Chapter 1 - The Power and The Glory
1st May 1997 – It was nearly midnight; well past their bedtime but Charlie Singh was still dressed and so was his wife Mimu. His finest, silver-grey, silk kurta and salwar was getting its five yearly airing. A brand new, cherry red turban swathed his head and shined majestically. Mimu sat beside him on the sofa. She wore a dazzling, saffron silk salwar and kameez; her favourite, crimson silk duppatta covered her head and a burnished gold, ochre and Ferrari red phulkari, she had so lovingly embroidered, was draped across her knees. She would need it later when they finally ventured out into the night. Charlie would be fine; his blue nylon parka with fake rabbit skin trim, was hanging in the hall. As the first results began to trickle in neither of them spoke.
The Champagne was on ice but the cork had not been popped. Charlie’s campaign manager, Vernon Nesbitt, sat on the edge of his armchair, biting his nails and fretting. Gurdeep Singh lounged disinterestedly in another chair wishing he were somewhere else. It was going to be a long night.
One hundred and eighty-two miles away in South Wales, the celebrations had already begun. The new member for Ducaponddi North cracked open a bottle of Felinfoel Victory Ale with his teeth. He spat the top to the floor and took a long, glooping swallow. Tossing his, now legendary, National Coal Board donkey jacket into the wings he climbed from the stage of the CIU affiliated Ducaponddi Miners Club into a throng of his adoring supporters, election campaigners and ‘friends’. This small city had easily won the race to be the first Welsh constituency to declare such was the overwhelming support not only for ‘New Labour’ but also for their local hero and ‘man-of-the-people’ Amos Breuer ‘MP’.
Half an hour earlier Amos had stood in the Morriston Methodist Chapel Hall without a letter to his name. The announcement from the acting Returning Officer that he had; ‘duly been elected to represent the constituency of Ducaponddi North’, came as no surprise.
As a Jew Amos Breuer had never before set foot inside the Morriston Methodist Chapel Hall but he had been on it. It was from the roof of this very building, as a young scally, he had lifted his first, substantial quantity of lead. The twenty-five pounds he received for it at the scrapyard was a fortune; significantly more than he ever earned down the pit. However, when history came to be recorded, no mention was made on his CV of his extensive, youthful past as a small time crook and the two days spent as an apprentice miner had expanded into a full and vigorous career.
Formal education had effectively passed Amos by. His schooling came almost entirely from the streets. If he hadn't been picked for the Welsh Schoolboys XI he would have abandoned it altogether. As it was he didn’t have to wait long. By the time he was sixteen and a half he had signed semi-professional terms for Ducaponddi City FC and on his seventeenth birthday he made his first team debut.
He became the youngest player in their history when he scored that day and in his first season went on to score twenty-seven goals; a record for a teenager in the old 3rd Division. A record that stood for less than twelve months. The following season he bettered it with thirty-six goals and five sendings off.
A motorbike accident that confined him to a hospital bed for six months and left him with only two toes on his right foot, put paid to his promising football career; he was lucky it hadn’t put paid to his existence. He may have lost more than half his toes, but he never lost the adulation and hero-worship that came to him from the terraces. And he never lost his passion for the ‘Ducks’. Cut him and Amos bled ‘Black and White’.
His misfortune soon became his salvation. Previous experience had shown him how much money could be made from other people’s rubbish; he embarked on his first ‘legitimate’ business venture, he set up his own Scrapyard. The business may have appeared ‘legit’ but the methods he employed behind the façade were decidedly dodgy and in most cases downright criminal. The thriving local Steel Industry paid handsomely for as much scrap steel as he could supply. Amos Breuer considered it profligate to wait and would often slip a few notes to a trusted, local youth who could deliver him a car; even if the vehicle’s owner had not yet finished with it.
Scrap metal was lucrative but for Amos it was just a two-toed foot in the door. His ambitions were never going to be satisfied with a few grubby quid made on the back of other people’s cast-offs. He wanted everything life had denied him, the riches that as a professional footballer had been briefly dangled in his face, only to be cruelly whisked away. The world owed him; Amos was damned well going to see that she paid up.
The money from the scrapyard was reinvested in property. The traditional coal mining towns in and around Ducaponddi were the first to feel the squeeze when Thatcher’s policies began to bite. Amos wasted neither time, money nor sympathy, buying up as many houses and as much land as he could, as the Miners and their families left the valleys in search of ‘new’ work.
Timing was essential. Having procured hundreds of cheap houses these then had to be filled with tenants who could afford his inflated rents. He yearned to tap into the affluence of the South East of England and divert some of that wealth to the South East of Wales.
Electronics and computers were just taking off. He ‘persuaded’ two Korean and one Taiwanese company to build their factories within walking distance of his new housing estates. Even the government was throwing money at him; Private Enterprise, Regeneration and Retraining grants all went into the pot.
