Nag, nag, nag
Alan Watkins
Mr Secretary of State Brian Sedgemore (Quartet £4.95) The political novel, especially perhaps the English political novel, is a notoriously tricky genre. Trollope is, I suppose, the best all-round practitioner, though I myself prefer Disraeli. Richard Crossman used to say that Trollope could not really be much good in this area because he had no knowledge, book-learned or first-hand, of the politics of his day. This was a politician's typical judgment, though Dick was not a typical politician. Since 1945 political novels have continued to come out. The present editor of the News of the World, Mr Bernard Shrimsley, wrote one about a Labour selection conference. The late David Walder did the .same with the Conservatives. (Odd how writers of post-war political novels — Walder, Maurice Edelman, Wilfred Fienburgh — tend to pop off relatively young. I hope Mr Sedgemore will be all right.) But on the whole Conservatives do not write novels. Nor is the Conservative party much used as a background. This last is surprising when you think of the opportunity the party presents for writing about lords and ladies, clubs and clubmen, wine and food, and the rest of it. Alas, the party has become dowdy since the early 1960s. Moreover, not only do Conservatives fail to write novels. They neglect to read them as well. Indeed it is a struggle to persuade Conservatives to read anything at all — as successive editors of the Spectator can testify with feeling. No: the favourite sub-class is the Labour party novel of disillusion, as represented by Fienburgh; Edelman; more recently, Mr Joe Ashton; and, most recently of all, Mr Sedgemore. Unhappily Mr Sedgemore or his publisher has seen fit to dress up the book as a 'thriller'. As it is nothing of the kind, I feel no compunction about giving away the plot. Tuffy (for Tufton) Crag is an ageing Glasgow trade unionist who attached himself to the Left and is now in the Cabinet at what seems to be — the department is not specified — Industry. The security services object because Tuffy is a former Communist; the Prime Minister tells them to get lost. Determined to accomplish their end, or to revenge themselves upon the Prime Minister, they arrange for Tuffy to be seduced by a lady called Anna who is, it seems, retained by them for enterprises of this nature. She is, as it happens, unsuccessful in her endeavours, even though wearing only a dressing gown or something of that kind which enables Tuffy to observ.e that she has shaved off her pubic hair. Is this considered seductive, I wonder? Despite her lack of fundamental success, however, Anna persuades Tuffy to intercede on behalf of an alleged Russian defector called Dronsky, currently experiencing difficulties with the American authorities. But Dronsky is really a spy and the security services are in league with the CIA. The story is leaked to the Guardian by the security services, and old Tuffy is turned out, with no stain on his character, for having made one of those famous errors of Judgment in consorting with loose women and spies. The poor chap then dies of cancer of the stomach, and the second Mrs Tuffy, a monster called Clara, goes to bed with her late husband's private secretary.
It is not at all clear why Clara does this. She not only dislikes civil servants. She also, so Mr Sedgemore tells us, dislikes sex. Perhaps she thinks she will have better luck With the private secretary. Ah well; mysterious creatures, women. In fact Mr Sedgemore contradicts himself on Tuffy's marital arrangements. On one page the gallant old Glaswegian — for gallant he surely is, in view of both his age and the quantity of the hard stuff he puts away — is described as happy, exhausted, sated in the Matrimonial bed. A few pages on we read that `Tuffy was prepared to sublimate his appetite and energies.' Anyway, 'Clara's reward from the marriage bed came when Tuffy began injecting her ideas into the thinking of Labour Party and Trade Union research teams and thence into the Party's Campaign document.'
Perhaps prudently, Mr Sedgemore does not tell us in any detail about Clara's ideas. They seem to amount to no more than broadly-brushed abuse of the Bank of England, the Treasury, the civil service, the bosses, the press, Tuffy's colleagues and Tuffy himself.
'You know as well as I do, Tuffy, that the reason why we're going to have nigh on two million unemployed throughout the 1980s CC•companied by social and political unrest is that the Treasury and the City have forced You to readopt the Tory policies which you dropped in the run up to the last election.' I tell you, it's nag, nag, nag, all night long. Tuffy realises this as well as anyone.
'Must you go on and on, Clara? You don't have to tell me how bad it is. For heaven's sake drop it. Maybe things will get better. bon't be so bloody defeatist.' Mr Sedgemore has solved one of the technical problems confronting authors of books of this kind. In other novels the Prime Minister (the same goes for lesser ministers) is, if a Conservative, called, say, George Anstruther, based loosely but unmistakably on Mr Harold Macmillan; if Labour, Goronwy Bowen, based on Aneurin Bevan. Mr Sedgemore boldly 't.'rites about Mr James Callaghan but calls ,ttl.ni only the Prime Minister. I recommend nis description, though I doubt whether Mr Callaghan will care for it. By this I do not mean the Mr Sedge more has simply put episodes or individuals into the book. Some are, however, recognisable. I once impaired a conversation Mr Sedgemore was having with Miss Tina Brown by breaking into excerpts from the Messiah. It was at an Indian restaurant during a party conference in Blackpool. Mr Sedgemore has removed the location from Blackpool to Brighton, pushed the restaurant up-market, referred merely to a girl from the Sunday Times (where Miss Brown was then employed) and transformed the interrupter from a journalist into a gramophone switched on by the management. It is not very nice to be turned into a gramophone.
Previous page
