Kompromat

‘Don’t get too excited.’ Harriet Marshall pricked the bubble with surgical skill. ‘Even with Harry Stokes leading the charge, it will be an uphill battle.’

She pulled a piece of paper from her pocket. ‘Have you looked at the bookies’ odds recently? The betting is overwhelming for Remain. Look, Paddy Power is offering 5 – 1 on a Remain victory. The gap’s as wide as that.’

While Melissa fixed the coffee, Harriet looked at the calendar.

‘We’ve got fewer than one hundred days left before Thursday June 23rd,’ she said. ‘And we’ve got to make sure that every one of them counts. Speeches, rallies, TV appearances. We’re going to be flat out.’

‘Our job is to change the odds, then?’ Barnard said.

‘Our job is to win the vote.’

They worked on through the morning, pencilling in potential speakers on the spreadsheet and blocking off key dates on the calendar. At twelve noon, they took a break.

Melissa returned with glasses, tonic water and a bottle of gin. She poured a stiff one for herself, then – glass in hand – cast an eye on the spreadsheet and calendar.

‘But how are you going to use Edward?’ she asked Harriet. ‘I don’t see a lot of days blocked off for him? He hasn’t given up a Cabinet job to stand idly by on the sidelines while others fight the battles.’

‘Don’t worry.’ Harriet Marshall tried to calm her down. ‘You won’t have to cook your husband three square meals a day. He’s going to have his work cut out, I can assure you, if we’re going to win this one. Without your husband this whole exercise is doomed to failure. The Leave campaign will go down in defeat. The tide is flowing too strongly against us. And the government will ride that tide. They will throw everything they have at us. They will find ways of using government resources even when the rules say they shouldn’t.’

Melissa Barnard was following her closely. ‘So what do we do? How do we close the gap?’

Harriet ran her hand over her forehand. ‘Melissa – may I call you Melissa?’

‘Go right ahead.’

‘Imagine, Melissa, that you’re a contestant on Mastermind. Say you’ve picked Harold Macmillan as your specialist subject and John Humphrys asks you to quote one of Macmillan’s most famous remarks. What do you say?’

‘That one’s easy,’ Melisa Barnard said. ‘“You’ve never had it so good”.’

‘Quite right, Melissa.’ Harriet turned to Edward Barnard. ‘And what would your choice be?’

Barnard thought for a moment. Dear old Harold! He’d been up at Oxford in the 1980s, when Macmillan was chancellor of the university. He had seen the old boy one day, all togged up in his chancellor’s robes, presiding over the Annual Encaenia, Oxford’s grand prize-giving ceremony. Some young journalist had asked him – was it Jeremy Paxman? – what he thought was the most difficult thing about being prime minister. ‘Events, dear boy, events,’ the old man had replied.

That’s what Edward Barnard said now. ‘Events, dear boy, events. That’s the point you’re making, isn’t it? We need something to happen. Something that changes the odds in our favour.’

‘Precisely,’ Harriet Marshall said. ‘And we can’t wait for events to happen by themselves. We don’t have time for that. We have to make them happen. A tide, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune!’

As she spoke, Harriet looked quickly out of the window as though she was waiting for something. Edward Barnard followed the direction of her glance and saw a huge red bus with the words VOTE LEAVE: TAKE BACK CONTROL emblazoned on its side. The bus paused by the gate, as though to check that it had arrived at the right place, then it turned off the road to pull into the courtyard of Barnard’s Georgian manor. Half a dozen young men and women began to disembark.

‘What on earth’s that?’ Barnard exclaimed.

Harriet Marshall pushed back her chair. ‘That’s the Vote Leave Battle Bus,’ she said. ‘Just starting its first pre-Referendum tour: Wiltshire, Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and Dorset. I’d say people in the South West Region are natural Outers, but it’s good place to test the water, sharpen the message. Do we care about the NHS? You bet we do! Look at the side of the bus. What does it say? £350 million a week goes to Brussels. Let’s spend that money on the NHS!’

It was the first time Barnard had seen the Battle Bus. Good God, he thought, this is really going to happen!

‘What about that £350 million figure?’ ‘Melissa asked. ‘Is that accurate? I thought we got some of it back in the rebate. And are we really going to spend it all on the NHS which is what we seem to be saying? I’ll believe that when I see it!’

An icy note crept into Harriet Marshall’s voice as she replied. ‘This is surely the moment to be focussing on the broad picture, not quibbling about the detail.’

Barnard shot his wife a warning glance as though to say: don’t upset this young genius. We can’t afford to lose her. Not now. Not ever.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s go outside and meet the team.’