Men who had spent their lives underground breaking their backs and congesting their lungs, only to be slung uncaringly onto the slagheap of human misery, soon flooded back to Ducaponddi. They gratefully took up the intricate and highly skilled crafts, working in the sterile, airy and temperature controlled factories of the microchip manufactures.
Amos’s business empire was growing fast. The sons and daughters of his new work force were also growing fast. Soon they would be leaving home and looking for work and houses to support families of their own. Luckily, Amos Breuer had managed to acquire most of the land that was once the coalfields and had somehow managed to gain planning permission to build on it? He was going to require a young and able workforce to build the houses and he was going to require some young blood, first time buyers to purchase the tiny, almost gardenless, one and two bedroomed rabbit hutches they built. Luckily for Amos these were one and the same people. Amos was a lucky man!
Before long Ducaponddi had more call centres than Calcutta. All neatly accommodated in the sprawling Breuer’s Business Park.
Everybody loved Amos Breuer; he provided their jobs, he provided their housing and he took away their rubbish. He was the Ducaponddi Santa Claus. And, of course, Amos loved himself. Like so many before him, his vanity was his passport into politics.
The phone rang and three people jumped. Gurdeep Singh never moved. Vernon Nesbitt was first to the phone.
"Vernon…"
"Right…"
"Okay ya…"
"Spectacular…"
"Crushing…"
"Call me as soon as, ya…"
"Ciao…"
He put down the telephone.
"There’s going to be a recount Minister," he said.
"Oh," was all Charlie could muster in reply.
So many of his colleagues had been cast into the political wilderness that evening. Even some of his cabinet chums like Norman Lamont, Malcolm Rifkind and, darling of the party, Michael Portillo had lost their seats; so in some ways this ‘no news’ was ‘good news’. But even by this early hour it was obvious the Conservatives were not going to form the next government and Charlie’s confidence of holding his own seat was dwindling faster than the UK map was turning red. Vernon was going to have to stop calling him ‘Minister’, but for the next few hours Charlie was content to warm himself on the last dwindling embers of his rank and position.
"Would you like a cup of tea dear, or perhaps a glass of whisky?" Mimu asked.
"Yes," said Charlie, without elaboration.
He stroked his beard ponderously. He didn’t like to think about a life outside politics. His hopes and ambitions were now wrestling valiantly with the pernicious images filtering through his mind. The idea of having to find a ‘proper job’ scared him into near silence. He was fearful of uttering anything that may sound even remotely defeatist; just in case it might come true.
Mimu decided for him. She went to the drinks cabinet and poured him a generous glassful of whisky. She put it onto a silver tray and placed it on the occasional table in front of him. He never took his eyes away from the television but did manage to grunt a curt "Thanks."
A minute later, as another crushing Tory defeat was announced, Charlie Singh reached for his drink. His hand found the tray with his eyes still focused on the television. He flapped around but could not find the glass. His concentration broken, he dragged his gaze away from the screen but when he looked to the tray it was empty. He looked to his right; Vernon Nesbitt was still sitting transfixed; hanging on David Dimbleby’s every word. He looked to his left; Gurdeep was still lounging in his armchair but at least the whisky had brought a smile to his lips. Mimu was already on her feet.
"Don’t worry dear," she said soothingly. "I’ll get you another. Would you like one too Mr. Nesbitt?"
"Ta Mrs. Singh that would be ace," his gaze never left the screen.
The first, embryonic rays of sunshine announcing the dawn peeped through a crack in the curtains and alighted onto the telephone. It started to ring. Vernon leapt up and grabbed it before the third peel.
"Vernon…"
"Any indications?"
"Splendid…"
"Understood… We’re on our way…"
"Ciao."
He replaced the receiver and turned to the others with a wide smile. "It’s very close Minister," he said. "But it looks like we’ve just scraped in. Shall we go?"
They all jumped up and headed for the door. The limousine driver heard them coming and had just enough time to throw his cigarette butt into the Rhododendron bushes and adjust his peaked cap before the front door opened and his passengers appeared.
The keys to the Palace of Westminster afforded the bearer a number of privileges, opportunities and respect that money could not buy. Amos Breuer MP was acutely aware of this; despite being rich beyond the dreams of his own avarice, his background and position had always excluded him from the inner sanctum of any real power or influence. But now he had arrived. And as the great doors to the Commons swung wide to greet him he felt the wind of a thousand others opening up for him that previously had been barred.
Honest and faithful representation of the people and the noble, self-sacrificing and ideological premises that had convinced them of his worthiness to be their MP, filled Amos’s chest with pride. He strode boldly into the chamber.
Immediately his eyes began darting around; scouring the others who were now filling the great hall; trying to pick out the ones most likely to help further, not only his political ambitions but his personal and social aspirations too. He needed to look no further than the front bench on the opposite side of the house. Although he never realised it at the time, Amos had found his man!
