Kingfisher

The Speech at the O.H.A.

The Secretary of State for Health smiled at his own secretary as he walked from the top of the stairs and into his office, and she almost fainted. She glanced over at Charles, one of his special advisors, and for a moment he forgot his Etonian contempt for her and met her look of surprise with an entirely earnest one of his own. He then came to his senses and ignored her attempt to say something to him as he passed her desk and marched into Oliver's office. He found the minster smirking as he looked down at the papers he was shuffling, and he responded by adopting a knowing countenance.

'You're in a good mood,' declared Charles, with a tone that walked a well-practised tightrope between suspicion and laddish congratulation, sounding knowing whilst still giving him the space to fall down on the side of one ethical judgement or another once he had worked out what was going on. 'What have you done?'

'I spoke to Mr Martin this morning and, after hearing my articulate case, he has agreed that responsibility for food policy should be moved from the Department for Rural and Maritime Affairs to the Department for Health, and that we should be renamed to the 'Department for Health and Food' as a consequence,' he replied smugly, adopting the formal language of some press release but taking the tone of the cat that got the cream.

'Holy shit!'—Charles curbed his enthusiasm when he saw Ainsworth's face - 'Well, when are we announcing this? I could get Camilla Field at the Mail to launch this, I went out to dinner with her last night and it actually went rather-'

Ainsworth cut across his advisor. 'We're announcing it this afternoon when I give my speech at the Obesity Health Alliance. I asked Tara to set it up weeks ago; I was always intending to speak about the public health approach to obesity, and I've reworked that speech to relate to the departmental merger,' he said off-handedly, not giving Charles a very high fraction of his attention. 'I'd like it if you would get to work on breaking in the new staff'.

He sighed, not happy with being given the shit job. 'I'll head on over to Rural and Maritime now to see if they know who they're sending. When will you be back from the O.H.A. thing?', he said, barely hiding his contempt at the suggestion that the minister would be announcing his great triumph at such a minor event.

'It's in Woking, so probably not until the mid-afternoon,' replied Ainsworth, waving his hand to let his advisor know he was dismissed. 'See if you can get one of the civils to stir up some rumours about the meeting; get the B.B.C. there at the least.' Charles left without replying, knowing that irritation was a risky emotion to express any more than he already had, even around an apparently chipper Oliver. He would go and find someone his own size at the Department of Rural and Maritime affairs to bully—or, preferably, someone smaller.

Ainsworth finished rearranging his papers and took a drink from his coffee. Another indication that he was in a good mood: he only bought himself coffee when things were going his way. On other mornings, they had to be brought to him by his secretary once his pre-caffeine foul mood had become too intolerable for her to stand. She suspected that it wasn't the caffeine he craved as much as the bitter flavour, and the knowledge that someone else had suffered so that he might drink it.

The Minister left his office and went into the main body of the departmental office, a space inhabited by ambitious, calculatedly unco-operative Labour junior ministers and senior civil servants who hid behind their pledge of impartiality to be far more skilled than any junior minister at being unco-operative. Suspecting Charles of not having done as he had been asked, the Secretary of State crossed over to one member of the latter camp, placing his coffee on her desk and waiting for her to stop typing and pay attention.

'Tara—I need a rumor going around the press that I'm making a major announcement this morning down at the O.H.A. conference in Woking. I'm on at eleven. I assume you can do the B.B.C.? Maybe get them and the Standard thinking that Jonathan has given me spending powers, that ought to set something off...'