Twaddle (First Among Equals - Jeffrey Archer)

Member Name: thevenerablebede

Product:	First Among Equals - Jeffrey Archer
Date:	04/06/01 (276 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: difficult to think of one at the moment

Disadvantages: so many..where should I start?

Why was I reading this book? I know that regular readers of my opinions will find this most out of character. After all I am a Guardian-reading, bleeding heart liberal. And just for the record I despise Jeffrey Archer. I hope they find him guilty. I hope they send him down for a hundred years. I wouldn’t shed a tear if they locked him up and threw away the key.

But, in the throes of revision for a course entitled Political Change in Modern Britain, I kidded myself that this book might constitute revision. As anyone who has sat any kind of serious exams will know, a candidate is wont to suffer from a serious, but as yet unrecognised condition, called Exam Nog. This affliction makes a person do things out of character. It was while suffering Exam Nog that I picked up First Among Equals.

Primus inter Pares. First among equals. This is a term used in political textbooks to describe the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister is first among the equals of his cabinet. Nice idea, but it isn’t really true any more. But then that’s the mark of the novel in many ways. It seems just a little old fashioned and basically wide of the mark. It is a book that does not for one moment question the system. It just venerates it. Then again why should it, perhaps, be any different? It was first published in 1985 and yet the politics has about as much relevance as a Trollope novel from the nineteenth century.

In 1964 four young men are elected to Parliament with the Wilsonian sweep that ended 13 years of Conservative government. Two are Tory and Two are Labour, all are talented and ambitious and all seem to have decided at birth that the only job they wanted was to be Prime Minister. But only one of them can be the first among equals.

But of the four some are more equal than others. Charles Seymour, for instance, has all thye advantages of wealth and privilege. If you were going to write about a stereotypical Tory, you would write the cha
racter of Seymour just as Archer has. He is an Old Etonian, second son of an earl, Guardsman, a terrible snob and workaholic. He also, at the start of the book has a seemingly perfect Tory wife who manages to fix everything that needs to be fixed. Seymour is a machiavellian to the core who uses his early influence in the party as a Whip (he later becomes Foreign Secretary) to try and bring down his only rival in the party: Simon Kerslake.

In contrast to the aristocratic Simon Kerslake represents the meritocratic wing of the Conservative Party. He is middle-class, not terribly well off and his wife has a successful career as an Doctor. Kerslake is a more personable character than Seymour, indeed Kerslake seems almost impossibly likeable. I wonder if there is more than a little of how Archer see himself in Kerslake. Archer is, I believe, married to a doctor. Has two sons (or is it three?) like Kerslake. Kerslake also has terrible trouble keeping hold of his seat. And wasn’t Archer also kicked out of the House for bankruptcy as Kerslake nearly is? When Kerslake finds himself caught up in a financial difficulty (which Seymour has concocted from his position of influence as Chairman of his family bank) that nearly ruins him he doesn’t have to leave the House by the skin of his teeth. However bad it looks Kerslake is not guilty of any wrongdoing but, of course, that is not how it looks. Is this how Archer sees himself? An innocent man who is a hostage to fortune? I wonder. Is the fact that Kerslake rises to become leader of the party a prediction of Archer’s own career, which, by 1984 was back on track?

Whilst there exists a rivalry between the two Conservative members, the Labour members have a more relaxed relationship, indeed a friendship. Andrew Fraser is Scot from a Tory family and it is a surprise when he joins parliament for Labour. Fraser in many ways seems more human, not least because of the problems his wife and him have reg
arding children. However, it is extremly odd when he Joins the SDP and keeps hold of his seat. I would have welcomed more details about his descision and reasoning. But all we get is a few lines in the preceding chapters that he is bcoming increasingly disenchanted with Labour….and then he leaves. This is a persistent fault in Archer’s writing. Routes and paths are pre-ordained. People have a destiny of which they are sure and follow through their dreams with mad and solid single intention purpose. Thus Fraser as a character remains flat and unentertaining. But that is a commonm fate of a leader of the Liberals, as Fraser becomes in the end.

Raymond Gould is the Labour whizzkid that does become Prime Minister at the end of the book. The good thing about Gould is that, too, he is the only one who deserves it. There is a sense of the man and of his politics from the very beginning. It remains to be seen how a senior cabinet minister could, however, keep a serious mistress in his house without But this is what makes Gould the most likeable character: he is emotional, a person and fallable. As a young minister he sleeps with a prostitute and nearly gets found out (if only Archer had been as lucky?) and the relationship he has with his wife is sad but heartening in comparison with the unhealthily loving relationship of the Kerslakes or the ridiculous shenanigans of Seymour. Gould is, by far, the most real, if perhaps dull, of the four.

The thing that persistently irritates me about Archer’s writing is that everything is organised well in advance of the end of the book. He finds no entertainment in digressing. I personally am a big fan of the long leisurely aside. But Archer’s style is one where everything counts and each tedious detail he points out is later relevant. But as we know life isn’t much like that. And moreover would be dull if was. I also resent Archer’s odd necessity to tie up all loose ends and achieve
a symmetry by the end of the book. For instance, because he has focussed on four MPs throughout Archer quotes Macmillan’s adage that all political careers end in tears on several occaisions in the book. Everyone, that is, apart from his four protagonists who all carry away a good prize. Each becomes a party leader except for Seymour, who is a crook and completely immoral throughout most of the book, until some mysterious transformation when he suddenly becomes likeable and is elected to the Speaker’s chair. Persoanlly I would like to have seen him fail, as he deserved.

The thing about this book, and this is perhaps the saving grace of Archer’s writing, is that it is all accurate in terms of the details. Any seasoned political watcher will recognise the Conservative method of electing a leader from those heady days around the time Thatcher resigned. This drama is almost replayed with the Iron Lady’s fictional resignation in the book. In fact, the leadership election between Seymour and Kerslake is probably the most pleasing aspect of the book. Gripping and biting and ultimately, the right man wins despite initial signs to the contrary (yes, Kerslake becomes Tory leader). But in essence this is a political thriller sadly lacking in politics. Perhaps I am being pedantic or just boring, but, apart from Gould who does have some attention given to his politics, the others are just players with no grounding in the nitty gritty of government. I couldn’t tell you where the politics of Fraser, Kerslake and Seymour lie.

As a book it seems to lack gravitas and does not compare favourably with the Francis Urquart books that have so much more to recommend them. But as far as the Archer canon goes this is one of his better efforts, as it should be, considering his career. However, that is not to say that you should read it. There are more rewarding things out there to tuck into. The Beano, for instance.

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