years — and it was a relief when it came. About three months ago, my pub- lisher set up an interview with a glossy magazine (lifestyle, fashion 'n' a bit of art on the side,' I was reliably told). I saw no reason not to do it; I also thought that, if I was going to do it at all, I might as well do it properly. The journalist dutifully asked me about the book.

`It's about a House of Commons clerk who falls in love with a rent boy,' I said, making the poor thing sound twice as scan- dalous as it really is.

`So,' he said, 'you must have lots of gos- sip about the place.'

`No, afraid not,' I said truthfully: any decent gossip one hears about politicians one hears first from journalists.

`Come on,' he said. 'Are there any really sexy MPs?'

`No,' I said. 'I don't think so. Actually, I think one of the things that encourages people to become a candidate is being unusually ugly.'

`Go on,' he said. And so I went on, no doubt in a very silly and ridiculous way; there was no reason not to.

Kitchen Venom, in the meantime, was making its way; that miraculous day passed before which one can name everyone who has read it, and after which it has gone out into the wider world to meet its fate. Some clerks came across it: they had a friend who reviewed, or knew a novelist who had been sent a copy; I heard, subsequently, that at least one of the writing clerks had actually been asked to review it. Disquiet was audi- bly mounting. I had a slightly bizarre letter from a very big cheese in the department warning me against giving a literary reading in the company of political journalists. This, I thought, could only be interpreted as a cack-handed attempt to give me some kind of written warning, which could later usefully be invoked. Four or five friends with some experience of the way the House worked told me bluntly that when the book came out I'd had it. I didn't care; I knew it.

In the end, the long-forgotten interview came to my rescue. It surfaced in the maga- zine, to the vast amusement of my entire acquaintanceship. There it might have rest- ed, since I doubt that many Members of the House, or of the Clerks' Department, would readily admit to perusing the glam- orous pages of Attitude. But the inevitable happened, and, on an especially slack day for news, a parliamentary diarist picked it up.

The first I heard of it was a telephone call from a tabloid asking if I had anything to say. I hadn't. I read the piece, and immediately saw that the game was up. I knew, and knew that the chaps at the top knew, that as soon as the book came out I was going to be sacked for it. This was just a piece of tabloid silliness, but it was going to force their hand. The first thing to be done was to make a pile of anything in my office I wanted to take with me. The sec- ond thing was, at the stroke of 12.30, to go round the corner with a couple of mates to drink a bottle of champagne on the hearty breakfast theory and tell them the bad news. They took the news of my impending departure well; I'm sure in their place I'd have taken it just as cheerfully.

The dread telephone call came around three o'clock, just as we were returning from lunch. The secretary to the Clerk of the House has an unenviable sort of job: the sound of her voice on the telephone is always the harbinger of some terrible rocket. 'I'll come over now,' I said to her, putting the telephone down. 'You know,' one of my friends in the office said, 'that's a terrible tie you're wearing.' What's wrong with it?' I said. It was a nice, heavy silk, decorated with red hearts. 'It's a bit camp,' he said. 'Do you want to change it? It might not help.' I could have stood up for it, I suppose — I liked the tie — but I swapped it for something a bit more som- bre, courtesy of a kind colleague.

Mr Donald Limon, the Clerk of the House, sits in the chamber until the orders of the day are reached. Once Question Time and various statements are out of the way, the House goes into calmer waters and he can get on with anything else he has to do. That day, there was a long statement about BSE, and I waited for a few minutes, making obstinate conversation with his sec- retary, before he turned up. He was with the Clerk of Committees — a very bad sign. I came into his enormous office with its handsome view, framed by the knobbly ends of gargoyles. I had been there only a few times before, and each time we had sat in the armchairs. This time, there was no question about that; we sat on either side of his Pugin desk.

The novel was scrupulously not men- tioned, but I never had much doubt that that was what we were talking about. The ridiculousness of the diary piece was hardly likely to offend any Member; its sheer silli- ness might have been more readily over- looked if it hadn't been for the much more serious offence — in their eyes — of pub- lishing a novel about the House. The Clerk of Committees said nothing, he had diffi- culty in meeting my eye. The Clerk of the House did most of the talking.

`Have you seen this?' he said, pushing the diary piece over to me. 'Yes,' I said. I told him how it came about. There was no point in arguing about it, so I said that I was offering an explanation but not an apology. He seemed relieved to hear the ancient formula. He said that he could not keep a member of the department in place who talked to journalists about Members, adding thoughtfully that he was extremely sorry to be forced to carry out these steps, as if he were a passive instrument of Fate.

I don't remember what he said, but he skirted round the words 'dismiss' and 'sack' with considerable delicacy. Anyone would have thought he was worried about hurting my feelings, anyone might have thought he thanked me for my work over the last half-decade, he was sorry to be placed in such a position — he wasn't sacking me at all. Of course, this is the way all sackings go, and there was a strange familiarity to both his speech and mine; it was like a scene from a very bad film.

The interview lasted four minutes, and it was quite enough. And, naturally, after dropping in on a dozen drop-jawed friends in Commons and Lords, I set off on a three-day, exhilarated party, from bar to bar, courtesy of one delighted former col- league after another. 'You're the hero of all the secretaries,' I was told, a nice sort of achievement, and I don't expect my cheer- fulness to lapse just yet. I went, more or less as I had planned, and, at the moment, I've got something to go to, and something to do. So far, it hasn't been like most sack- ings; I've lost a lot of money, I suppose, but I have no one to support but myself, and I'm not on the breadline just yet. That Philip Larkin poem about work — 'Why should I let the toad Work/Squat on my life?' — has been unreadable for a few years; I can look at it now, and it seems to be about something a lot further in the past than a job I was doing until a fortnight ago.

It's difficult to resent the time spent working in the House of Commons, and there are many things I'm grateful for: I've been to places I would never normally have visited (a coalmine, the beautiful Soane dining-room of the Governor of the Bank of England). I've had some bizarre things to do, not least summarising the debates of that extraordinary body, the Council of Europe (`Mr Zhirinovsky said that the day was approaching when the Russian army would wash its boots in the warm waters of the Indian Ocean'). And, in the end, I quite liked my job. But I was fed up with the pointless mania for anonymity, the obsessive guarding of the confidential rela- tionship between the clerks and Members when, in truth, it's not something any Member gives two hoots about. It was a good five years; now, there are better things to do.