Corridors of Power

Author’s Note

By some fluke, the title of this novel seems to have passed into circulation during the time the book itself was being written. I have watched the phenomenon with mild consternation. The phrase was first used, so far as I know, in Homecomings (1956). Mr Rayner Heppenstall noticed it, and adopted it as a title of an article about my work. If he had not done this, I doubt if I should have remembered the phrase myself; but when I saw it in Mr Heppenstall’s hands, so to speak, it seemed the appropriate name for this present novel, which was already in my mind. So I announced the title, and since have been stuck with it, while the phrase has kept swimming in print before my eyes about twice a week and four times on Sundays, and has, in fact, turned into a cliché. But I cannot help using it myself, without too much inconvenience. I console myself with the reflection that, if a man hasn’t the right to his own cliché, who has?

I would like to make one other point. This novel is about ‘high’ politics and like all novels on the subject, carries an unresolvable complication. This one is set in the period 1955–8, and in the year 1957 the Prime Minister has to be introduced. Now there was a real Prime Minister at the time. His name was Harold Macmillan. The Prime Minister in this novel is quite unlike Mr Harold Macmillan, as unlike as he could reasonably be. Short of introducing real personages as characters, there is no other way. None of my imaginary Ministers is connected with anyone in office during the Eden or Macmillan administrations, and I have deliberately used, as the major public issue in the novel, one which didn’t come openly into politics at that time.

Since I have had to mention Mr Harold Macmillan, I should like, out of gratitude, to mention something else. If it had not been for his intervention, in one of his less public phases, my books would not now be published under this present imprint.

During the writing of this book, I collected other debts of gratitude. Politicians on both sides of the House of Commons have given me their time and trouble: it would look too much like a roll-call to write down all the names. But I should not feel comfortable if I did not make two specific acknowledgements. One to Mr Maurice Macmillan, with whom I discussed aspects of the book long before a word was written: and the other to Mr Maurice Edelman, who — being both a novelist and a Member of Parliament — welcomed me on to his own proper territory and has been more generous and helpful than I can describe.