DIARY
DAVID ENGLISH TBlackpool he story so far: Young Tony Blair defies Neil Kinnock to visit Associated Newspapers' dining-room, where he feasts to his heart's con- tent. After being elected leader, he continues to dine there. Eventually he meets Lord Bother- mere, the Proprietor, who declares him impres- sive and agreeable. Later, the Chairman and Proprietor discuss the next election and find that it is not impossible' that their newspapers might decide to support Tony. Now read on . . .
The news hit the party like a bombshell. One grandee thundered that it was the most treacherous act he had ever seen by a newspaper. Another declared it was dis- gusting. A well-known backbencher said `With friends like you, who needs ene- mies?' Several MPs declared that we were completely amoral. Never had I known such an over-the-top response. And that was just from the Labour Party. Naturally I am talking about 'old' Labour. 'New' Labour, on the other hand, took it all in their smiling, slightly smug, stride. They knew they had something bigger than a bombshell — a laser-guided missile called Howarth which was already locked on to Blackpool.
Roy Hattersley was most put out by last week's Diary. He was utterly convinced he had successfully forced the party into eliminating the remaining grammar schools. 'We've won. They're finished,' he said triumphantly to his friends. When he discovered that Blair had told me that any obsession to get rid of the grammar schools was both 'pointless and stupid', Hattersley was understandably upset — since that is his obsession. 'They must go,' he declared angrily. 'I shall continue to lean on these people harder and harder until we finally decide to get rid of grammar schools once and for all.' These people' being Blair & Co. Later in the bar, Alastair Campbell said I should forget about Hattersley's non- sense about grammar schools. I said I'd already been given another spin doctor's briefing: Hattersley yesterday's man . . . deeply disappointed at his own political failure . . . envious of the new and younger leadership . . . long history of animosity towards David Blunkett . . . didn't give a damn whether the grammar schools remained or not . . . to him merely a Pavlovian trigger to stir up floor rebellion . . . and so on, and so on. I thought this, too, was a little over the top and unfair to Hattersley. He has taken the Crosland line on grammar schools over three decades. My own view is that he had a rather rough time at Sheffield City Grammar School. Maybe the `Fattersley' nickname was not dreamed up by a clever hack but by a sharp-tongued bully in the lower fourth. Roy vigorously denies this and says his schooldays were very happy. He is cam- paigning as a matter of principle. Well, who would argue with a man of principle? But if he was not called Tattersley' at school, I should dearly like to know what he was called.
The first person I met at Blackpool was Norman Tebbit, fresh from his endorse- ment of Tony Blair's BT announcement. `You're worse than me,' he grinned wolfish- ly. 'Wait till you see their reaction.' But this turned out to be a flash flood of invitations for drinks, lunch, dinner, tea and, most of all, talks! I was clearly a beneficiary of the Howarth factor. Several invitations at once came from Lord Archer who, because of the Anglia shares enquiry, didn't figure in last year's conference. He is using Black- pool to re-establish his respectability by giv- ing his usual champagne party, though he seems somewhat nervous about it. Since Jeffrey's parties are always fun, I cannot believe he will be subject to any meaningful Cabinet boycott. But no doubt the newspa- pers will report who goes tonight and, even more importantly, who doesn't.
Over a drink, Gillian Shephard invited me to join her committee on her 'raising standards in English' initiative. The idea of teaching children to speak our language decently seems one of the best for a long time. But the levellers are already getting at it, accusing her of trying to get every schoolgirl in England to talk like Sybil Fawlty. Opponents of the plan claim it's based on middle-class snobbery and Gillian is apprehensive that this label might stick and so destroy it — which is, of course, the aim of the levellers. The 'speaking posh' Doctor, it hurts when I pass water.' fear can be overcome. When building our classified sales force, we found many intel- ligent young women simply could not sell over the phone because of 'the voice thing'. Either their grammar was bad, their accents too harsh or too nasal, or they sim- ply did not know how to project their voic- es. These were educational failings we had to overcome by introducing our own train- ing scheme. One of the best trainers was an attractive South Londoner with a lovely speaking voice. She would start her class by telling them 'You all look wonderful. You've put on perfect make-up, your hair is great, your clothes are sensational.' She would add that they had used all that effort to make themselves attractive but ignored their voices which could spoil everything. Her job, she went on, was to make them sound as good as they looked. They didn't have to lose their accents. They just had to speak clearly and cleanly, 'You have to be melodious,' she would say. 'You have to sound attractive. People will fall in love with the way you speak.' She got them pol- ishing their voices with the same dedication that they devoted to polishing their nails. It was all to a commercial purpose but it worked for everyone. Marianne, the train- er, was of West Indian parentage and went on to bigger and better things in her career. She pulled herself up by her own vocal chords — something Gillian Shephard, with the help of another West Indian, pro- poses to do for a whole generation. Gillian is immensely determined about it and, like many of the women in the Tory party, seems less worried — and certainly less neurotic about the future — than a lot of the men.
Virginia Bottomley, too, now that she doesn't have to reel off Department of Health statistics in a robotic voice, has humanised herself. She is both witty and funny and should deploy these assets in her political repertoire. 'Perhaps I will in this job,' she said, 'but I couldn't do it in my last one.' She enquired sweetly about Stewart Steven — a long-time opponent of her health policy — who is to retire as Editor of the Evening Standard. She was deeply wor- ried, she said, that he might get bored in retirement. 'Don't you think I should arrange for him to join one of the health quangos?' she smiled. 'He can then spend all his time attacking himself. He'll be good at that.' And off she trotted to a television cocktail party, saying over her shoulder, 'I love this job. Journalists and media people are so much more fun than doctors.' Flat- tery will get her everywhere.
Sir David English is Chairman of Associated Newspapers.
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