Chapter 16
In 1993 Tony wrote a pamphlet for the Fabian Society, of which we had both long been members. In it he criticized the continued presence, unchanged since it was written in 1917, of Clause IV of the Labour Party constitution, which read:
To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.
His position was “How can we be a Party who are supposed to be of the modern world when we still have as part of our objective ‘the common ownership of the means of production and exchange’?” Everyone accepted that wholesale nationalization was no longer part of our policy, but the fact that Clause IV was still there could be used as a stick to beat us with — either by the Tory press, who could pretend that we really did want to nationalize everything in sight, or Militant, who could berate us for not getting on with what was supposed to be a key objective.
Only those closest to Tony knew what he was planning to do. The occasion, of course, would be the annual Labour Party Conference. Scrapping Clause IV, he believed, would set the tone for all that would follow. On one level it was only a gesture — it was axing something that was already dead — but gestures are sometimes important, and if he could get the party behind him on this, the left would be out in the cold, and the modernizing process could begin in earnest. If the electorate was to trust us to run the country, we had to show that the Labour Party had made a clean break with the past.
Paradoxically, the Labour Party as then constituted was a very conservative organization. It didn’t like change, and Clause IV was seen as part of the family furniture, handed down from generation to generation, a much-loved heirloom but now useless and out-of-date.
Although Tony’s personal credit was running high, it was not enough to guarantee agreement. There were plenty of reactionary elements about, especially within union ranks, and he would need all the help he could get. He would even have his Shadow Chancellor to square. Gordon didn’t like rocking the boat, and his line was “Why bother, given it doesn’t really matter?” Tony’s answer to that was “public perception.”
Meanwhile I had my own agenda in relation to the 1994 Labour Party Conference. I was determined that the leader’s wife would go out on that platform looking good enough to take on the world — or at least the massed ranks of the Tory Party — so I continued with my dietary regime and exercise, and I found a new hairdresser. André Suard worked at Michaeljohn, a hip London salon. He had no idea who I was when I first went in — just a new client with a haircut that needed fixing. A radical attempt by my former hairdresser to give me a more modern look had resulted in what can only be described as a mullet. André was in his midtwenties. Although his father was Italian, he had been brought up and trained in France and as a result had a wonderfully quirky accent.
The spiky fringe was not the look for a woman who wanted to be taken seriously, he decided, and short hair on top with a long bob looked doubly ridiculous after being crammed under a sweaty wig during a hot day in court. Although I had a lot of hair, André explained, it was soft. The difficulty would be holding a style. As I wanted to have something I could handle myself, this became a major problem. Even after hours of blow-drying practice, I was incapable of making it look remotely “done.” If I attempted any back-combing, it looked as if a mouse had crawled in to make its nest. It was the same with my makeup. Touching up what had been done earlier had never occurred to me. I had never reapplied makeup nor worried about whether my nose or my forehead was shiny.
My new haircut had its first outing on September 23, 1994, my fortieth birthday. The previous March I had booked Frederick’s restaurant for the party. For Tony’s fortieth, we had just had a party at home. It was not a surprise party, but a surprise there certainly was. Among his things I had found an old tape recording with a label saying “BBC Radio Oxford: Ugly Rumours.” Tony’s student band! Halfway through the evening I played it. The lyrics were deeply profound — sadly, not matched by the reedy voice singing the plaintive dirge. Everybody thought it a great hoot. Well, everybody except Tony.
My mum had been warning me for some time that things would change, and not necessarily for the better, but even she was shocked when the Evening Standard took her photograph that evening. In fact, everybody was photographed, as if my guest list might provide a clue to who was out and who was in under the new leadership. But my party owed nothing to Labour or even to Tony. I made a little speech about how much I owed my mum — not so different from the one I’d made twenty-two years earlier, the night before I left for the LSE.
