Unfortunately, as I flipped open my red-backed Creamline notebook, laid out three newly-sharpened HB pencils and checked the batteries in my mini-recorder, our host intoned words that spell dismay for any journalist keen to hit the headlines: “Chatham House Rule, gentlemen.”
I should explain two things: first, pressure of work had forced cancellations from Britain's two female editors, leaving our political guest of honour to cope 'only' with the testosterone-hyped editors of The Times, Financial Times, Independent on Sunday, Observer, Daily Mail and the Daily and Sunday Telegraphs.
Second, for those not in the know, a meeting held under the Chatham House Rule allows participants to use information received while revealing neither the speaker's identity nor affiliation. While in no way legally binding, it is a moral code (governing the behaviour of the least moral members of society, the media).
In other words, I COULD tell you everything that was said, and by whom, but if I did so I would have to kill you.
So let me tell you first what was NOT discussed as the nearly great and the not so good picked over their fish-and-white-wine lunch beside the Thames: policy, either pertaining to a future Tory government or to its attitude toward the media, did not get a look-in. Neither did volcanic ash, our empty skies and the million Brits pleading (with the 'nanny state' they claim to despise) to repatriate them on warships from the Costas.
All we talked about was Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats.
About how Clegg “could not win” last night's second TV debate with Brown and Cameron “because expectations after his stunning first performance were now too high” and that his opponents would be gunning for him.
And, briefly, about the deleterious effect that a powerful showing by the Lib-Dem leader would have on Rupert Murdoch's massive influence on the government of this country, given that his powerful editors have always laughed off the need for a relationship with the third, “inconsequential” political party.
Bearing in mind the off-the-record restrictions imposed by Chatham House, a rule originated in June 1927 at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, I think I may at least tell you that the Tories are as mystified by Clegg's appeal to the ordinary voter as the Vatican is towards the outrage over the church's child abuse scandal: They Just Don't Get It.
Alas, all too soon the lunch broke up: the editors of the Times and the FT fled first, followed by our Shadow Minister breaking away to knock on doors in Godalming and, lastly, by the drift of Sunday editors off to stoke the fires of next weekend's one-day wonders.
Tabloid editors of my ilk, I reflected sadly, were made of sterner stuff: no Sun or Mirror editor would dream of leaving the table until glasses stood dry and all hope of replenishment had passed.
And as for Chatham House Rules . . . pah!
IN a small bar over a cleansing ale after lunch, one of the media men reflecting on what he saw as “the greed” of the Scottish Assembly in its demands on the British taxpayer, illustrated his remarks with this story:
A Scotswoman was walking along the beach with her small son when a tsunami plucked the boy from her grasp and sucked him out to sea.
“O Lord,” wailed the wee wifey, “Bring back oor Hamish safely and I'll be grateful tae God for ever mair!”
Instantly, another huge wave crashed ashore returning her son almost into her arms. He was saved, but she wasn't pleased.
“Here, youse!” she cried. “He was wearing a new hat!”
First published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne on April 23, 2010
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