Winston’s War by Michael Dobbs

pleasure of sleeping with the wife of anyone with a vote in my constituency. Which includes my own wife, of course. Sort of self-discipline. Like training for a long-distance run.”
    “For God's sake, don't tell Central Office. It might become compulsory.”
    “It's good politics. I work on the basis that I shall always get the women's vote—so long as their husbands don't find out.”
    “Better than leaving it dangling on the old barbed wire.”
    “Can't stand all this bloody war-mongering, Ian. Any fool can go to war.”
    “Particularly an old fool like Winston.”
    “Been at it half his adult life. Look where it's got him.”
    Slightly more softly—“And if war is to be the question, how the hell can Bore-Belisha be the answer?”
    Their attention was drawn across the cracked leather of the Smoking Room to where the portly and dark-featured figure of the Secretary of State for War, Leslie Hore-Belisha (or Bore-Belisha or Horab-Elisha, according to taste), was ordering a round of drinks.
    “Do they make kosher whiskey, Ian?”
    “Judging by the amount he knocks back it's a racing certainty.”
    “Fancies himself as a future Leader, you know.”
    “Elisha? Really? Not for me. Always thought it might be helpful if we found a Christian to lead us on the next Crusade.”
    “Precisely.”
    “He's getting even fatter, you know. Strange for a man who proclaims his devotion to nothing but the public good.”
    “A genetic disposition to—”
    “Corpulence.”
    “I was thinking indulgence.”
    “Christ. Gas masks to the ready. Here comes St. Harold.” Harold Macmillan, the forty-four-year-old Conservative Member for Stockton, drifted in their direction. He was not often popular with his colleagues. Not only did he have a conscience, he would insist on sharing it.
    “Evening, Harold. Dickie here's been telling us that he's a reformed character. He's given up sleeping with his constituents' wives. Saving it all for the party in the run-up to an election. Suppose it means he's going to be sleeping with our wives instead.”
    Macmillan drifted by as silently as a wraith.
    “My God, you can be a brutal bugger at times, Ian.”
    “What the hell did I do?”
    “Don't you know? Macmillan's wife? And Bob Boothby, our esteemed colleague for East Aberdeenshire? Apparently he's been chasing her furry friend for years—catching it, too. Open secret. Supposed to have fathered Harold's youngest daughter.”
    “What? Cuckolded by one of his own colleagues? I've heard of keeping it in the family, but that one takes the biscuit. Why doesn't he…?”
    “Divorce? Out of the question. Tied to her by the rope of old ambition. Harold's reputation for sainthood would never stand a scandal.”
    “Ridiculous man. Won't fight for his wife yet wants the rest of us to go to war over Czechoslovakia.”
    “He'll never come to anything.”
    Another drink. “Neville has got this one right, hasn't he, Dickie?”
    A pause. “He knows more about it than anyone else in the country. Got to trust him, I suppose.”
    “Young Adolf 's not all bad, you know, knocking heads together in Europe. A good thing, probably. Needed a bit of sorting out, if you ask me. Get them all into line, sort of thing.”
    “A united Europe?”
    “Going to be good for all of us in the long run. Look to the future, I say.”
    “We had to come to terms. It was inevitable.”
    “Inevitable. Yes. Bloody well put.”
    “What was Winston calling it in the Lobby? 'A peace which passeth all understanding…' What d'you think he meant by that?”
    “I have long since ceased either to know or to care. Never been a party man, has Winston.”
    “Always takes matters too far.”
    “Anyway, soon over and out of this place. Any plans for the weekend?”
    “A little cubbing, we thought. Give the hounds a good run. And you?”
    “The wife's still in France. So I thought—a touch of canvassing.”
    “Anyone in particular?”
    “There's an English wife of an