An Unexpected MP by Jerry Hayes

Author:Jerry Hayes [Jerry Hayes]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781849547246
Publisher: Biteback Publishing
Published: 2014-12-02T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 14

HER MAJESTY’S PRESS

My first bromance with Her Majesty’s press started way back in 1981. I had just been selected as the candidate for Harlow, but I had one more hurdle to jump and that was to get on the official candidates list. And that meant spending a weekend at a dreary hotel just off a roundabout at Potters Bar. The idea was that you would be taught how to use a knife and fork properly, engage in debate and be grilled by a few captains of industry. It was a bit like being on The Apprentice but with nicer people (not a high bar) and loads of drink. As I was in the wonderful and unique position of having been selected for a seat already, so as long as I didn’t appear splashed across the tabloids in a ‘Top Tory shags royal corgi’ story, I would sail through. Which I did. It was at Potters Bar that I made three lifelong friends, Gerry Bowden, Steve Day and Ian Twinn (who still does a very passable Ted Heath routine).

But if you think the modern-day back benches are infested by bonkeroons, you should have been a fly on the wall there. There were so many alien life forms on display it was like appearing in an episode of Doctor Who. One fellow spent the whole time walking around the place leaning on a shepherd’s crook. And outside in the rain stood a small and solitary figure sniffing around for a story, with whom I used to chat. It was that titan of journalism, the Press Association’s political editor Chris Moncrieff. One of the reasons he always managed the scoops was because he was omnipresent. I suspect that he rarely went home. When elected I became part of his Monday morning round-up for a quote about whatever political issue was exciting the chattering classes. And as PA fed every national and regional newspaper, it led to TV and radio appearances and hoovering up print. All right, many of my colleagues looked down their noses at me for being a rent-a-quote, which I was, but it made me stand out from the pack and 1983 was one of the largest Tory intakes in generations.

Politics is like broadcasting. Don’t do vanilla. And don’t try to be too cerebral, either. And on no account ever try irony. The punters want their politicians to look as normal as possible. Sometimes that is a very tall order. Nowadays, it’s rather difficult because so many seem lobotomised with an on-message chip implanted in their brains.

The 1980s were when Charlie Kennedy, Tony Banks, Ken Livingstone and I mastered the art of the sound bite. In any news clip, ten seconds is as long as you’re ever going to get. In a pre-record, think of your pithy bites and repeat them over and over again. They can’t be edited against you as long, rambling interviews can. And it makes for easier editing. I remember walking across the Members’ lobby when

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