`POLYGAMY AND

HAREMS WORKED'

Sir Nicholas Fairbairn

talks about life and love to Candida Crewe SIR NICHOLAS FAIRBAIRN tends to go in for the all-over tartan look. His sar- torial flourish on a recent television chat show prompted the host to ask if he was planning to audition for a shortcake adver- tisement. The Tory member for Perth and Kinross, and former Scottish Law Officer, said no, but you wouldn't put it past him. He's no ordinary MP. And it's not only his dress which causes a stir. Each year, his Who's Who recreations change: in 1990, he surpassed himself with 'growling, prowling, scowling and owling'. During the recent election campaign, he consistently suc- ceeded in causing his party embarrassment with his outspoken views. The words which prompted particular upset were, 'Why should the bastard child of an American sailor serving in Dunoon have a vote in Scotland even though he's in America, when the legitimate son of a Gordon High- lander born in Daarnstadt who's resident in Carlisle, has no vote or say in Scotland?'

This was not deemed by his colleagues to enhance their cause. At his Westminster office, I asked him if he was enjoying his reputation as a wild man. 'It's not a repu- tation I've cultivated,' he assured me. 'I was brought up in a family village in Scot- land where everyone had the reputation of their own personality. In my view, it's a philosophical and metaphysical duty to be singular and ourselves. I thought we were supposed to be lights, not hidden under bushels.'

So perhaps he could enlighten us about his latest controversy. Why, having written privately and somewhat sycophantically to Sir Edward Heath to congratulate him on becoming a Knight of the Garter, did he then write publicly to the Sunday Telegraph to denounce granting of the very same award to the former Prime Minister?

`The Daily Telegraph said of this that while one could be rude to one's friends in private, one should be polite to them in public. Well, that's contrary to all I was brought up to believe. I've known Sir E. Heath for 40-odd years. To write and rejoice in what was clearly for him a rea- son for great satisfaction with himself at last, was the perfectly proper thing to do. But then why can't I say he was a dreadful

Prime Minister, and his public behaviour is appalling? The fact that he sent my pri- vate letter to the press shows he has no manners. He has grave personality prob- lems, and torment within himself, which he'll never resolve. But there's no reason I can't rejoice with him in private.'

It is hard to establish from where Fair- bairn gets his outspokenness. He was born in 1933 — 'the same year Hitler came to power, though he wasn't as good a painter as I am' — and brought up in Scotland (where he still lives). His father was, he says, 'a dipsomaniac, but a psycho-analyst of great distinction, though only interested in listening to the wailings of his patients. I think I've inherited his analytical mind, and my mother's taste and love of art and music, if that's not being too conceited.'

Although he read Medicine, then Arts and Law at Edinburgh University, and became a QC in 1972, Fairbairn knew he wanted to go into politics at the age of 12.

`The 1945 election dealt a real shock to me in that the gardener at my prep school said he was Labour and they were going to wipe out our "type". The concept of resent- ing those better or worse than oneself was new to me, so upsetting, I was determined to shoot socialism in the brain at noon.' So saying he pressed his forefinger into his forehead like a gun. 'Bonk! After the gar- dener said this, I even went and got a cata- pult and put out every window in the Co-op bakery. He motivated me into poli- tics.'

Fairbairn was sitting at his desk. He was dresed in plain cream (that day it was the shoes' turn to demonstrate his sartorial flamboyance, in the form of big square buckles). The paleness of the suit was off- set by his almost raspberry-colour complex- ion. As he spoke, he toyed with a cotton handkerchief, and swigged red wine from a shallow plastic beaker. On the side-table next to some Listermint mouthwash was the bottle. The label read `Meerlusf.

`That's Dutch for more lust,' he informed me.

This was an opening to talk about Maas- tricht, I decided. Sir Nicholas recalled the last treaty made in Maastricht in 1944. `Montgomery agreed the Allies should retreat from the areas of Germany they'd

conquered to a line the Russians demand- ed. It was a disaster. I'm not saying this means anything, it's just an interesting his- torical coincidence. Attempts to make Europe right and pure by being nice to those who want to divide it in their own interests didn't work the first time. All being called Schmidt and speaking Esperanto is not the way ahead.'