Anji had already warned me to block off Labour Party Conference week. She showed me the stage set for the platform, because I’d need to be color coordinated, or at least wear something that wouldn’t clash. The previous year, at the party conference in Brighton, I’d heard that John Smith’s wife had brought along a hairdresser who was being paid for by the party. My thought then was Why on earth would Elizabeth Smith need a hairdresser? Now I was thinking, I hope to goodness André will be available! He wasn’t, so Carole volunteered to come to ensure that I didn’t look a complete disaster. She had never been to a Labour Party Conference — she wasn’t even a member of the party — and when she asked if I thought I’d need an evening dress, I burst into laughter.
“This is a Labour Party Conference,” I said. But I would need something for the dozens of functions and receptions I’d have to attend with Tony. There would be media everywhere. It was all about photographs. I’d need something to arrive in, something for Tony’s big conference speech, and possibly something to go home in.
I was beginning to realize that the whole business was both expensive and a diplomatic minefield. If I went looking like a slob, it showed a lack of respect. If I wore the same thing all the time, that, too, showed a lack of respect. Yet I could not appear to be throwing money around. It was a question of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t.” I remembered how Norma Major, wife of the current Prime Minister, never seemed to get it right, at least as far as the press was concerned. A further constraint was that whatever designer I went for had to be homegrown, and the look needed to be “modern” to reflect the “modernizer” label.
That year conference was in Blackpool, a seaside resort north of Liverpool. I hadn’t been there since I was a little girl riding a donkey on the beach. For the first time, Tony had police security. The whole of one floor of the Imperial Hotel was sealed off. Access was by elevator, and there was a policeman standing outside our door and Labour Party stewards patrolling the corridors. I’d had no idea it was run like this. Tony was permanently holed up with Alastair, Peter, Anji, Gordon, or one of the others. I was feeling particularly unsettled, as I had left Ros in sole charge of the kids. She hadn’t even done a night on her own before, and this was for nearly a week. She was incredibly reliable and trustworthy and as mad about soccer as the boys were. All the same . . . Over the next few days, whatever else was happening, Tony and I made sure that we both spoke to them every evening, and we’d hear them arguing about who was going to tell Mum or Dad this or that piece of news.
Anji had told me that on no account could I go down to the conference on my own. If I wanted to go, somebody had to accompany me. At one point I thought, This is utterly ridiculous. I’ve been coming to conference for years. What are they talking about? I’m hardly a novice. So I opened the door, sneaked down the back stairs to avoid the elevator, and emerged into the hotel lobby, where I immediately caught sight of Glenys Thornton, an old friend from LSE days.
We were just having a chat when suddenly there were lights and cameras all round and someone with a microphone asking Glenys who she was. I froze. The next moment I felt a hand on my back and then on my arm, and Hilary Coffman was propelling me toward the lift, saying, “Thank you, Cherie,” and it was back to my prison.
The pair of us stood in that lift not saying a word, and I felt my blood pounding. I had known Hilary for years. She had been head of press for John Smith and had also worked for Neil Kinnock. Alastair had brought her in to work for Tony. When the lift stopped at my floor, she handed me over to Anji.
“I thought I told you not to go down there, Cherie,” Anji said as she walked me down the corridor. “You really don’t understand politics.”
“Thank you, Anji, but I do understand politics.” If looks could kill, she should have been dead. Our relationship was deteriorating rapidly. I couldn’t believe it. I was being treated like a naughty schoolgirl. These people apparently considered themselves empowered to tell me what to do.
For years I had devoted myself to helping the Labour Party — treading freezing streets, even giving up weekends and evenings. I had stood as a candidate, for goodness’ sake. As for my husband, he hadn’t always been surrounded by acolytes tending to his every need. I had been there from the beginning, encouraging him when he needed encouraging, listening when he needed someone to bounce ideas off, to talk things through with. From first to last, we were a team. Hopes, plans, dreams — ours was a true marriage, a joint endeavor. Yet this wasn’t a negotiation with my husband; it was ten other people saying “Cherie will do this.” Since I was a teenager, I had been used to having my own political opinions, and not being allowed to voice them publicly was like having a limb cut off. I sensed that I was becoming a nonperson — someone to be wheeled out when appropriate, or perhaps, like an Edwardian child, to be seen but not heard.
