Nightmare in Notting Hill: Sasha Swire’s hit-job diary blows up Cameron clique

Imagine the year is 2013. David Cameron is Prime Minister of the Conservative-LibDem coalition. Cameron is keeping his friends close (and unwittingly his enemies closer). The Goves, Osbornes, Swires, and other favoured MPs and their families, are on rotation at each other’s country estates and holiday homes.

The men are drinking negronis, several are lusting over each other’s wives. The women are comparing their husbands’ career failings – all is normal. Occasionally, politics and the condition of the country is mentioned. But, in the corner, unbeknown to even her husband (Hugo Swire, then MP for East Devon), Sasha Swire is up to no good. She is noting down conversations and interactions she has witnessed over the night. Seven years later, in the midst of a global pandemic and at the crunch moment for Brexit, she publishes her diary detailing (and mocking) the key players of the Cameron era.

If you haven’t seen it, and if you like politically explosive gossip that blows the lid off an entire era, can we recommend it?

Over the last few days, The Times has published excerpts from the tell-all memoir, ahead of its release in late September.

You can read parts one, two, and three here.

Here are some of the elements that particularly caught my attention:

The nicknames 

Perhaps inspired by the spy books her young daughter was obsessed with, Swire uses nicknames throughout the diary. Here is an introductory guide to the key players:

Sam (respectfully) – Samantha Cameron

D, DC, Dave- David Cameron

GO, Boy George- George Osborne

Old Ma May- Theresa May

H- Hugo Swire

“That revolting couple”- David Cameron and Nick Clegg

George Osborne and Theresa May’s are particularly amusing. Old Ma May has a cold “Medusa stare” but is unexpectedly enamoured with Samantha Cameron’s extravagant dressing room. Boy George is fond of caviar, stirring trouble and “muscling” his way into the limelight. The use of “Sam” suggests that Sasha Swire harbours hopes of not falling out with her old friend. Good luck with that considering the stuff in there about DC!

Dave likes a drink

If there is one theme that runs through the excerpts it is a social life heavily lubricated by drinking. The Camerons are apparently fond of a negroni, credit the birth of their fourth child to a particularly boozy weekend with the Swires and Cameron requests “two fat Cohibas and plenty of booze” to help him through the loss of the EU referendum.

Prince William and Kate’s Royal Wedding in 2011 is deemed a bore:

“Royal wedding goes off without a hitch. David and George a bit pissed off, though, as they were invited to the ceremony but not to the reception. G says they all sat in Westminster Abbey for three hours and then went home without a single drink.”

If the current government carries on in the same way as the administration Cameron ran his, the confused and contradictory handling of coronavirus begins to make a bit more sense. Probably a good time to have a clear head.

A Royal disgrace

Sasha Swire is particularly dismissive of Prince Andrew, an easy target. Meeting him at the annual Royal Garden Party her husband finds common ground with the Prince through stories of family animosity, but Swire herself is not convinced:

“I sat there trying to listen to how brilliant he was when all I am seeing is him in swimming shorts, attending topless pool parties at Jeffrey Epstein’s mansion, while on his own personal trade mission to get money for his ex-wife.”

This part reads as a bit of a ploy to place herself on the right side of history, though there is no doubt Prince Andrew is low down on most people’s fantasy dinner party guest list.

Osborne in Hollywood

Swire’s put-downs vary from obtuse nicknames to darkly critical throw-away comments nestled in anecdotes; George Osborne being on the receiving end of the latter. Swire tells of Osborne attending Elton John’s Oscars party with his Evening Standard boss Evgeny Lebedev, since raised to the Peerage by Boris (isn’t Britain great?):

“He tells us the only people he has ever known in that world are Kevin Spacey and Harvey Weinstein, and he is pretty sure they won’t be pitching up.”

The many faces of Boris Johnson

There is no clear conclusion on our current Prime Minister; Swire’s opinion on him chops and changes throughout the excerpts. Cameron considers him to be a bit of a snake, but Sasha Swire is quite thrilled to sit next to him at dinner describing him as: “Cheeky. Flippant. Enthusiastic. Bombastic. Ebullient. Energetic.” By the end of dinner, however, her main take away is this:

“For all his hinterland and hot young vixen and his agile mind, Boris just came across as someone who is desperately lonely and unhappy.”

If you watched Ed Miliband lay into the Prime Minister about the Internal Market Bill in The House of Commons yesterday, you will know he looks unhappier than ever.

Lewd comments

Salacious is the word that comes to mind for many of the anecdotes. Boris is accused of looking at her “as if he is working out if I’m shaggable”, Swire’s husband refuses to wear his blood pressure monitor in case he gets to sit next to Carrie Symonds and former Italian PM Berlusconi is said to have a “renaissance two-way mirror above the bed.” Perhaps it is the Negronis but Cameron himself comes off little better. There are dogging jokes, and, on a walk with Swire, he asks her not to walk in front of him:

“That scent you are wearing is affecting my pheromones. It makes me want to grab you and push you into the bushes and give you one!”

What on earth are they doing flirting like teenagers? It is all rather nauseating – but perhaps that is because they are nearer my parent’s age than my own.

Sarah Vine’s Rapid Rebuttal Unit

Michael Gove’s wife Sarah Vine is another victim of Swire’s dismissive pen. Swire describes her as the loyal skivvy behind glam Sam-Cam:

“Poor old Sarah Gove, who bends over backwards to please the Camerons, was lumbered with cooking all the food while Samantha was upstairs learning to cut patterns (she wants to set up a fashion business). She then had her hair done! Turning up at her own party feeling perfectly relaxed while Sarah is laden down with dishes of fish pie.”

This is bold. Sarah Vine has plenty of scope for revenge, not least in her weekly column in the Daily Mail.

Indeed, this week she penned a robust rebuttal in the Daily Mail suggesting Swire was threatened by the Goves’ friendship with Cameron. She describes Swire as “mischievous as ever, still fond of her own opinions and unsparing in her criticism,” which, given the excerpts, seems a fair evaluation. Less fair perhaps, if understandable, is Vine’s dismissal of Swire on the grounds that she is a “rangy blonde with legs that seemed to go on forever.” Tut tut, that has very little to do with the content of the diary or the secrets exposed. But, in the words of Swire herself, “when the wives get nasty, you know the men have a problem.”

Sasha Swire’s motive for writing and publishing this diary is somewhat of a mystery. Perhaps life after the Cameron-era had become too boring and undramatic, or perhaps she does not value her friendships.

More likely though (I think) is that Swire’s diary is a reminder not to underestimate MPs wives. The introduction to the first excerpt reads as follows: “He (Hugo) became MP for East Devon in 2001 and I gave up my journalism career to support him,” a sentence perhaps tinged with bitterness. In an interview with The Times Swire admits; “I’ve only done it so I can get my other books published.”

Whatever her reasoning, after weeks of bleak political news, Swire’s diary, bizarre as it may be, is remarkable. And I for one would love to be a fly on the wall next time she bumps into the Camerons.