Sometimes, it seems, everything in public life aspires to the condition of fiction. But making it up is hard to do well and good words in the right order come at a premium. Getting your story straight, in art and politics, is surprisingly difficult. You cannot be too careful in the choice of the tales you live by. When the plot thickens, your story's compass spins. Philip Larkin used to say, of many novels, that they invariably suffered from 'a beginning, a muddle and an end'.
Last week, several smooth political stories forgot the rules of the game and became enjoyably muddled. Simultaneously, as a counterpoint to the fog of the campaign, and in a masterpiece of comic brevity, Alan Bennett's The Uncommon Reader (Profile/Faber) subversively told a mischievous 80th birthday tale about Her Majesty that cleverly mingled fact and fiction to the point where, no doubt, palace staff will wonder: 'Have we a mole below stairs?'
In books, the common reader usually favours a well-plotted climax, but in life, unintended consequences make for a more satisfying denouement. So, as Britain, France and America swing in and out of different phases in their respective election cycles, it's strangely reassuring to see heavily spun politicians with carefully crafted images tripping up over their chosen 'narratives', the current buzzword of US political consultancy.
Perhaps these were accidents waiting to happen. As Arthur Miller once put it: 'The structure of a play is always the story of how the birds came home to roost.' Besides, every writer knows that a natural, unforced narrative is rarer than rocking-horse manure. You can police the image, but it's those unruly little words that so often let you down, as both Bush and Sarkozy have just discovered.
No surprise to find Dubya stumbling over his 'endgame' script in Kansas City. More astonishing, from a White House that prides itself on slick professionalism, was the President quoting Graham Greene: 'I never knew a man who had better motives for the trouble he caused.' Oops! Did nobody bother to reread The Quiet American before lifting that one? Did no one in the West Wing recognise that, for Greene, America's claim of innocence in colonial wars was 'a kind of insanity'? In the quest for a plausible narrative, rule one might be: check out the plot. And don't let playwrights inside your war room. When Nicolas Sarkozy allowed Yasmina Reza, France's most popular dramatist, known to English audiences for Art, to join his inner circle during the recent presidential election, it was a gamble that almost paid off. Almost, but not quite. Reza's version of life with Sarko in Dawn, Evening or Night (it sounds better in French: L'aube le soir ou la nuit) is already a pre-publication bestseller in Paris.
Sarkozy may choose to see this as a confirmation of some stellar poll ratings in the aftermath of his victory over Segolene Royale, whom, apparently, he refers to as une pauvre conne. Ouch. But he will hardly enjoy Reza's portrait of him as 'childish, vain, self-obsessed and cruel'. The second rule of the successful political narrative might be: call the tune, but read the lyric as well.
Or take your cue from the Tudors whose cruel tyranny effortlessly enforced a version of events broadly favourable to the regime. Shakespeare's rendering of Tudor history still plays to packed houses in Stratford (see Susannah Clapp, page 18, Review), and continues to colour our understanding of the Henrys.
So, rule three: never underestimate the intimate relationship of politics and language. Words today remain just as important as they were in 1607. A new study of the Nixon White House, Robert Dallek's Kissinger and Nixon: Partners in Power (Penguin) underlines yet again that what really cooked Nixon's goose with the American voters was the blizzard of 'expletive deleted' in the published transcript of Oval Office conversations. High crimes and misdemeanours were one thing. Presidential profanity was something else.
A generation on, it may be Senator Obama's graceful way with language, written and spoken, that will propel him to the front of the Democrat field. No muddle here. Obama is unusual: he has, so far, fashioned his own 'narrative'. Rule four: if you can, write your own script and keep it clean.
More typically, politicians who want to control the words as much as the image, turn to speechwriters and ghosts. This is the timely premise of Robert Harris's new thriller whose plot was cleverly inserted into the 24/7 news cycle last week (see page 22, Books, Review).
As you might expect from a former political commentator, Harris has somehow contrived to link the narrative of The Ghost to New Labour's ongoing psychodrama while strenuously denying any association of fact and fiction.
That's an old trick, but everyone ate it up and Mr Harris was rewarded with the kind of newspaper coverage that must make his publisher think Christmas has come early. The public's narrative gene is always alert to a good story. Even in its garbled version, The Ghost fulfils every expectation of murderous intrigue at the court of New Labour. Rule five: tell a good tale and the public will suspend disbelief.
Perhaps that's why David Cameron languishes on the opposition benches while Robert Harris is sunning himself in the south of France.
