"I like to shock" (Michael Putland/Getty Images)
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It has seemed in recent months as though the Conservative Party’s energy has been directed not into governing, but into the public staging of a series of thinly-conceived morality tales about the comeuppance awaiting naughty parliamentarians — stories about the profane activities of an MP named Parish and an alleged sex-pest named Pincher. That is, at least, until the writing at last appeared on the artisanal Wallpaper.
All the same, it is a serious question: which vices should we want our politicians to have? The normative demands of politics are significantly different from those of everyday life, and this fact rubs up uncomfortably against the misguided, but popular, expectation that our politicians should not merely represent us, but resemble us too. This places MPs, especially senior ones, in something of a predicament: they must dissimulate so as to appear less exceptional, but at the same time prove themselves the only person fit for the job. The simulation of normality is something of a high-wire act not least because, as the current Tory leadership race is illustrating in real time, the imperative to present oneself as ordinary can take on a crazed, desperate quality, a neediness which strikes the rest of us as, well, slightly weird.
If readers want to be freed from the expectation that their politicians should be remotely like them and — even more so in this direction — vice versa, they might try reading Alan Clark’s Diaries.
Perhaps no one did more to reveal the deformations inherent in the political psyche. Entering the Commons in 1974, Clark must at first have seemed an archetype of the kind of wayward backbencher the Conservatives are generally better at producing then their opponents: unruly, temperamental, little-concerned for party discipline, more interested in being admired by a selective group of colleagues than liked by the elective public. He longed, however, for government position and the first volume of his Diaries, a bestseller in 1993, records his years spent as a Minister under Margaret Thatcher, first at the desultory Department of Employment (re-christened, by Clark, the “Department of Un-employment”), and later (much more to his taste) at the Ministry of Defence.
Diaries often provide a much more direct form of psychological access to their subjects than memoirs, and Clark’s are wildly unguarded. Take this entry, from 23rd June 1983, a mere ten days after Clark had first entered government. Surveying the street below his office balcony, he writes: “Sometimes I get a wild urge to relieve my bladder over it, splattinlgy on the ant-like crowds. Would this get one the sack? Probably not. It would have to be hushed up. Trivial, but at the same time bizarre… I might do it on my last day.”
The whimsical delight in a mad fantasy of pointless transgression is Clark to a tee; not just the offence itself, but the school-boy glee at the thought of dower-faced officials, poor squares, frantically trying to keep up political appearances. As is often the case with Clark, the puzzle is not so much that he has these thoughts, but that he thinks it a good idea to write them down and collect them between hardcovers so that other people can read them. Still more, that he could do all this and then spend the next few years wondering self-pityingly why John Major hasn’t put him in the House of Lords yet.
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SubscribeUnHerd is getting interesting again! I love the fact that a myriad of new voices are being given a platform! It matters not if I agree with them or not. l don’t care if the writing is (sometimes) not as polished as that of the usual suspects – I can live with that (and that is definitely not directed at this piece, which is very good). The important thing is to let a million voices speak. This is a good model for UnHerd to follow, very well done!
SSD
Hey Gloria, is SSD a euphemism for premoting that you are going to splurge some spam all over? Go on then, hit me with your tale about how your brother-in-law is makin’ $500 a day, you know I’m dyin’ to hear that stuff.
I quite agree. It is great to have a variety of opinions and on the only occasion I met the late Alan Clark, I found him honest and amusing. I did not agree with him about his liking for Hitler, etc, but at least he was not like the drippy dullards we have now… What next for the Tories? One privileged prat who studied PPE at Oxford or another privileged prat who studied PPE at Oxford – it’s hardly an inspired set of options.
Thank you, an excellent excoriation of Clark summed up perfectly by your phrase “he remained an expert spectator, but poor player, of the game”
One notable omission was that for his all his macho posturing Clark was a natural born coward. Thanks to a deplorable piece of skulduggery whilst at Eton, Clark managed to avoid National Service. Not a good report for an Englishman who called his Alsatian dog Adolph!
However, ‘heaven be praised’, his sexual adventures never rivalled those of that notorious pervert and former Tory Cabinet Minister, Ernest Marples (of Motorway fame), and his loyalty to Lady Thatcher, particularly at the ‘end’ was outstanding.
Clark did not disguise his admiration for the late fuhrer. And both were vegetarians, always a bad sign.
And dog lovers?
Possibly too. I should add that Clark’s diaries are a wonderful read. I remember a very amusing and insightful article by Craig Brown, comparing the differing accounts of some event in (respectively) Clark’s and Edwina Currie’s diaries. Clark’s account was razor-sharp, witty and (I’m certain) accurate. Currie’s was self-serving claptrap, more typical of the type of politico that sadly we’re lumbered with.
Also interesting to read Michael Heseltine’s version of the same events. As you say, I’m also more inclined to believe the accuracy of Clark’s.
Ironically Hesseltine also found a way to avoid National Service. After nine months of hell in the Welsh Guards he discovered that if he stood as a Parliamentary Candidate he could escape further service, which is precisely what he did!
Given Clark’s later bitchy comment about Hessetine ‘buying his own furniture’, one can but laugh!
Yes I must agree, the diaries were epic, almost another Pepys.
Mind you Wedgewood Benn’s diaries were also good.
Edwina of “up periscope “ infamy with John Major Esq?
I thought he was an OR in The Blues?
For 24 hours. He was old enough to have served in Palestine or Malaya, but in the event did neither.
was he not a trooper recruit for a bit in the Household Cavalry ? His son became an Officer in The Blues.. or The Life Guards?
Clark’s insights into forward planning at the Ministry of Defence were, and probably still are, invaluable.
He wrote an excellent account of Operation Barbarossa in 1965, so much so I was surprised that Beevor followed through with Stalingrad some years later.
With Carrie working for Damian Aspinall and Truss having an interesting symbiotic relationship with Robin Birley it seems more like the Lucan gang have taken over the tory party than Alan Clark.
The “podgy life-insurance-risk” had the last laugh, having out-lived Clark by 22 years and counting.
Much as I loved Alan Clark’s diaries and his amusing persona, He was ( and I’m sure it was part of his satire) a bit of a faux gent, but I believe that he knew that and played the image for fun!
Much as I loved Alan Clark’s diaries and his amusing persona, He was ( and I’m sure it was part of his satire) a bit of a faux gent, but I believe that he knew that and played the image for fun!
What I loved most about Alan Clark was as to how he upset the bourgeois ” Ooh what will the neighbours think?” heome ceounties middle classes… For that alone he should have been made a Saint upon his passing…
What I loved most about Alan Clark was as to how he upset the bourgeois ” Ooh what will the neighbours think?” heome ceounties middle classes… For that alone he should have been made a Saint upon his passing…
Alan Clark was the most superb antidote to Toylittory, corfam and poly draylon intra M25 man an woman!