[ad_1]
Television impressionist Rory Bremner may have inadvertently saved John Major’s bacon and prevented a Conservative Party revolt after he jokingly called a rogue MP posing as prime minister, records released by the National Archives show. .
Sir Richard Body, the Dutch MP with Boston, and one of Maastricht’s Eurosceptic rebels, Major nicknamed the “bastards”, was fully convinced that the then prime minister had called him for his support in October 1993.
The call was from Bremner, who had a Channel 4 show and was running an “experiment” to test whether his spoofing was good enough.
Even after then-cabinet secretary Sir Robin Butler protested that there was no possibility of the prime minister making calls while boarding a plane in Kuala Lumpur at the time, Body insisted, “I know his voice.”
Bremner had called Body, Luton North MP John Carlisle and Congleton MP Ann Winterton.
Carlisle quickly accepted that it was a joke after receiving a call in which Major was supposed to have asked him, “Will you give me until the end of the year? You don’t want ken [Clarke] You – because that’s what you would get? ”. The fake commander also asked, “Are you going to face me?”
But Body, from the party’s former right wing, told Butler that “it was a very good thing” that Major had made the call, according to the Cabinet Office record of their phone conversation. Body said that after the call, his wing of the party had “agreed that they should support the prime minister and help run the government,” the note said.
Body added that they had spoken to the unofficial whips in his group, and had “turned the heat off the prime minister.” He said that if Major had made the call “he had been good.”
Butler insisted, once again, that the call was not from Major, who was “understandably shocked” to learn of it. But Body replied, “Well, you say that. But I can’t find any reason to criticize him for doing it. ” The body had rung and “everyone agreed to say goodbye,” the note added.
Body continued, “If you deny it, it lowers my estimate.” He did not believe he had been deceived. Major had been in “a bad shape. Hectic. I even felt a bit protective of him, ”the note records him saying.
Butler should tell Major that the call “saved the bacon,” Body continued. “We sent a message to support it at least until after the conference. It was obviously in bad shape. Now he’s obviously regretting it. But I know his voice. “
Butler later spoke with Channel 4 CEO Michael Grade, who promised that Body’s call would not be carried. Ultimately, Body accepted that it was a hoax, called and wrote the Cabinet Office to apologize for not believing Butler.
Although Bremner has since spoken of the call, newly released documents reveal how he appears to have supported Major at a critical time in his tenure as prime minister as he fought the “bastards” for Maastricht.
Commenting on the newly released documents, Bremner said: “I give up. You think you are being satirical, but the reality is even more ridiculous. I had no idea that we had foiled a rebellion and saved John Major’s bacon. Honestly, who would have thought that without a fake phone call, a group of Eurosceptic MPs could have forced the prime minister to resign and remove us from the EU. What are the chances of that?”
