A Parliamentary Affair by Edwina Currie Page A

checked long before Pike sat down. Members opposite were heading off to the tea room but his own side had been primed that maiden speeches would be made, and stayed put. Cabinet ministers smiled vaguely back at him, while the whip on duty was a familiar face, Roger Dickson. He at least knew what Andrew planned to say, for the two had rehearsed it with a stopwatch earlier that morning. Andrew had then copied it out by hand, in capital letters, on small sheets of House of Commons notepaper. Nobody would mind, should he dry up with nerves, if he referred to his notes, but in fact he knew the speech by heart. He felt comfortable with old methods familiar from school debating days; then he had done rather well. Nervously he patted his tie, checked his fly zip one last time and wished he was somewhere else. Speaking in the Commons was not like making speeches from a platform, where the orator is at least able to see faces and tell by their reactions what impression is being made, so he (or she) can speedup, pipe up or – if the audience is asleep – blessedly shut up. Here he was confronted by a sea of backs, all dark-suited like his own, apart from the isolated dots of women in bold reds and yellows. The faces opposite were too far away to be useful and anyway would deliberately register disinterest or disapproval to put him off. It was no part of their brief to make encouraging noises at government new boys.
    The hollow ache in the pit of his stomach intensified. Breakfast had been difficult, lunch impossible. He was conscious of being hemmed in. Members were twisting in their seats to look at him with curiosity and commiseration. Everyone else either had been through this or was worriedly awaiting his own turn. He gritted his teeth and checked his opening sentence once again.
    Madam Speaker was looking at him, eyebrow raised. Are you ready?
    Nod, take deep breath.
    ‘Mr Andrew Muncastle!’
    To his surprise, everyone bayed ‘Hear, hear!’ before he had even opened his mouth. He rose, almost lost his balance, steadied. The Prime Minister had stopped chatting to Sir Nigel Boswood and was turning around. The PM’s maiden had lasted fifteen minutes and was regarded at the time as unmemorable, worthy but boring. Look where it had got him barely a decade later. Maybe plod was better than splash.
    ‘Madam Speaker. I start by paying tribute to my predecessor in the constituency of Hampshire South West, Sir Percy Duff, now Lord Duff, whom many Honourable Members will know. He served the area for twenty-two years and was highly regarded. His will be a hard place to fill.’
    More rumbling ‘Hear, hears’. I have just told my first lie in Parliament, Andrew noted with detached amusement. Now he was on his feet he was beginning to relax. If he had any ambition it was to make a better fist of being an MP than the lazy old sod who had been pushed out by an exasperated management committee, warned that if he did not retire pronto they would deselect him. Andrew glanced at the gallery. His grandfather appeared to be hanging on every word. The old man didn’t say much. Barney was wriggling, Tessa looking anxious as usual.
    ‘I am proud also to recognise the contribution in my life of my grandfather, Sir Edward Muncastle, formerly the Honourable Member for Hornchurch, who to my delight is here with us today.’
    Everybody looked up, then back to Andrew with more respect. Roger Dickson opened the large blue folder, wrote Andrew’s name in bold ink, and added: ‘3.42 p.m. Started confidently. Good speaking manner, pleasant.’
    ‘It is normal practice, I understand, to say kind things about one’s constituency, and in the case of Hampshire South West that is easy to do. We have the youngest population, highest rate of home ownership and lowest unemployment in all the area south of Oxford. We owe a great deal to positive economic change under recent Tory governments.’
    ‘Hear, hear!’
    ‘Yet this is no NIMBY area – not for us