A lord’s prayer

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  Bruce Anderson

  A lord’s prayer

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Alexander Larman

What happened to the Rishi Sunak I knew at school?

Until the crisis. The government was closing a shore-based naval establishment: a name like HMS Primrose. Some peer was bound to raise the question of redundancies; they were inevitable. But there was no reason for Ian to sound callous. The draft was as follows: ‘I am grateful to the Noble Lord for raising that point and I can assure him that my Rt Hon. friend the Secretary of State will keep the matter under close review.’ Instead, when asked whether he could assure the House that there would be no redundancies, Ian replied: ‘Yes, my Lords, I am happy to give that assurance.’

Consternation. Before Ian had sat down, his private secretary had sprinted up the back stairs to plead with the Hansard writers. They were obdurate; they could not change ‘yes’ into ‘no’. There was only one hope. The distressed official went to beg mercy from Lord Denham, the Tory chief whip. If the answer stood, Lord Winterbottom would have to resign. ‘We can’t have that,’ said Bertie Denham. ‘We’re all very fond of Ian.’ So a Tory chief whip rode to the rescue of a Labour minister. According to Hansard, Lord Winterbottom said: ‘No, my Lords, I regret that I cannot give such an assurance.’

In Ian’s presence, I was once guilty of a failure of journalistic persistence. He had just come back from a trip to Japan. As a peer and a minister, he was well entertained. At one dinner, there was not only a geisha girl to charm him at the table. There was a girl available for later on. Ian knew the score. On their expenses, his hosts could claim for the level of entertainment he had enjoyed, but no more. If he went off with a girl, they could do likewise, on the company. Otherwise, they had to pay for their own. ‘Quite a dilemma,’ Ian twinkled. I failed to ask how he resolved it.

Ian has an equally impressive son, Dudley Winterbottom. He used to run the Cherwell Boathouse in Oxford: simple food, excellent wine. The first time I dined chez Dudley, I ordered a bottle which he had not tried. ‘D’you mind if I have a glass?’ He then brought a different, equally interesting bottle. So it went on all evening. A lot was drunk. Financial caution floated away down the Cherwell. I was bracing myself for a stonker of a bill, and when it arrived, I did complain. ‘This is ridiculous, Dudley. It can’t cover the historic cost of what my lot have polished off, never mind the food. We did eat something, between glasses.’

Dudley went on to be secretary of the Chelsea Arts Club, a raffish compromise between St James’s and Bohemia. I was there the other day, to learn about Argentine wines. My friend Anthony Foster, MW, produced a bottle of 1982 Rafael, a Cabernet Sauvignon. It was delicious. He had come across two bottles, long-forgotten survivors, and opened one at Christmas to use as mulled wine. He tasted it to ensure that it was still drinkable, and realised from the nose alone that it was far too good for mulling. The fruits of my further Argentine researches will await another occasion. Suffice for now: that benighted nation is far, far better at viniculture than politics.