Conrad and Lady Black: Dancing on the Edge. Tom Bower

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       5 The Visit

      ‘CAN YOU ARRANGE IT?’ Conrad Black repeatedly asked Andrew Knight during March 1986. Impatient to reap the prizes due to the Telegraph’s proprietor, Black yearned to meet Margaret Thatcher, one of his idols.

      During the few weeks since he had become recognised as the Telegraph’s owner, Black’s lifestyle had changed markedly. Friends had begun introducing him to London society. Jennifer d’Abo, a successful businesswoman, hosted pizza dinners in her kitchen. Witty and light-hearted, Black amused d’Abo’s guests with his endless insights and information apparently gleaned from many sources – either his newspaper editors or politicians. The word spread that the Telegraph’s new owner was a desirable social catch. David Metcalfe, an insurance broker, grandson of Lord Curzon, was another eager host. At a succession of cocktail receptions, dinners and weekend parties, Black’s warmth and intelligence were noted and he was embraced. ‘A loyal and good friend,’ concluded Metcalfe and others who accepted Black at face value. ‘Conrad believed,’ Metcalfe would tell a friend, ‘that the world was his oyster, and London society reassured him that his performance was acceptable.’ Since the City establishment had been joined by Max Hastings, Peregrine Worsthorne and the veteran former Telegraph editor Bill Deedes in endorsing their employer, there seemed no reason to dig into his past.

      When Black was in London countless invitations to parties, dinners and opening nights at the theatre and Covent Garden began arriving, flattering his self-esteem. His lust for more than ‘a ringside seat at everything’ grew, inflating his opinion of himself and validating his importance in Canada. The opportunities to meet British and foreign politicians in London fed his hunger to consort with the mega-rich and the powerful in the White House, Buckingham Palace and Downing Street. The Telegraph was not merely the means to earn an income and propagate his ideas, but had become his passport to social climbing. ‘Who’s that?’ Black asked Paul Johnson’s wife Marigold when they met at a party in the French Embassy. ‘And who’s that? And that person, is he important?’ Marigold Johnson was shocked. ‘I realise the allegation is about that I am somewhat of a seeker of celebrities,’ Black later admitted, ‘and in one sense I suppose that’s true. But my purpose is that celebrities who are justly celebrated can be very useful to you.’¹ The casualties were the celebrities’ wives, including those of Jacob Rothschild and the Duke of Marlborough. ‘I won’t again sit next to a man who lectures me throughout dinner,’ said one wife, ‘about the layout of the navies at the Battle of Jutland or reels off a list of all the kings of Sweden since the eighteenth century.’ Black’s new friends were undecided whether his amusing lectures reflected arrogance, insecurity or insensitivity. Like others, the Johnsons were puzzled by Black’s parochialism. On his first visit to their house he looked shocked by a plate of mussels, especially when other guests ate them by hand. As a preliminary to meeting Margaret Thatcher, Andrew Knight arranged to call on Charles Powell, Thatcher’s foreign policy adviser, in Downing Street. ‘What do you think Powell thought of me,’ Black repeatedly asked Knight afterwards. The judgement in Downing Street, Knight did not reveal, was that Black was ‘a provincial hick’.

      ‘Hello Margaret,’ smiled Black as he entered Chequers with Andrew Knight on 2 April 1986. Thatcher’s close staff, accustomed to calling her ‘Prime Minister’, were surprised by Black’s assumption of equality. They were to be even more surprised by his conduct. After the pleasantries, Black embarked on a monologue, lecturing his hostess about her place in British history alongside Pitt and Disraeli. His fluent performance was honed as much to massage his own ego as to flatter his audience. He was too enraptured by his own verbal elegance to notice his hostess’s astonishment. Propriety required that she mask her impatience and ‘listen carefully’. The Conservative Party relied on the Telegraph group, and it was politic to humour its owner. Her concealment succeeded. Unknown to her visitor, Thatcher rarely listened to what she was told. Her only interest was what she would say in reply. Impervious to her true sentiments, Black was pleased, as they bade farewell, that Thatcher ‘patted me most considerately on the shoulder and said, “That is very good, Mr Black. Do come back.”’ As his Rolls-Royce drove down the gravel driveway, Black asked Knight impatiently, ‘How did it go? What do you think she thought of me? Do you think she respected me?’ For several days he repeated the questions. ‘I’m sure she thought you know more about the history of the Tory Party than she does,’ replied Knight, protecting Black from the truth, ‘but that only goes so far.’

      Before their meeting, Thatcher had been aware of Black’s opposition to hanging, not because he was against capital punishment, but because he felt hanging was ‘too good for them’. She had wrongly assumed that that was said in jest. After their meeting, she told her aides that compared to Black, ‘I’m a liberal wet.’ An intimidating bore, she concluded of the new proprietor. Unlike Rupert Murdoch, whom she genuinely liked, she decided to tolerate Black because the Telegraph СКАЧАТЬ