My humiliation was made worse by the fact that part of me knew that I couldn’t just go down and pretend that I was like any other delegate, because I wasn’t. Not anymore. I felt highly unsettled, unable to concentrate on anything. I wanted to be involved, just as I always had been, but how could I be? It had been made perfectly clear that I wasn’t wanted.
Then Alastair started fretting about Carole. “We can’t have that glamorous-looking creature here,” he announced.
“Why on earth not?”
“Because I don’t want people to know that you’re having help with your hair and makeup.”
“Elizabeth Smith did last year.”
“That was different.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Alastair. How could it be different?”
“I’m telling you, Cherie, it’s different, and I don’t want the press to know.”
“Because she’s good-looking, you mean? Is that a crime?”
He stalked off. But Alastair had spoken, and the rest had heard. From then on, Carole was banned from going anywhere. She was stuck either with me or in her room and told not to go out under any circumstances.
That conference was the first intimation I had of what was to come. Only the bathroom was sacrosanct, and then only if you remembered to lock the door. My one way of guaranteeing a bit of peace and quiet was to visit Carole’s room.
Conference proceeded in the usual way: going to meetings, listening to debates on the platform, and in the evening attending the various functions, such as Scots Night. I had done a bit of Scottish dancing in school — things like the Gay Gordons and the Eightsome Reel — but to hear it announced that “the leader and his wife will now start the dancing” proved strangely paralyzing, especially with the BBC filming the whole thing for its Newsnight program.
Thankfully, dancing was limited to this one occasion. On other occasions we’d simply go in and shake a few hands, Tony would make a little speech, everyone would listen, and then we’d move on to the next one. These talks were basically off-the-cuff remarks that reflected what he was thinking, things that might end up in his keynote speech. Wherever we went, we were followed by film crews, on show the whole time. Meanwhile I tried to follow Pat Phoenix’s example: be nice and smile.
It was the first time I had found myself in this position of appendage, and it did not come easily. I am by nature a doer, not a stander-and-watcher. I had already decided that I would do something for the wives of our MPs, a good number of whom were not politically active. I felt that wives generally got a raw deal in Parliament, and the Labour Party in particular didn’t look after them. (Indeed, the Tories were much better in their support of wives and children.) The least I could do, I thought, was to invite them to tea. It was agreed that I would host a tea party just for the wives of the northwest regional MPs, because few of the others would be there. This proved to be the start of what became known as Spouse in the House, a support group of which I became one of two honorary patrons.
Tony’s speech wasn’t until Tuesday. Purgatory, I decided, would be a cinch compared with this. Tony had been working on his speech for days, and it still wasn’t finished. The slogan “New Labour, New Britain” had only been agreed on the previous week, just in time to get the banners up for the conference. The trickle of people around my husband gradually became a whirlpool, and the debate about his speech became more frenetic and tense with every passing hour. The speech went through between twenty-five to forty drafts, with everyone chipping in, including me, though Tony and Alastair did the final tinkering.
On Sunday we went to church. Every year there was a nondenominational service organized by the Christian Socialist Movement. I remember how that first year I didn’t have anything to wear and had to borrow a cream outfit of Carole’s, which shows how effective the diet was and how disorganized I was. I had always enjoyed going to those conference services. There was usually a good crowd and a good preacher, who would give a thoughtful sermon, and there is nothing I like more than a rousing hymn. Tony and I both believe that we have an obligation to God in determining what we should do, and the sermon frequently dealt with serious issues, such as Third World debt or, later, asylum seekers, issues that the church has a right to be concerned about but that maybe don’t entirely chime with Labour Party or, later, government policy. We always listened seriously to what the preacher said.