The ever growing problem of Europe, he said, was economic migration. 'There's no question at all, if you think about it, that if the people of the British Commonwealth, and all the previous members of the French Empire who still have a right to vote in Paris, all .come to the European State, you'll quickly create a situation of ethnic migration that'll create disintegra- tion and intolerance.'

Fairbairn insisted he isn't against immi- gration per se, only if it's uncontrolled. If there's no Asylum Bill, he thinks we will be 'swamped' in 1997, with two and a half mil- lion people from Hong Kong.

'They'll just say, "We're here," and we won't be able to say, "To, ta, fellows, here's a boat."

'If an asylum seeker knocks on our door just because he doesn't like these bangs in Sarajevo, well, anyone may as well come to my door and say, "I'm cold out here, a policeman's just been very rude to me, I propose to move into your spare room, and if you don't have one, you can share your room with me, or move out your- self."

He thumped his fist on the desk to stress his indignation. It was quite a habit with him. On the subject of the Citizen's Charter, he said, 'The concept's good, but it's wishy-washy, and just another opportu- nity for bureaucratic officiousness!' Thump.

And on John Major's 'classless society', 'It's a ridiculous phrase.' Thump. And on the leadership election which saw to Thatcher's political demise, 'Just to toss her aside with no consultation, it was terri- ble and fatuous.' Thump, thump, thump.

While on the subject of his former lead- er, I ventured to ask if he had found her sexually attractive. 'Sexually attractive, no, but certainly bonny', he said, putting on a Scottish accent.

I asked because Fairbairn is known to be exceedingly fond of women, while no great advocate of monogamy. 'Christian monogamy,' he said, 'and its assumption of fidelity, is as fallacious as the Catholic concept of the chastity of priests.'

He first married aged 28 (and had five children, although two died) but divorced 13 years later, and had plenty of girl- friends.

One of them is supposed to have attempted suicide by hanging herself with a pair of stockings from a lamp-post out- side his London flat. He says, 'She was

certainly depressed, but that story was a gross exaggeration made up by a vindictive Tory MP.' Fairbairn and his, current wife married in 1983.

'Are you faithful to her?' I asked.

'I don't think that's an appropriate ques- tion,' came the reply. 'But I will say I'm pretty sure polygamy and harems probably worked better. I suppose we have that now, in series as opposed to in parallel. I mean, if you and I were to get married, go to Marbella and screw each other rigid, we'd be throwing eggs at each other on our return. I'd be telling you that you were a stupid bitch, and it'd all be off, we'd divorce, and then marry all over again to someone else.'

Sir Nicholas says we live in a priggish and prim age which doesn't allow for infidelity, especially on the part of those in public life. So why did he remarry?

'I can explain that very easily. I very much wished to marry whom I did, having known her for many years. Unlike the first time, I was conscious of all the problems of the inevitable tension between men and women who are tied together in marriage, of getting bored of something the minute you get it — so I can now cope with them, as well as enjoy the advantages for which the institution was created. There's no question that one of the attractions of monophysicality is that, apart from the depth of the relationship, you remember when you turn over in bed who you're with, and you don't have to get up at dawn and get out.'

All the same, were temptations now not greater with the larger number of women in parliament? What of them?

`I'm delighted to have more of them in the House of Commons, but they certainly don't give me feelings of femininity — and by that I don't mean beddable. They lack fragrance on the whole, they're definitely not desert island material. Maybe, in this day and age with all these hang-ups, they deny their femininity.

`Why has womankind given up the exal- tation of herself, that attempt to attract, to adorn, to glint? They all look as though they're from the 5th Kiev Stalinist machine-gun parade. Except for Betty Boothroyd, now she's got style, fragrance. As for Edwina Curry— well, the only per- son who smells her fragrance is herself. I can't stand the hag.'

With that, he thumped the desk again, and took a final swig from his glass of Meerlust.