Friday, October 14, 2011

The End of the Party


I'm currently engrossed in The End of the Party by Andrew Rawnsley, about the rise and fall of New Labour. It's a riveting account. Here's an extract about events in London on 9/11:
The Cabinet Secretary was lunching at Gran Paradiso, his favourite London restaurant. Sir Richard Wilson heard about the first plane from his driver, Gary. "I bet that's some amateur," remarked Sir Richard as he got into the back of his limousine. As they set off back to Number 10, he learnt about the second plane from the car radio. Jeremy Heywood, the Principal Private Secretary, rang as Wilson's car was rounding Parliament Square. "We've been told the White House is evacuating," reported Heywood. "Should we be evacuating?" "If you evacuate, where would you evacuate to?" responded Wilson. He had a mental image of the entire staff of Number 10 and the Cabinet Office standing in the street clutching their laptops and mobiles looking lost. "I think it's a good rule not to evacuate unless you had an idea of where you are going to evacuate to," Wilson drily told Heywood.

1 Comments:

Blogger Eurodog said...

The end of the party indeed!

11:50 am  

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