More PM changeover trivia
Whether their departure is planned or unplanned, prime ministers always find leaving office a shock. Not only will the prime minister instantly become plain old Mr Blair, there will also be other indignities. I have another of Michael Cockerell's great TV political documentaries to thank for the following tales.
• Harold Macmillan had a man from the Post Office round within two hours of resigning to rip out his taxpayer funded phone
• Ted Heath emerged from resigning at the palace to discover that he had no car. "His" car - in fact, of course, it was the prime minister's - was collecting Harold Wilson. A plaintive call had to be made to the government car pool for a car for Mr Heath. These days ex-PMs do get cars - largely for security reasons - but it won't be the one Mr Blair's used to
• Margaret Thatcher called her adviser Charles - now Lord - Powell soon after resigning to ask what she should do as she had a plumbing problem. Call a plumber was his advice. Easier said than done for a leader who'd spent the past decade simply picking up the phone and asking "Switch" - that's the name for the Downing Street switchboard - to get Mr X or Mrs Y on the line. Tony Blair may have to be told today of the "new" telephone dialling codes.
UPDATE 1128: The Palace have been on the blower. Hands will not actually be kissed today. New prime ministers did once do it and the expression "kissing of hands" remains. The movie is - shocking to relate - not 100% historically accurate.
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Comments
Do you think Gordon Brown will suffer first-day nerves? There's an excellent picture in this week's Personnel Today magazine and on its showing how he might be feeling today.
It really is going to be very difficult for Blair living in the real world.Instead of the cosy cosseted Downing street.I remember the feelings of the first term though
and I will never forget the optimism
and the feeling of seing the back of
the Tories.
So which came first, Nick, this blog entry or "How to be an ex-Prime Minister" on 91Èȱ¬ Four at the weekend?
10,000 miles away in Canberra, Peter Costello, Australian Federal Treasurer (=Chancellor of the Exchequer) must be looking on with envy. The parallels betwen him/John Howard and GB/TB are uncanny.
I will bet 10 to 1 that our Mr. Darling will not upset the Pensioners with an increase of 75p in his first buget, as our SCOTTISH friend Brownie did. What a louse he has been to the old folk who kept this nation free for the likes of him to have the good life.