His feud with the humble and decent Freeza Mart proprietor Ross Clegg is born when Clegg, an unsophisticated Midlands parvenu with a permatanned wife and a dumpy family dressed by the high street (ugh!), has sufficient bad taste and brass neck to build a chavvy mansion which blots the view from Straker’s own country pile. It escalates when Straker’s favourite son Archie knocks up one of Clegg’s daughters; and when Freeza Mart starts threatening the position of Straker Communications’ biggest client, well, that puts the tin hat on it.
Straker — part gorilla with mobile phone, part Iago with an expense account — pulls every string he can see in his attempt to discredit and humiliate Clegg. Eventually, of course, he pulls so many strings that the fabric of his own life starts to unravel. Coleridge’s finale, though high farce, is tinged with tragedy, as we see what becomes of a man who has been running on envy for far too long.
Coleridge is a pithy observer of social manners and the pitfalls of ambition at every level of society, and this book can be enjoyed both as a poolside bonkbuster and a wry satire on the worst toadyism of the Nu-Labour decade. (Which may make it a wonkbuster.) The shallow Miles is actually the roundest character, but he’s given a good run by Greg Clegg, Ross’ pompous prig of a son. He hankers for a parliamentary seat and spouts third-way socialist claptrap while decking out his council flat with Eames chairs. Sound familiar?
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