Inside Story: Politics, Intrigue and Treachery from Thatcher to Brexit. Philip Webster
among those who were in on it was ‘the Liverpool Novel’, after Currie’s birthplace.
Six p.m. arrived. OK. A deep breath. I had often in recent days framed in my mind how I would tell Major what we were about to publish. I rang the first number I had for the London office, which I had found in the past was always manned. No reply. I rang the second number. No reply. And no answerphone message on either. I had a mobile number for Arabella Warburton, Major’s chief of staff, too. No luck. It did not work.
This was worrying. I rang Huntingdon. Again no reply. Things were now serious. Not quite panic yet. But serious. I then, almost at random, started calling other people who might know where he was. I rang an ex-colleague, Sheila Gunn, who had gone on to work as a press adviser to Major. She did not know where he was and was very curious. I rang Jonathan (now Lord) Hill, his former political secretary. No joy. At Peter’s suggestion I rang Tristan Garel-Jones, a former minister and great friend of Major, on his number in Spain. No reply. In between all these calls I kept trying the London office numbers.
At head office everyone was busy preparing what they thought would be the paper’s main edition. Only the chosen few realized it was due to be just the first edition, so that rivals would not see the big one when it dropped in most newsrooms at around 10.30 p.m. It was agreed to put a story about Jeffrey Archer across the top of the front page. Full-page ads for the electrical firm Currys were put on pages four and five. Robert Thomson liked a joke. The staff were unaware that in another part of the building, a handful of their colleagues were preparing the real edition.
I told no one at the office at this stage that I was becoming desperate and that the whole thing was in danger of collapsing.
By now my deputy, Tom Baldwin, had arrived and I kept him in the dark, too – for the time being at least. But he could tell that his normally unflappable boss was anything but, and offered to help. Nobody could help, though; I needed someone, anyone, to answer one of these phones. I rang Huntingdon for the umpteenth time. London yet again. I tried Arabella’s number once more.
It was well after 7 p.m. when I tried the London office one last time, thinking that I was soon going to have to tell Robert that I could not find Major. Someone answered, apparently a secretary. I asked if Mr Major was there. No. I asked if Arabella was there. No. Aagh! I then told her that it was a matter of absolute life and death that I get hold of one of them. Was there anything she could do to help? She said she would try and I gave my Commons number. I repeated that it was of the utmost urgency and that they would be grateful to her if she could put them in touch with me. If I sounded desperate, I was.
No more than five minutes later, the phone rang. It was Arabella. I did not know how this conversation was going to go, but never had I been more relieved to receive a call. It sounded like a long-distance call and she told me she was in Chicago, where Major was about to make a speech. Yes, Chicago! I said that I must speak to him about something that The Times was about to run. I had to speak to him personally. She said: ‘You know, Phil, that you can tell me so that I can tell John.’ I said that on this one occasion it was difficult and that I really had to speak to him. Arabella could tell that I was serious and she must have wondered what on earth it was all about, given my insistence. She said that she would talk to Major. But I said: ‘Please don’t ring off – I don’t want to lose you at this stage.’ Arabella, who had always been the most straightforward person to deal with, was magnificent. She came back on the phone very quickly and said that whatever it was, however personal, I could tell her and that Major was happy that I should.
Tom Baldwin had been listening, and asked if he could get me a drink. I gave him the thumbs up and he raced off. I now had to tell Arabella what we were about to run. In my own mind I suppose I assumed that Major may have by now guessed what was coming. I did not know if he had picked up from somewhere that the Currie diaries were imminent. In any case I supposed this was something he had known might be revealed at any stage in the last thirteen years.
I told Arabella the essentials of the Times splash – that we were serializing Currie’s diaries and that she had disclosed that she and John Major had had a four-year affair. Arabella was clearly shocked but she was utterly professional. Her calm in the face of what I told her made me feel that there was unlikely to be a denial or any attempt to stop the story. The reaction was more one of sad resignation. I told her that if it was possible to have some response from her boss – and quick – I would be massively grateful. By now my anxiety had given way to huge relief. I had fulfilled Robert’s command.
And I now told him that the contact had been made, and that I was hopeful of getting some kind of comment from Major. It was by then close to 8.40 p.m. Arabella asked if I could give her twenty minutes and I said of course, but please come back to me even if there is nothing other than a ‘no comment’.
Tom Baldwin returned with beers and pizza. The Press Gallery bar was closed, it being a Friday. He had been up to Victoria Street. I was starving and thirsty. Again I told Robert that we were nearly there. Maybe twenty-five minutes later my phone rang again and I knew it would be Arabella. As I said hello, I quietly dialled Robert’s direct line in the office and heard him pick it up. She did indeed have a statement. And as she read it I repeated it out loud so that Robert could hear. It was 9.12 p.m. The statement read: ‘Norma has known of this matter for many years and has long forgiven me. It is the one event in my life of which I am most ashamed and I have long feared it would be made public. Neither Norma nor I has any further comment.’
Major has stayed true to that statement ever since. His first thought when he learnt of what we were running was for his family, and he obviously wanted to tell them what was appearing. But he has never since that day said another word on the subject.
I thanked Arabella. She in turn thanked me for giving Major advance knowledge and a chance to respond. It was a stunning result for the paper. Not only was the story confirmed by the main subject, he had also given a very good quote talking about his shame at what had happened. Even at that stage Tom and I surmised that Currie – hidden away in France – would not take too kindly to Major’s response. It gave us a follow-up for Monday morning.
My office sources tell me that it was at this stage that the editor of The Times gave out a whoop of delight and did his jig. I swiftly e-mailed Major’s words to the night editor, Liz Gerard.
The main paper of the night was then prepared at lightning speed.
As Brian MacArthur wrote later: ‘We had our scoop. Our rivals had the spoof. The new front page and pages four and five – carrying the Dougary interview – were ready to go immediately and were being printed by 9.36 p.m. Out of 655,000 copies printed from London, only 18,000 were the spoof edition. Luck plays as big a part in newspapers as in other areas of life and none of the nightmare scenarios we had considered occurred on the night.’
I didn’t tell them even then that for ninety minutes or so I had gone through a real nightmare. But I’ve mentioned since to George Brock, among others, that it nearly didn’t go all right on the night. George replied: ‘OK, there was the odd ripple of alarm. We knew you’d manage and you did.’
When the edition was done, a glass or two of champagne was drunk at the office – well deserved given the brilliance of the operation marshalled by Thomson, his deputy, Ben Preston, and the rest of the team. Tom and I had our beer.
I went home shattered but the tension of the night made sleep impossible. I was up early and in my car driving north to the Labour conference in Blackpool (via a Norwich match against Preston at Deepdale) when Robert Thomson was introduced on the Today programme by John Humphrys and interviewed about one of the great scoops of recent years. Piers Morgan, then editor of the Daily Mirror, who was woken after 2 a.m. when our Currie edition landed in his office, wrote that it rated as a story alongside ‘Elvis Dead’ and ‘Man on the Moon’.
A Day in the Desert as John Major Sues
My job was full of coincidences. Nine years earlier, I had been with John Major when he announced he was suing two magazines for libel for alleging – falsely – that