Simon Hoggart has spent 20 years going to Westminster to annoy people. He entertains no high-minded delusions about politics and he writes his Guardian sketches in a state of amused bewilderment by the sheer barminess and abnormality of most parliamentarians. This collection reads like the diary of an intelligent, mild-mannered child whose parents happen to own a knocking-shop.
He makes enemies along the way. John Prescott has several times threatened to kill Hoggart, even though he directs very few explicit barbs at the former deputy prime minister. What he does is to quote him at length and with terrible accuracy. And because Prescott’s brain is like a wrecking-ball to his credibility, any transcription of his words is bound to inflict serious damage. Here he is updating MPs about the firefighters’ strike in 2002:
The agreement is taking place. I tell him properly that if his judgment to make a judgment on the public interest and the safety of the community. That is not my judgment it is the judgment given to the Attorney General.
Another victim, Michael Fabricant, was infuriated by Hoggart’s references to his famous ‘glistening tresses’ — ‘it’s as if My Little Pony had been in a terrible accident and its tail had been draped over Mr Fabricant’s head’. Fabricant wisely overcame his displeasure and befriended his tormentor. The mockery abated.
Hoggart has the invaluable knack of bringing a satirical thought to life in a few deft words. He’s particularly good at capturing sounds. Vince Cable talks ‘like a sheep with a stomach ache’. Peter Mandelson’s speech to the Labour conference in 2000 was received with ‘applause that resembled the sound of empty crisp packets blowing across a deserted playground’.
The visuals are great too. Andrew MacKay, a Tory MP caught up in the expenses scandal, has ‘a weird complexion and bulgey eyes, like a kipper that has been smoked before it’s dead’. Hoggart witnessed Tony Marlow’s notorious appearance at the launch of John Redwood’s bid for the Tory leadership in 1995. Marlow wore ‘a multi-coloured, striped blazer, like a chair from the passenger deck of the Hindenburg’.
As a self-confessed ‘soggy liberal’, he’s reluctant to slam Tony Blair too hard. He complains that the former Labour leader prefers ‘fuzzy, well-meaning word-pictures’ to speeches. His conference performances are like ‘a trip to Utopia without a map’. When Blair resigns in 2007 he offers his successor this endorsement: ‘I’m absolutely delighted, um, to give my full support to Gordon.’ But ‘the teeth were so gritted you could have sprinkled them on a snow-covered motorway’.
There’s a fascinating snapshot of the 38-year-old David Cameron during the 2005 election campaign. The young MP for Witney had been sent on a day-trip to Dartmoor to support Stanley Johnson’s bid to seize a rural seat from the Lib Dems. Hoggart immediately recognises Cameron’s ability. ‘He looks and behaves like a junior minister, and already talks the talk.’ Cameron condemned Labour’s propaganda — ‘Don’t let the Tories in by the back door’ — with a characteristic touch of asperity: ‘After eight years, that’s pathetic!’ When Johnson’s agent suggests that they canvass votes in a hair salon, Cameron declines. ‘I fight shy of hair-dryers. Hair-dryers and banks. You should never disturb people when they’re with their hair or their money.’ He’s in a hurry to get away, and after racing around a few dreary shops, he grabs Johnson by the arm. ‘Stanley, that was huge!’ he says, and he disappears.
Hoggart captures all the Prime Minister’s traits — already present in this vignette, if in a vague and undeveloped form. The ebullience, the quick wit and the political intelligence, marred by personal insensitivity and brusqueness. Cameron to a tee.
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