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'Poll crisis hits Government', it screamed. PM's future in doubt as personal slump hits party'. 'By-election disaster feared'. And this in what was supposed to be the most loyal of newspapers.
Collingridge threw his napkin down on the table and kicked back his chair. He left the table even as his wife was still discussing the finer advantages of January in Antigua.
It did not improve the Prime Minister's temper when he had to retrieve the copy of the Telegraph from among the cigarette ash in the waste bin.
'Over the bloody breakfast table, Grahame. May I, just occasionally, not be the last to know?'
'I am sorry, Prime Minister. We were going to show it to you just as soon as you had finished,' came the meek response.
It's just not good enough, not good eno ... What the hell's this rubbish?'
He had arrived at the point in the Telegraph report when the hard news - if opinion polls can ever be considered to qualify as hard' news - had been superseded by sheer speculation and hype.
The latest slump revealed in the Party's own private opinion polls is bound to put intense pressure on the Prime Minister, whose conference speech tomorrow is awaited anxiously by party representatives in Bournemouth. Rumblings about the style and effectiveness of the Prime Minister's leadership have increased in intensity since the election, when his performance disappointed many of his colleagues.
These doubts are certain to be fuelled by the latest poll, which gives him the lowest personal rating any Prime Minister has achieved since these polls began nearly forty years ago.
Last night, a leading Minister commented, 'There is a lack of grip around the Cabinet table and in the House of Commons. The Party is restive. Our basically excellent position is being undermined by the leader's lack of appeal'
Harsher views were being expressed in some Government quarters. Senior party sources were speculating that the Party was fast coming to a crossroad. 'We have to decide between making a new start or sliding gently into decline and defeat' one source said. 'We have had too many unnecessary setbacks since the election. We cannot afford any more.'
A less sanguine view was that Collingridge was 'like a catastrophe threatening to engulf the Government at any moment'.
The result of today's parliamentary by-election in Dorset East, reckoned to be a safe Government seat, is now being seen as crucial to the Prime Minister's future.
Collingridge was by now almost consumed with fury. His face had flushed and he gripped the newspaper like a drowning man, yet his years of experience in the political trenches kept him in control.
'I want to find out who's behind this, Grahame. I want to know who wrote it. Who spoke to them. Who leaked the poll. And for breakfast tomorrow I want their balls on toast!'
'Shall I give Lord Williams a call?' the political secretary
offered as a tentative suggestion. ;
'Lord Williams!' Collingridge exploded. It's his bloody poll that's leaked! I don't want apologies, I want answers. Get me the Chief Whip. Find him, and whatever he is doing get him here right now'
The secretary summoned his courage for the next hurdle. 'Before he arrives, Prime Minister, could I suggest that we have another look at your speech. There may be various things you want to change as a result of the morning press, and we don't have too much time.'
'Grahame, the speech stays, just as it is. I'm not ripping up a perfectly good speech just in order to run in front of a pack of bloody news hounds. That's just what they want, and that is just what will make us most vulnerable. Maybe we can have another look at it later, but what is top priority at the moment is that we stop the leaks right now, otherwise they will turn into a flood. So find Mr Urquhart, and get him here immediately!'
With a look of resignation, the political secretary reached for the phone.
Urquhart was sitting in his bungalow waiting for a telephone call, which came not from the Prime Minister but from the Foreign Secretary. When Woolton got through, much to Urquhart's relief he was chuckling.
'Damned fool. I must put more water in your whisky next time. You walked off with one of my boxes yesterday and left your own behind. I've got your sandwiches and you've got a copy of the latest secret plans to invade Papua New Guinea, or whatever other damn fool thing they are trying to convince me of this week. I suggest we swap before I get arrested for losing confidential Government property. I'll be round in twenty seconds.'
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