I am editing my latest book, my lockdown oeuvre, The Prime Minister’s Affair… it ISN’T about Boris Johnson! Pity, a book about Bojo would surely sell well. In fact it is set 1929-30 and the Prime Minister in question is Ramsay MacDonald. An unlikely choice for a kiss and tell blackmail story, you might think, but like all my books it is based on real events and real people. Loosely based in this case, because so little of Mac.’s affair has come to light. MacDonald lost his wife, his helpmeet, Margaret, in 1911 and was obliged to bring up his five children alone. In the years that followed he enjoyed discreet relationships with a number of women, but politics was his life, the Labour Party, and the struggle to improve the lot of the working classes.
All the more remarkable then, that within months of Labour coming to power in 1929 and MacDonald entering Number 10, he was approached by an old lover who threatened to ruin his reputation and bring down his government.
Refuse to give her money and she would sell their very intimate letters to his enemies in the conservative press, the Conservative Party and the Secret Service. The public would be scandalised, he would be forced to resign and the government would fall.
The Prime Minister’s Affair is the story of the race to recover Mac’s letters, the story of a secret state conspiracy to bring down his government and of a great Labour betrayal. Quite enough for 100,000 words.