It’s very rare in politics that one has the pleasure of completely wiping the floor with one’s opponents. It’s a good feeling.
It seems I didn’t quite wipe the floor after all. The whole picture changed in a most surprising fashion.
Bernard and I were sitting in the office late this afternoon congratulating ourselves on yesterday’s successes. I was saying, rather smugly I fear, that Billy Fraser’s strike threat had played right into my hands.
We turned on the television news. First there was an item saying that the British Government is again being pressured by the US Government to take some more Cuban refugees. And then – the bombshell! Billy Fraser came on, and threatened that the whole of the NHS in London would be going on strike tonight at midnight if we laid off workers at St Edward’s. I was shattered.
[
Humphrey came in at that moment.
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘you’re watching it.’
‘Yes,’ I said through clenched teeth. ‘Humphrey, you told me you were going to have a word with the unions.’
‘I did,’ he replied. ‘But well, what can I do?’ He shrugged helplessly. I’m sure he did his best with the unions. But where has it got us?
I asked him what we were supposed to do now.
But Humphrey had come, apparently, on a different matter – of equal urgency. Another bombshell, in fact!
‘It looks as if Sir Maurice Williams’ independent enquiry is going to be unfavourable to us,’ he began.
I was appalled. Humphrey had promised me that Williams was sound. He had told me that the man wanted a peerage.
‘Unfortunately,’ murmured Sir Humphrey, embarrassed, looking at his shoes, ‘he’s also trying to work his peerage in his capacity as Chairman of the Joint Committee for the Resettlement of Refugees.’
I enquired if there were more Brownie points in refugees than in government enquiries.
He nodded.
I pointed out that we simply haven’t got the money to house any more refugees.
Then came bombshell number three! The phone rang. It was Number Ten.
I got on the line. I was told rather sharply by a senior policy adviser that Number Ten had seen Billy Fraser on the six o’clock news. By ‘Number Ten’ he meant the PM. Number Ten hoped a peace formula could be found very soon.
As I was contemplating this euphemistic but heavy threat from Downing Street, Humphrey was still rattling on about the boring old Cuban refugees. Sir Maurice would be satisfied if we just housed a thousand of them, he said.
As I was about to explain, yet again, that we haven’t the time or the money to open a thousand-bed hostel . . . the penny dropped!
A most beautiful solution had occurred to me.
A thousand refugees with nowhere to go. A thousand-bed hospital, fully staffed. Luck was on our side after all. The symmetry was indescribably lovely.
Humphrey saw what I was thinking, of course, and seemed all set to resist. ‘Minister,’ he began, ‘that hospital has millions of pounds’ worth of high-technology equipment. It was built for sick British, not healthy foreigners. There is a huge Health Service waiting list. It would be an act of the most appalling financial irresponsibility to waste all that investment on . . .’
I interrupted this flow of hypocritical jingoistic nonsense.
‘But . . .’ I said carefully, ‘what about the independent enquiry? Into our Department? Didn’t you say that Sir Maurice’s enquiry was going to come down against us? Is that what you want?’
He paused. ‘I see your point, Minister,’ he replied thoughtfully.
I told Bernard to reinstate, immediately, all the staff at St Edward’s, to tell Sir Maurice we are making a brand-new hospital available to accommodate a thousand refugees, and to tell the press it was my decision. Everyone was going to be happy!
Bernard asked me for a quote for the press release. A good notion.
‘Tell them,’ I said, ‘that Mr Hacker said that this was a tough decision but a necessary one, if we in Britain aim to be worthy of the name of . . . the compassionate society.’
I asked Humphrey if he was agreeable to all this.
‘Yes Minister,’ he said. And I thought I detected a touch of admiration in his tone.
1 The 800 people with the rank of Under-Secretary and above.
2 A sign of growing awareness here from Hacker.
3 Meaning without respect.
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