Donald’s office was so messy, police thought it had been burgled.
THE parliamentary office of the late First Minister Donald Dewar’s was such a mess that police once told him that it had been ransacked by burglars!
Former Labour MP Maria Fyfe reveals the incident in her new autobiography, “A Problem Like Maria: A woman’s eye view of life as an MP”.
The book, launched yesterday, sets the record straight on her 14 years as MP for Glasgow Maryhill, from 1987-2001.
But Ms Fyfe, 75, pictured right, also revealed “the funny side of a Parliamentary career”.
She said Dewar’s office was one of the “endearing oddities of life in the Westminster bubble”.
She said: “Once Donald Dewar was informed by one of the Palace of Westminster policemen that his office had been burgled. It hadn’t. Nothing was missing. It was just in its usual chaotic state.
“Donald didn’t file stuff. He found it by the archaeological method: the lower down the heap, the further back the date.”
She said she had a flat in the same block as Dewar in Kennington, Central London.
Dewar, who died in 2000 and is commemorated with a statue in Glasgow’s Buchanan Street, shared his abode with fellow Scots Labour MPs Sam Galbraith and Lewis Moonie.
She added: “Their flat in Kennington was a household to compare with The Odd Couple. There seemed to be some uncertainty about how to work the washing machine, only Lewis being confident about it.
“They spent fortunes in the local laundry, and were amazed that I actually washed and ironed my clothes. How did I find time, they wondered. Well, it’s not difficult. You can compose questions or a speech in your head while doing the washing up or the ironing.
“But one other Glasgow seat member, who shall remain nameless, told them he had a better idea: ‘You know these huge, super-sized stamped envelopes we get? I put my socks, pants and shirts in them and send them up to my wife, and they’re ready for me when I go home at the weekend.’”
She also revealed how MPs were stunned when Dewar, who had a reputation for wearing jumpers with holes in the elbows, appeared in what appeared to be a
designer-label tie.
She said: “One day he strolled into the Members’ Tearoom wearing a tie with the letters ‘YSL’ emblazoned on it. People stared in stupefaction. Had Donald actually gone and bought an Yves St Laurent tie?
“No. The letters stood for the name of a major employer in his constituency, Yarrows Shipbuilders Ltd., where he was well known to the shop stewards and management and had been given a gift of this tie.
“But people loved Donald because they could see past the lack of ‘presentation’ and knew how genuine he was.”
Ms Fyfe was the only female Labour MP elected in Scotland in the 1987 general election. She became one of 41 women MPs and one of only three in Scotland at the time.
She said the book revealed “the realities of being a female MP in a male-dominated Westminster”.
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