Meeting Michael
The Journal October 2004
Jane Bond visits Lichfield MP, Michael Fabricant, at his Lichfield home and finds a man for all seasons
Keeping Michael Fabricant on one subject for even a minute is a difficult business.
During the course of a Journal interview with Lichfield's Conservative MP we cover a whole gamut of topics including US political history, cancer research, genetic engineering, abortion, fell-walking, photography, broadcasting, food, wine, religion, the age of consent and miners' pensions.
It is impossible to stop him going off at tangents.
"Just a little digression. . ." is his favourite phrase, before launching off into some anecdote about a friend he knows, or somewhere he's been, or something he's read.
He likes spy novels, always enjoys those of Tom Clancy (a friend whom he meets up with every year) and courageously admits he never opens the floor to ceiling volumes of Hansard that fill the shelves in his living room. "They are purely for show".
Photography and fell-walking are Michael's main hobbies. He does the Three Peaks most years, and often goes abroad for walking holidays. He recently came back from Guatemala with stunning photographs of the volcanoes.
He delights in being 'gadget man', digging cameras out of cupboards to discuss the latest technology with our photographer.
His tiny flat in London is within walking distance of the Commons, and he claims to be known for running up the stairs rather than taking the lift.
And he loves living in the centre of Lichfield because he can walk to most of his meetings.
His Lichfield home is a beautiful period apartment, and I'm prompted to ask him how he manages to juggle his split life between London and Lichfield.
In reply, he gives me a detailed account of his laundry management system: full use of washing machine in Lichfield, laundry service in London, and military organisation regarding the transportation of his 'smalls' between the two cities. Sometimes, he tells me, he has to plan his clothing two or three weeks in advance.
Planning his laundry is about as domesticated, however, as this MP gets.
His tiny kitchenette is disproportionately small compared to the other rooms in the flat, which have high ceilings, big windows, and chandeliers. His cooker is "virgin" - he only ever makes toast. The rest of the time he eats out in Lichfield or at the Commons, buys a sandwich, or microwaves a ready meal. He flings open the freezer to show me a lonely supermarket chicken jalfrezi. It is, he says with a smile, "the real exposure of my saddo lifestyle". When it comes to coffee, however, he takes the time to make a proper espresso, and at Christmas time he goes so far as to mull wine.
He also has a rather eclectic collection of clothing.
Hanging up on a coat peg in the hall is a KGB uniform, complete with cap. Alongside the uniform hangs a flamboyant striped blazer and straw boater, and on the peg next-door are numerous hats, including a jaunty cap with the words 'Sex and the City' emblazoned on it. The cap was a gift from a friend who is a producer on the programme Sex and the City, and it amuses Michael as, in his imagination, the city in question is Lichfield. The blazer and boater are for "1920s-style parties" and the KGB uniform was a gift from another friend who was a colonel in the KGB, a business contact from Michael's pre-politics days when he ran an international company that created high-tech equipment for radio stations. Michael's years as a globetrotting entrepreneur installing broadcasting equipment in 48 different countries have perhaps equipped him for his rather rootless life as an MP. Although he feels part of the Lichfield community (his 93-year-old mother has now moved there too) he admits that the lifestyle can be hectic. Neighbours help him out with shopping and gardening, and he reciprocates by using his electrical engineering skills to do odd jobs. It was "for purely selfish reasons" that Michael set up the Lichfield Commuters group this year. "I was amazed - there are sixty or seventy people in Lichfield who regularly commute to London. Many of them are bankers, about five work for the BBC, some even work for the rail industry," he says. Michael used to take the train down to London on Sunday evenings, but now has to drive as there is no service. The Lichfield Commuters Group meets most months for lunch in the House of Commons and Michael invites along "someone from the rail industry who we can lynch!" It strikes me as typical of Michael Fabricant that he has turned something negative (the lack of a train service) into something fun (a stimulating monthly lunch). | | 
Michael's beautiful home bears
many references to his
life as an MP in
London,
like these pictures
of the capital,
beside his mantelpiece.
Picture: Paul Barber
|
He tells me that he had an early childhood desire to be 'a jet-setter', travelling the world and meeting new people. He also had a childhood fascination with BBC cameramen, an obsession that led him to improvise his own rostrum camera with the aid of his mother's tea trolley, an upturned basin, and a slender,
long-legged junior member of an elegant nest of tables.
"You are quite a childish person, aren't you?" I venture to suggest to him later, when he is showing me the six foot flags ¬a Union Jack and a Stars and Stripes - that he keeps behind the door of his study room. He flies the flags from a small flagpole at the front of the house, not for political reasons, but because he likes flying flags.
"Yes, I am childish," he says, disarmingly. "People who are not childish have no imagination."
For a politician, he talks very little about party politics. He stood for parliament after selling his broadcasting business to an American buyer, annoyed at the lack of government support for British exporters. He doesn't see why the country should be run by "professional politicians with no experience of the real world".
"I'm an MP for all my constituents, not just the Conservatives. Constituency first, party second," he says.
And perhaps that goes some way to explaining his populist appeal.
Michael Fabricant, high profile, ever smiling, whose early career included a disc jockey stint as 'Mickey Fabb', has a personality that transcends his public status as an MP.
Unusually for an MP, his constituents actually know who he is. And in politics, that is worth a lot.
