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'A great pity the Chancellor wasn't a little more cautious before allowing us to run off and make rash commitments,' the Education Secretary commented, dripping acid.
The Chancellor muttered defiantly that it wasn't his fault the election results were worse than even the cynical Stock Market had expected, a comment he had instantly regretted making although he knew it was precisely what all his colleagues were thinking. Collingridge had knocked their heads together and instructed the Secretary of State for Health to prepare a suitable explanation for the change of plans, which would be announced in a fortnight's time during the last week before the August recess.
'Let us hope,' said the septuagenarian Lord Chancellor, 'that everybody's minds will by then be on the lighter follies of summer rather than the more depressing follies of their political masters.'
Cabinet overran by twenty-five minutes, which meant that in turn the Prime Minister's briefing meeting with officials for Question Time was also late, and his ill-temper ensured that he took in very little of what they were saying. When he strode into a packed Chamber just before the appointed time of 3.15 p.m., he was not as well armed or as alert as usual.
This did not seem to matter for the first thirteen minutes fifty seconds of combat, as he batted back questions from the Opposition and accepted plaudits from his own party with adequate if not inspired ease. The Speaker of the House, in charge of parliamentary proceedings, decided that with just over a minute left there would be time for just one more quick question to round off the session.
'Stephen Kendrick,' he called across the Chamber to summon the Member whose question was next on the Order Paper. It was the first occasion on which the new Member had been involved at Question Time, and many older Members were nudging their colleagues to find out who this new man was.
'Number Six, sir' Kendrick rose briefly to his feet to indicate the question from the Order Paper he wished the Prime Minister to answer: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for the day'. It was a hollow question, identical in form to Questions One, Two and Four which had already preceded it, and designed not to elicit information but to hide from the Prime Minister the nature of the following supplementary thrust. Such is the nature of the combat
The Prime Minister rose ponderously to his feet and glanced at the red briefing folder already open on the Despatch Box in front of him. He read in a monotone.
'I refer the Honourable Member to the reply I gave some moments ago to Questions One, Two and Four' Since his earlier reply had said no more than that he would spend the day holding meetings with ministerial colleagues and hosting a dinner for the visiting Belgian Prime Minister, no one had yet learned anything of interest about the Prime Minister's activities - which was precisely his intention.
Collingridge resumed his seat, and the Speaker summoned Kendrick once more to place his supplementary question. The gladiatorial courtesies were now over, and battle was about to commence. Kendrick rose to his feet from the rear row of the Opposition benches.
Kendrick was a gambler, a man who had found professional success in an industry which emphasised ostentatious reward, yet who had decided to risk his expense account and sports car by fighting a marginal parliamentary seat. Not that he had really expected or indeed wanted to win; after all, the Government had been sitting on a pretty reasonable majority. Fighting the seat, he reasoned, would give him a platform and a prominence which would help him both socially and professionally, and would certainly give him a higher profile in the public relations trade magazines. The man with the social conscience' always made good copy in an aggressively commercial industry, and the ability to be able to drop a name or two usually helped.
His majority of 76, after three recounts, at first had come as an unpleasant shock as suddenly he was forced to contemplate the reduced income and additional hours of a parliamentary career. It would not be much of a career at that, either, since he knew the odds were that after the next election he would probably be looking for a new seat or a new job. In either case he knew that the plodding progress of a loyal and patient backbencher was not for him. He would have to make his mark, and make it quickly.
Kendrick had spent all of the previous evening and much of that morning turning over O'Neill's remarks in his mind. Why cancel a publicity campaign promoting a vote-winning policy which had been sold heavily during the election, when the campaign was all set to go? Whichever way he looked at it, the pieces would only fit together into a pattern suggesting that it was the policy rather than the publicity campaign which was in trouble. But should he enquire or accuse? To question or condemn? Or simply take the course expected of new Members and be completely anodyne? He knew that if he got it wrong, the first and lasting impression he made would be that of the House fool.
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