Dear Queen

BETWEEN November 1997 and July 1998 then-government whip Janet Anderson was given the task of writing nightly reports to Her Majesty The Queen on that day's business in Parliament. That role as Vice Chamberlain is steeped in history, going back to Henry VIII, but she was told that Her Majesty did not like dry-as-dust missives, and would welcome something a "bit gossipy." Janet took to the job with gusto. This was a period when the honeymoon with the voters enjoyed by Tony Blair's New Labour Government was coming to an end and Britain was heading towards war. Janet covered such heavyweight issues, but spiced up her reports with all the gossip, rumours and drink-fuelled humour sweeping the Palace of Westminster. In a chatty, increasingly informal - but always proper - way she referred in her missives to Pre-Menstrual Tension, Champagne parties, Christmas shopping, and which woman MPs were rumoured to be pregnant. She was also delightfully and unashamedly forthright about colleagues on both sides of the House. She told the Queen that: John Bercow, now Commons Speaker, was "odious" and a "nasty piece of work" who raised "bogus" points of order. Twice-Oscar-winner Glenda Jackson constantly missed debates as transport minister. The Ulster Unionists were a "sour bunch." Former war correspondent and anti-sleaze MP Martin Bell was "a pathetic joke figure." One-time Health Secretary Virginia Bottomley objected to the use of the word "gay" instead of "homosexual." And former Tory leader Michael Howard was just "loathsome." She threw in other references to Teletubbies in Parliament, the risk of the ceiling falling on the heads of MPs and schoolboy behaviour in the House. It is hard to imagine such forthright correspondence going directly to the Queen. The daily reports have never before been published. Nor have those of any of Janet's predecessors and successors. She, unlike them, retained copies. They make hilarious reading and amount to a colourful daily diary of a turbulent period in British political history.