A Spy by Nature - Charles Cumming [135]
The general election campaign is gathering pace. Martin Bell, a former war correspondent, has left BBC News, bought himself a raggedy white suit and been manipulated by Labour spin-doctors into making a Conservative MP called Neil Hamilton look bad. It isn’t exactly clear what Hamilton has done wrong. He has not been tried by a jury, nor confessed to any crime. But we are encouraged to see him as a liar, a stuffer of envelopes cloaked in sleaze. An unfortunate-looking man with weak eyes, Hamilton’s position is made worse by a handbag wife called Christine who is constantly at his side, straining her indignation like a pug on a leash. They are victims of image, laid low by media men who have glimpsed their meagre secrets and inflated them into crimes against the state. Bell, by sharp white contrast, is offered to us as a symbol of stainless rectitude.
The two of them meet on a windy heath, a green square of moral high ground in Tatton. It’s like a duel in Pushkin. Bell, for once, is on the other side of the microphone, and he looks edgy. He knows it’s his duty to take his opponent to task - to unleash the simple sword of truth - but something holds him back. He is unused to adopting a tone of baseless aggression for the sake of a soundbite; he is frightened by the idea that his words could ruin a man. As a journalist, Bell has spent his life tracking some of the century’s more despicable individuals; when he looks at Hamilton he sees only that he is just like the rest of us. Just like Martin Bell, probably. An opportunist when backs are turned, an ambitious man with a fool’s face. Not a criminal. Not a Philby.
So Bell looks at the circus gathered around him, at the crowd baying for blood, and he tries to act honourably. When Hamilton asks him if he believes that a man is innocent until proven guilty, Bell agrees enthusiastically, speaking hopefully of letting the facts come out, of a period of quiet contemplation before the passing of judgement. But common sense goes unheard. It’s good cop, bad cop, because that’s how the media want it. And there’s nothing either one of them can do about it.
I sit there watching all this as it develops on TV. What is clear - what would seem most plausible - is that Hamilton has lied, but with no great vigour or aplomb. I think this not because of any weight of evidence, but because he looks haunted and guilty, and because his wife reminds me of Mrs Thatcher. There’s no logic to my conclusion: it’s based solely on his lack of personal appeal.
And I start actively to dislike Neil Hamilton for the simple reason that he has lied badly, without wit. He has made Nixon’s mistake: once he was caught, he should have admitted to it right away. The liar must not cling on, piling little lie on little lie in the hope that it will all go away. That is to build a house of cards. Instead: confess, seek pardon, and move on. It is the simplest trick in the book, but the pride of the powerful man, the play of his complex egotisms, will not allow him to do such a thing.
31
Baku
At work on Tuesday afternoon, three days before Cohen is due back from Baku, I get a call from Katharine. I am unprepared for the conversation and struggle to summon up the necessary zip. My mind is so slack that I speak only briefly in abrupt phrases that tail off, going nowhere. Katharine, who is evidently cheery and content, picks up on this and after a couple of minutes asks:
‘You OK?’
‘Yes. Why?’
‘I dunno. You sound kinda odd. Sad.’
I almost believe she cares.
‘I’m fine.’
‘Sure?’
‘Absolutely.’
We talk about the election (everyone is talking about the election). Katharine says that if she had British citizenship she would vote for Blair, because he has the requisite ‘dynamism’ that’s lacking in Mr Top Lip. Fortner, on the other hand, feels sympathetic to Major,