The Labour Party Conference is the biggest of the party conferences, not least because of the union involvement. That year I discovered for the first time how it’s funded. Basically, interested parties rent stalls that act as shop windows for what they do. Some smaller stalls are given rent-free to charities. One thing Labour Party Conferences are not short on is opinion formers, so this is a great opportunity for the organizations or businesses concerned to get themselves seen and talked about. One of the incentives given them to return year after year is the “best stall” competition, judged by — yes! — the leader’s wife. There are various categories — public sector, private sector, voluntary sectors, and so on.
It took me at least two half days to get round to all the stalls. I wasn’t overly enamored with the prospect. How would I judge? What were the criteria? That first year someone came along to show me the ropes, and surprisingly I really enjoyed it. Apart from anything else, it was something to do. It was completely out of the limelight, and a little bit nonsensical, but the stallholders genuinely seemed to value my visit. What they really wanted, of course, was a piece of their glamorous new leader, but if they couldn’t have that, they’d settle for a piece of his wife. There were usually about two hundred stalls, and I made sure I went round to all of them, having a little chat and my picture taken with everybody.
Over the years there were inevitably some hiccups in my visits to the stalls, even though I was always closely shepherded — usually by Fiona, sometimes by Roz Preston, who later took over running Tony’s office from Anji. One year a stand had Viagra on display, and my comment “Oh, we don’t need that!” was duly trumpeted across the next day’s newspapers. Every stall would press me to take its mug or pencil or its mouse pad, so naturally I did, getting increasingly weighed down, not daring to refuse the kind offers, in case doing so would show favoritism. At the end of the week we’d divvy up this “booty” among the staff who had been working so hard for Tony, they’d had no time to find anything to take home to their kids. My sense of fairness would later come back to haunt me when the Daily Mail claimed that “Cherie used to go round the conference and Hoover up every freebie she could find.”
By Monday night, when the speech was into its nth draft, Tony was getting tenser and tenser. Gordon had given his speech that morning, and apparently he had said something that Tony had been planning to say. While I was drifting off to sleep, the voices in the sitting room next door continued to rise and fall. Eventually I could stand it no longer. He has to get some sleep, I thought. If he doesn’t, he’s going to collapse. So I got out of bed and went into the room. I am far from being a tidy person, but the state of that room was appalling: papers all over the place, half-drunk cups of tea and the odd beer glass, room-service trays with the remains of sandwiches, jackets here and there, and some very gray faces.
“Tony,” I said, “you have got to come to bed, because you must get some sleep. And as for you lot,” I said, pointing at Alastair, Anji, and the rest of them, “out. You’ve all got to go.” As it was, he barely slept anyway, and I spent a wakeful night with him tossing and turning in bed beside me.
Finally, it was time for Tony’s big speech. The Clause IV moment had come. As he began to speak, a hush descended, and I felt a shiver of anticipation. It was only at the end, however, that it became clear just how momentous it was. There was a brief moment of shock, and then the hall erupted. I felt the excitement all round me — the most brilliant speech a new leader had ever given. I felt ridiculously proud. There was nothing fake or phony about my clinging to my husband’s arm, but at that moment a pattern had been set, with the press making comments along these lines: “She’s supposed to be this successful career woman, yet she behaves like a love-sick teenager.” They had me “clinging to his hand like the adoring wife.” I was seen as a “breath of fresh air.” My clothes were approved of; I was approved of. Everyone was happy.
And then, within only a couple of hours, it all began to unravel.
“Where is she?” Alastair’s voice boomed down the corridor. Then he came storming in.
What was he talking about? Who?
“Carole,” he bellowed. “Where the fuck is she!”
Just then she emerged from the bathroom.
“I thought I told you to stay away from the limelight. But oh, no, you knew better. And now the press are onto you. Not only have they seen you; they know exactly what you are doing and who you are. And now our beautiful day has been ruined by this ridiculous woman.” He was literally spitting.
“What do you mean?” Carole said, looking aghast.
“What I mean is that you’re a topless model!”
I froze. “I don’t believe it,” I said, but nobody heard me.
