Westminster corridors
My friend Nick Fitzfosse, who disguises his present ennui by visiting the wenches of the Town, tells me that the last rainy night he with Sir Simon d'Audley was driven to shelter in the Temple Cloister, there had escaped also a Lady of Lancaster most exactly dressed.
This Lady (for such I will call her as she under no circumstances wishes it to be known that she is Mrs Elaine Kellett-Bowman, the Tory member from Lancaster) had been hounded from the Club by some uncouth Ruffians who had sought to purloin her handbag.
"For pity's sake," pleaded the Lady of Sir Simon and Nick, "beg your worthy scribe Puzzle to make some truth of my plight and redress with his pen the wrongs that have been done me."
They calmed her and by the by she told her tale of woe. During something known as the Clay Cross debate at the Club the other day, Mr Edward 'Rubber Joints' Short, our worthy Deputy Prime Minister (pause for hilarity) did accomplish some remarkable somersaults and other feats of agility.
These acrobatic antics, however, were as nothing when compared with the virtuoso performance of Mr Sam Silkin, QC, the Attorney General. As my colleague Mr Pope observed afterwards: "Rape of the Lock, forsooth. That was the Rape of the whole Ruddy Wig."
First Mr Silkin, or Sir Sam as he refused to be called, said that there was no such place as Clay Cross. The Tory anger at this absurd statement was exceeded only by that of Mr Dennis Skinner, the Ruffian Member for Clay Cross, who grabbed Sir Sam by his .. . well in a very painfulway. andshouted:"Alors,monbrave," (I do not know any French four-letter words) "where do you think I sit?"
"On your arse," screamed Mr Nigel Lawson, who stands for all that is right and proper on the Tory Benches, and who really ought to be detained during Mr St John-Stevas's pleasure. But I digress.
Perceiving that this ploy had failed, Sir Sam then said that he had never said that there was no such place as Clay Cross. What he had said, he said, was that some members of the Cabinet had said it. This time he was grabbed by Mr Walter Harrison, the exciting and urbane Deputy Chief Whip, who simply said: "Alors off."
Sir Sam, who was by now perspiring freely, then caught sight of Mrs Kellett-Bowman, who had been practising her remarkable imitation of the Bigger-spotted Lesser-chested Thatcherwarbler in a key so high that only Mr Edward Heath, a Chorister and Musician, could hear her.
"She said it," protested the desperate Sir Sam, pointing at the Honourable Lady, the Member for Lancaster. Taken short as she trilled a very top F, Elaine burst into floods of tears (some Scribes mistook it for song) and tried to rush from the Chamber.
At this point the rude Ruffians grabbed her handbag, which burst open — its contents being scattered on the floor of the Chamber. A coin flew up and struck Mr Short in the eye. "It .should have hit you," hissed Elaine by way of apology, breathing heavily in the direction of Sir Sam.
No gentleman rushed to her aid and she was left to scrabble about on the floor in an undignified posture searching for compacts, pomanders and lipstick. She never found her Cherries-in-Spring Lichfield lipstick, for `RnhY Lips' Norman had deftly made off with it. Mention of 'Ruby Lips' reminds me of the remarkable utterance of Mrs 'Harmony Hair Spray' Thatcher at Sheffield last week. Well, actually, I am reminded because it was the Conference of Tory Students. Harmony said' and I quote exactly from the note I took, "s1c311„ are young and game for battle. I want you • • Then, if you turn over the page, " . .. to help me in this fight." Why, I wonder, does she want them? Is she not satisfied with her own lovely twins? WhY does her daughter wish to leave home? How can her young Harrovian son afford to take girls to Annabel's? Had Harmony got more than tins of condensed soup secreted in her voluminous larder? All these questions, and more besides, will be answered in my next Spectator. In an exclusive interview with Mr Edward Heath, a Gambler, entitled, "What Love did to me — I lost it all to. Harmony," my readers will learn the truth ut the siege of Smith Square.
You will thrill to Mr Heath's tale of how he was smuggled out of the Carlton Club in a BabY Grand and only breathed a sigh of relief when
Mr Andre Previn (a trusted friend) gave hirn three taps on the G string. In later weeks, he will tell of his life as a nomad among the savages of Marbella and his experiences at the Bier Fest in Munich. Order your copy now.
TOM puzzle
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