Be Your Own Politician by Twivy Paul;

Author:Twivy, Paul; [Paul Twivy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 2005729
Publisher: Biteback Publishing
Published: 2015-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

The Chinese lord and the intern with the bare feet

Martyn Rose, Paul Twivy and David Cameron at a Big Society reception.

THERE ARE AS MANY secrets in politics as there are in families. Many are lies by omission. One such secret, held back from me, anyway, was that Nat Wei was going to enter the House of Lords if the Tories came to power. This would then enable him to become a Minister for Civil Society, possibly even the minister. This would involve him either replacing Nick Hurd or working alongside him. This was, I imagine, pretty unsettling for Nick Hurd (assuming he knew) and it wasn’t great for me either.

It had always been billed that Nat and I would be partners in running the Big Society Network. We worked well together. He was more policy-focused and academic in his approach. I counterbalanced with practicality, communication and people skills. To suddenly discover that he was going to be in the government meant I had lost my partner and the Big Society Network had lost its independence.

Nat was elevated to the House of Lords on 3 June 2010, three weeks into the life of the new government. I had not heard the term ‘elevated’ before – I had used the incorrect term of ‘ennobled’ and felt suitably gauche. Elevation sounded like some strange form of teleportation used in Doctor Who, or something that happened in shopping centres. Each new lord is allowed to invite family and up to four other guests to the ceremony. I was somewhat surprised and flattered to be invited by Nat as one of his friends. The others went back a long way with him: Jeremy Culverhouse and Dominic Llewellyn.

Nat was to become Baron Wei of Shoreditch and jokes started to circulate about there being many barren ways in Shoreditch. Later, the Your Square Mile team and I called our back-up device, known technically as a NAS (Network Attached Storage NAS WEI, extending the use of puns on his name.) He was only the third person of Chinese ethnic origin to become a member of the Lords and the first to be British-born. At thirty-three, the age at which Christ reputedly died, he was also one of the youngest Lords ever.

As we watched from the gallery, Nat seemed a young and exotic inclusion into this august institution. Feathered gowns were well and truly ruffled. There was much whispering behind hands as he swore his oath. One could almost hear the words ‘whippersnapper’ drifting skywards. To some, this was one of Cameron’s follies. The fact that Earl Strathclyde, the Leader of the House of Lords, had sponsored Nat probably hushed some of the backbiting.

The language of the ceremony was both beautiful and antiquated, with phrases such as ‘my lords temporal and spiritual’. Nat’s youthful and my balding, 51-year-old, demeanours caused a little bit of confusion afterwards. As we stood in the Prince’s Chamber, all nerves gone and much shaking of hands going on, one of the lords came up to me and said a hearty congratulations.

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