Almost there…and the news from Hayes and Harlington

With the tenth chapter written, and despatched to Jane Tennant and Charles Fairey for comments and colour, the end is nigh.  In terms of writing what remains is for me to reread chapters 1-10 and then write the conclusion.  What a long strange trip it’s been…  In writing the chapter on the final decade of Sir Richard Fairey’s life I noted that, like Evelyn Waugh, he felt that he lived in an occupied country so long as Labour remained in power.  His most hair-raising views re ‘the socialists’ he wisely kept to himself, censoring first drafts of speeches in the interest of discretion and good business.  CRF encouraged Vinson, his deputy chairman, to contest Hayes and Harlington as the Conservative candidate in the 1950 general election.  This was the company constituency, so one can imagine the sense of disappointment in the boardroom when, contrary to the swing against the party elsewhere in the country, Labour took the seat.  Since 1950 the Labour Party has held Hayes and Harlington except for a brief period in the 198os following the 1983 election.  That contest was catastrophic for Michael Foot’s party, just as the coming general election looks equally ominous for Jeremy Corbyn and his closest acolyte, the shadow Chancellor John McDonnell.  Mention of the latter signals a delicious irony in that a man who Sir Richard were he alive would consider the devil incarnate is member of parliament for…   Hayes and Harlington.