A Woman's Place by Edwina Currie

constituents could see them now…’ A tactful man, Bell left the rest unsaid.
    The policewoman, from a younger generation, pulled a face. ‘Best leave ’em to it,’ she murmured.
    The corridor behind them was jammed with reporters waving notebooks and pulling at sleeves. At the same moment nearly two hundred MPs were trying to cram into Room 14, whose narrow doors were blocked by bodies already inside. A television crew appeared – which was not permitted – and despite protests started filming aggressively. The atmosphere began to turn ugly.
    A particularly persistent journalist tripped, or was pushed – nobody ever knew – and suddenly there was pandemonium, with angry voices raised, fists flying, notebooks snatched; for a brief glorious moment battle raged, as furious Tories vented long-standing anger on the media for their intrusion into this, to them, entirely private event. There was no love lost between the two sides but, as the heaving mass threatened to crush weaker souls against the wall, Robin Bell waded in and separated red-faced Honourable Member Freddie Ferriman from the Globe’ s deputy editor Jim Betts just as the former was about to land a punch on the latter.
    â€˜I shouldn’t, sir, if I was you,’ he calmly advised the panting Ferriman, who tugged down his disordered waistcoat and straightened his tie. The MP snorted an oath at his opponent, then turned and pushed his way through the crowd.
    Betts pulled out a grubby handkerchief and secretly cursed his luck that the blow had never landed: a senior newspaperman rendered battered and bloody by an MP would have made a splendid story.
    At the top of the stairs the chairman of the ’22 and the Party Chairman halted in horror at the melee. After a quick consultation with the police it was decided that cowardice was the better part of valour. The two scuttled into Room 10 instead. The press were rapidly admitted and made to sit, like naughty schoolboys before a headmaster. After all, the dignitaries told each other, it was the press who really counted.
    Back in the basement room Harrison absent-mindedly ate his chips and fiddled with the television remote control. Never one to waste energy, he avoided crowds, and had reckoned there would be trouble as the result was announced. What excited him was not so much the count – anoutright winner first time was unlikely – but the reaction of those who came second and third, which would decide whether a second ballot would go ahead.
    The cameras showed the oldest candidate at his desk in the Treasury, apparently nonchalant; but the familiar matey grin was belied by the darting of his eyes. He was in his mid fifties. This would probably be his last chance. The youngest of the three was pictured at home, his expression impassive and self-contained. The third was in a television studio, elbows on table, pursed mouth hidden by clasped hands, outwardly cool and joking with the crew, inwardly in turmoil.
    What did it mean, to lead the country? For a brief moment Roger thought he must be mad. He had no sense of mission; no small voices in his head spoke to him of destiny. He had never planned this day. Yet somehow, perhaps from the first moment he had arrived at Westminster, his foot had been placed firmly on the bottom tread of an invisible escalator which now had brought him enticingly close to the top.
    â€˜Sit down!’ roared the chairman of the ’22. Betts muttered incantations against the chairman’s mother and offspring. Every seat was taken. He subsided to the floor, pen poised.
    â€˜Right!’ The chairman debated with himself whether to wipe his perspiring face first and decided against it. ‘Are we ready? The count for the leadership contest, first ballot, is as follows…’
    Down the corridor it dawned on three hundred MPs that they were being completely bypassed, and, what was worse, by the fellow they’d elected to put