Passion-packed parliamentary potboiler
A Parliamentary Affair
By Edwina Currie
Hodder and Stoughton London 1994 546 pp., $19.95 (pb)
Reviewed by Tony Smith
Edwina Currie writes from parliamentary experience: she was known around Westminster as "Vindaloo" or "Curried Eggs" (because of a gaffe which horrified Britain's poultry farmers and contributed to the demise of her ministerial ambitions).
The theme of the yarn is basically simple. The recipe (pancake perhaps?) requires sex, power and cynicism, blended in a fairly random fashion and formed into a typical four-year term of the House of Commons. The plot follows several MPs but the central character is new backbencher Elaine Stalker.
Those intimate with E.C. might conjecture about whether "E.S." is an alter ego and whether the book is thinly veiled autobiography — albeit of an allegorical nature. In fact, "Elaine Stalker" is very closely akin to "Ilona Staller" — porn star La Cicciolina who won election to the Italian Camera Deputate — so there may be a quiet Freudian scream here.
The 564 pages of this book contain little which could be described as original. Its popular success will be ensured by its short take of couplings interspersed with the machinations of parliamentarians and party workers, and with the diabolical immorality of the gutter press.
The earlier encounters tend to be isolated, but as the symbiosis between politicians and publicists becomes clearer, the action builds into what becomes an inevitable slide down the greasy pole of ambition.
The sexual encounters are described in some detail, some more skilfully than others. Although Currie has no inhibitions about revealing her familiarity with various sexual positions, the graphic descriptions of homosexual encounters suggests that not all her research was undertaken personally.
Evocation of the world of Westminster is enhanced by a great eye for detail — those unfamiliar with the traditions will need to look up terms such as "three line whip" — and by including real characters like Speaker Betty Boothroyd.
Needless to say, the parliamentary term begins in optimism and finishes in near disaster. Along the way, compromise and "the realities of power" cause mental readjustments and loss of innocence. Some of the central characters are unseated, a daughter is raped, the IRA disposes of one. An immoral journalist — let's hope that is not yet a tautology — exposes and ruins one, and then significantly, is seen off centre-stage in a pool of his own vomit.
The novel's great success is the way in which Elaine Stalker experiences the terrible dilemmas posed for women who attempt to achieve power to pursue their social objectives. Early in the term, she picks out then Whip, later Minister Roger Dickson, as a rising star to support.
Politics is clearly about the granting and return of favours, so there is nothing wrong with this approach. However, perhaps because of double standards, perhaps because Conservatives live in a polite dream world attempting to sell themselves as being socially superior, Elaine's methods are doomed from the beginning.
While an affair with a colleague who has just as much interest in concealing their meetings as she does provides great excitement, the aphrodisiac of power eventually fades as the relationship becomes unequal. Elaine's marriage disintegrates, her daughter is traumatised, she is overlooked for promotion because Roger fears that her elevation might draw attention to their relationship. In short, the "leg over" meant to give her a "leg up" brings personal and political disaster.
Readers who like romance tempered with realism, and who need reminding about the flesh and blood (mainly the flesh) that fills those green benches in London and Canberra, should enjoy this passion-packed parliamentary potboiler.