Saving the Chancellor of Bullshit

A stately, plump man in a shabby grey suit is sprinting down the loose paving stones of Notting Hill Gate.

"Wow," I think. "What stride! What form!"  

Then I see that it's Baron Lamont of Lerwick. He sure runs fast for a fat guy. Is he late for supper? A date? A meeting with a senile South American despot? Nope. The former U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer (1990 -1993) is running for dear life.

Why was Norman Lamont speeding down the Gate? The year is 2000. The month is October but it's not particularly cold. Then I spot his pursuers. Norman is the hunted, not the hunter.  

"Come back 'ere, you Chancellor of Bullshit," shouts a burly, bounding Scouser in a grey Dolce & Gabbana sweater. Rip-roaring. Skin-headed. Gargantuan. Sailor's walk. Scowl on chops. Assessment? Violence is just beneath the surface. Danger imminent. He's swiftly followed by the calm down figure of Curly Scouse. Sans shell suit, he's clad in a schoolkids' snorkel jacket and looks a bit like Terry off Brookside. 

With head on swivel, I take in the scene. It's the gritty corner of Pembridge Road and Notting Hill Gate. The area is heaving. People going in-and-out of the Tube. Rag-tag punters leaving Portobello Market and the various Record and Tape Exchange shops. All part as Fat and Curly give chase to Linford Lamont of the Shetland Islands; who takes sanctuary in the local corner shop and off-licence (Ed. Note: not Thresher's). 

It's all gone a bit Escape from New York on Notting Hill Gate. Locked, loaded and ready to save the "Chancellor of Bullshit", I duck into the shop for a close recce. Contact. Cowering behind a pyramid of Pot Noddles, the Black Wednesday finance minister and Chairman of Conservatives Against a Federal Europe thinks he's outfoxed the Scouse hounds snapping at his tracks. He hasn't. Lord Lamont is trapped in the corner shop.  

"What about the dockers, what about the fuckin' dockers?"

Fat and Curly are referring to the militant dockers of Liverpool, 80 of whom were sacked for going on strike between 1995 and 1998. Despite the change of government from Conservative to Labour anger never dims in Liverpool; it only burns bright. 

Lamont looks to help from the manager of the shop. None. The politician has to stall the plebs. But there's a lot of passion. A lot of hate. 

"Well," he babbled (WORD FOR WORD), "I would like to point out to you two gentlemen that at this particular juncture (BIG WORD!) that issue had nothing to do with me whatsoever..." 

He paused for emphasis. 

"...I was another department entirely." 

I was another department entirely... 

Watching this exchange took me back to a party at the Reform Club in 1994 where I'd first met Grey Lightning. Lamont was out of the Major government, drunk, verbose, indiscreet, with his right hand cupped on the left cheek of a posh blonde, bitching about another old blonde (Margaret Thatcher) to some plonk soaked OE necktie.  

OE Necktie: "What do you think of Thatcher, Norman?"

Lamont (BELLICOSE BADGER): "What do YOU think I THINK?" 

OE Necktie: "Come again, Norman?" 

Lamont (WEARY, EMOTIONAL): "I'm fed up with people coming up to me in the street and giving me a hard time about the bloody National Health Service... What do they expect me to do? Call up Virginia Bottomley?" 

Enter moi. Posh Scouser. Champagne Socialist. Member of Kensington and Chelsea Constituency Labour Party, and neighbor of Norman Lamont from Rotting Hill Gate. 

"They probably think she's your mistress." 

Since that brief encounter at Carole Stone's Xmas party at the Reform Club in 1994 the fate of "Mr Chancellor" became linked to my own. Everywhere I went, there was Norman Lamont. We attended the same parties, newsagents, shops and restaurants. It was inexplicable. I'd seen Lamont at Il Carretto with a leggy young brunette on Hillgate; escorting a posh blonde into Costas Greek next door; talking Euro politics with a redhead at Pizza Express; coming out of Kebab Machine at 2 a.m. with a greasy kofte.  

These sightings were not isolated during the Nineties. Nor restricted to one locale. Uncle Billy once saw Lamont in the wild, canvassing for the hearts, minds and votes of Harrogate and Knaresborough in his local church. What did he think of Mr Chancellor? Not much. 

"He had shoes that hadn't seen a brush or polish, a creased shirt that needed the back of an iron and an imitation Barbour with a plastic zip." 

No wonder Harrogate went Lib-Dem in 1997.

Back to Escape from Notting Hill... 

The Chancellor of Bullshit is stalling the violent tourists from Liverpool. Fat Scouse gets in Lamont's face waving his finger in the air, rapping" "What-about-the-dockers-what-about-the-dockers" like a Kop chant. 

Mr Chancellor isn't cooly arrogant enough to state, "What do YOU think I THINK?" He tries to buy time. He looks again at the manager of the shop and the slim gal at the check out. No dice. Blanked. Indifferent. This is London, after all.

Crunch time. Do I save Mr Chancellor or join in? I opt to help. I speak in native tongue to Fat and Curly. They look agog. 

"Eh, mate," I said, "if it weren't for 'im and his mates Thatcher 'd still be runnin' the cunt-tree."  

I turn to the Chancellor of Bullshit and quickly muttered through the teeth, "You'd better get out of here. Fast." 

"Too bloody right," he murmured. 

Diversion. Space to exit. Fat and Curly look at Lamont, drawing breath to argue. Wily prey that he is Lamont does a runner, and, like a champagne cork out of a bottle, shoots over the pelican crossing to his home on Kensington Park Road.

"You fucking Chancellor of Bullshit," roared Fat Scouse in the wake of the scuttling statesman. "Youse don't know how lucky youse are!" 

Maybe I should have left him to the dogs. Shortly after, Lamont accepted the Pinochet Foundation's Star of Merit in Santiago, Chile. And just after he moved to another part of Notting Hill Gate, I bumped into my spring heeled friend, holding court to a gaggle of turkey-necked WASPs at a party. He looked through the crowd of heads and limbs and saw his savior from Liverpool. Yes. Total recall. Recognition. Shock upon the boat.

 

I shouted, "What about the dockers, Norman?" 

Wow. He really does run fast for a fat guy.