With the tenth chapter written, and despatched to Jane Tennant and Charles Fairey for comments and colour, the end is nigh.\u00a0 In terms of writing what remains is for me to reread chapters 1-10 and then write the conclusion.\u00a0 What a long strange trip it’s been…\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 CRF encouraged Vinson, his deputy chairman, to contest Hayes and Harlington as the Conservative candidate in the 1950 general election.\u00a0 This was the company constituency, so one can imagine the sense of disappointment in the boardroom when, contrary to the swing against the party\u00a0elsewhere in the country,\u00a0Labour took the seat.\u00a0 Since 1950 the Labour Party has held Hayes and Harlington except for a brief period in the 198os following the 1983 election.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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…\u00a0\u00a0 Hayes and Harlington.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With the tenth chapter written, and despatched to Jane Tennant and Charles Fairey for comments and colour, the end is nigh.\u00a0 In terms of writing what remains is for me to reread chapters 1-10 and then write the conclusion.\u00a0 What a long strange trip it’s been…\u00a0 In writing the chapter on the final decade of … <\/p>\n