John Hayes kicked off our interview by offering me a glass of wine (it had just gone 3pm) and assuring me that his office is always well-stocked on the drinks front. That’s because it’s where he hosts the Wednesday evening gatherings of the Common Sense Group, during which right-wing Tory MPs plot their next steps. I am “the only journalist I’ve ever had in this room – we don’t mix with the chatterati”.
The office, which Hayes has inhabited since he was a minister in David Cameron’s government (“I clung on to it”), has a life of its own. Among the pictures on display are: Strictly Come Dancing’s Anton Du Becque (signed), the comedian Larry Grayson (signed), Margaret Thatcher (signed), Jesus (not signed), the boxer Henry Cooper landing a blow on Cassius Clay in a legendary match in 1963, Pope Benedict, Charles I, Hayes’s wife, his sons, a thank you note from Suella Braverman, two giant paintings of the Saxons battling the Vikings and the Norman Crusades, portraits of the three Conservative greats (Burke, Disraeli, Castlereagh), and Charles I again.
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