It's too easy to think of political opponents as implacable enemies. Blame the media - journalists love conflict, because it makes great copy - and the fact the House of Commons is built for 'them and us' confrontation, as government and opposition MPs face each other across the chamber.
The reality is often different. I've just read the late Alan Clark's diaries for April 1982. Clark was a famously colourful Conservative MP and minister; some would say a rogue. His diaries gave him lasting fame. As a respected military historian, he greeted the news of Argentina's invasion of the Falkland islands with dismay. "We've lost the Falklands... It's all over, We're a Third World country, no good for anything." But what interested me was that former Labour prime minister James Callaghan asked to see Clark privately in his room in the Commons. Callaghan was due to speak in the second emergency Commons debate about the invasion and wanted Clark's advice on what to say. As Clark said, "I have a rapport with Jim."
This shed new light on a meeting my father and I had with Callaghan three years later. We had raced to London to seek the former PM's help in resolving a crisis that threatened to ruin the Cardiff Festival of Music, on whose committee Dad served. A world premiere of a work by a leading British composer was about to be cancelled when two Chinese soloists were unable to get work permits to perform. As a Cardiff MP, Callaghan was happy to see us in his room in the House. While we waited, he contacted Alan Clark, the employment minister with a suitable naval appeal to the Plymouth MP from his Portsmouth-born friend: "Make Drake's drum roll for Cardiff!" Within hours, the permits were in our hands and the concert went ahead.
On a personal note, Jim Callaghan asked me what I wanted to do for a living. (I had just left university.) I explained I hoped to work in the media or PR. "They all want to do that now, don't they!" he said to my father.
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