“I’m not a topless model,” Carole said.
“Yes, you are! And what’s more, the Sun has pictures of you, and tomorrow no doubt the whole world will have the benefit of seeing your tits. I want you out of here. Now,” he said. (The Sun was not only one of our more gossipy tabloids, but it had the largest daily circulation of any English-language newspaper in the world.)
Slowly the story emerged. Several years before, when Carole was in the music video business, a boyfriend had taken pictures of her topless. She was eighteen. They were never published, but they would be now, as he had just sold them to the Sun.
By this time Carole was in tears. She left the room, saying she was going to pack.
“How dare you?” I said to Alastair, his arms now folded across his chest. “Don’t think I don’t know about you writing for a porn magazine. If we were all held accountable for what we did at eighteen, then it’s a wonder you didn’t disqualify yourself from this job on several counts, frankly.”
“Cherie, listen to me. I’m a journalist. I’ve got a nose for these things. That woman is trouble. You can’t possibly trust her. I don’t want anything to do with her, do you hear? There’s bound to be more coming out, and if you want to know what I think, I think she’s only here to sell her story.”
“So you’re about to expel her from the Garden of Eden, is that it?”
“Your words, not mine.”
Then Tony came in, and suddenly I felt dreadful. He had been so happy, exultant. All those desperate hours working on the speech had paid off, and now here he was, looking like thunder. He wanted to talk to me alone, he said. Alastair bowed out. We went into the bedroom, and he shut the door. I felt sick.
“I cannot believe this, Cherie. My God, this woman has been in our house! She’s been in our bedroom sorting through your clothes. I mean, who is this person? What do you know about her? Come on, think about it. What do you actually know about her?”
“You know who she is. She’s an exercise teacher. I’ve been going to her classes for years. I was hardly going to cross-examine her about what she’d done when she was eighteen.”
“And to think I let you talk me into having a massage.” He sat down on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands.
“We all did pretty stupid things when we were young. As for Alastair, he was an alcoholic, for God’s sake. I don’t condemn him for that, and I don’t see why he should condemn Carole for being a bit careless.”
“Careless!” was all he could say in reply.
The next day it got worse. Part of me was hoping that it wouldn’t be her or that the pictures had been faked or something. But it was obviously Carole. Alastair continued his attack.
“You have to drop her, Cherie. It’s as simple as that.”
“Well, sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not going to. It wouldn’t be fair. She has done nothing wrong, and what’s more, she’s done a good job and been incredibly helpful to me. You’ve even said yourself that I look great.
“And by what right do you tell me what company I should keep? It may surprise you to know that I have a life of my own, that I actually enjoy the company of people who couldn’t give a stuff about politics, and I intend to hang on to it.”
Shortly after breakfast the phone rang. It was Carole. Her mother had just called, she said. The house was surrounded by photographers. Later it came out that she’d been involved with this cult called Exegesis. What this was, or is, I still have no idea. But by that time she was gone. It had been decided to get her into a safe house. She couldn’t go back to her mum’s, as the press was parked outside. Hilary Coffman and Tony’s researcher, Liz Lloyd, had been deputed to take her out through the kitchens, and she stayed at Liz’s for a few days.
As far as the press impact was concerned, Alastair had managed to keep Tony distanced from it all. But I felt really bad about the whole thing, particularly since my role was to make things easier for him, not more difficult.
As for Carole, I was not about to give her up. She had promised me I’d have more energy, and I did. And now I knew I was going to need it. There was no mileage to be gained in rubbing anyone’s face in it, but I continued going to the gym three times a week for an hour before work, and gradually the furor around Carole Caplin seemed to die down.
The press showed no signs of letting up on their interest in Tony and me as a couple, but increasingly I needed clothes to wear. So Carole would search things out, and I would pay her to go. Realistically, who else could I ask? Most of my friends were working mothers like me. In terms of their clothes, their horizons were limited. I didn’t know ladies who lunched.