The Sunday Times Magazine - 24 July 2022

62 Pages·2022·22 MB·English

July 24 2022
“ Think of all the things
I know that never leaked”
Kellyanne Conway on her mad life as
Donald Trump’s right-hand woman

28
Above: Gracie
Fields, then the
24.07.2022
highest-paid film
star in the world,
sings to workers
5 Richard Coles 38 Farmer Clarkson building London’s
After the fall: what will Ditch the red trousers: Prince of Wales
Boris Johnson do next? Jeremy has unleashed a bull Theatre in 1937
6 Relative Values 40 The taste of summer
The violinist André Rieu and Jackson Boxer’s fridge-cold
his son Pierre on the perils alfresco lunches, Marina
MARTIN. of running an orchestra Oin’ Lsoouugthh lLino nredvoinew, Ws iAllu Ldyroenys’s
A
NI 8 COVER Alternative reality explores Italy’s freshest wines
GI
VIR Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s
UP: right-hand woman, on her 49 Books to Live By
MAKE- family’s feud with her ex-boss Mariella Frostrup helps a 40
DI. reader grounded by flight
N
A
A BL 16 We have lift-off chaos discover briny shores
UC Pensioners who spent 22
AIR: L years building a fighter plane 50 Driving
NE. H celebrate the joy and purpose Richard Porter reviews the
GAZI it gave them. Jean West reports Volkswagen Tiguan Allspace
A
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MES 22 London 2012 revisited 58 A Life in the Day
DAY TI Ten years on, Seb Coe tells The British tennis star
UN Rosamund Urwin how Britain Cameron Norrie on reaching
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R I C H A R D C O L E S
We all fall, Boris. It’s what we
do when we get up that counts
I
have been on a book tour for the past few weeks, be killed in post, was pelted with ox bones by Vikings
talking in stores and on stages about murder (it’s at Greenwich in 1012 for refusing to allow himself to
a crime novel) and the liturgies of the Church of be ransomed and risk corrupting his captors through
England. After an event in Edinburgh I went for a pecuniary gain.
drink with a friend who lives nearby and then he In the case of Boris Johnson, not an obvious candidate
walked me to Waverley station to get the sleeper. for Lambeth Palace — or not in the modern era —
We went the back way, down one of those Jekyll and the fall matches the rise. He impressed as the mayor
Hyde Edinburgh streets, Scottish Enlightenment of London with his brio and bonhomie, his drive, his
above, urban underbelly below. We were talking impatience with the inertia to which others succumb.
about nothing in particular, I was tired, it was late, After a couple of years at No 10 that had started to look
I had a bag slung over my shoulder. like botching, Rabelaisian statecraft and a dishonesty
This sounds like the preamble to a subplot on so comprehensive it wrecked the trust essential for
Casualty, and so it might because I tripped and fell; representative government. Eventually that produced
I had a fall. It is not the first time I have fallen in the irresistible drag and down he came.
street, but it was the first of this new kind of fall, which I was talking the other day to a former colleague of
has arrived in the same year as my senior railcard. “The Johnson and to an eminent Shakespeare critic. The
ground rose up to hit me,” older people tell you, and that question arose: which Shakespeare character is he?
is exactly what it felt like. One moment I was walking They said, simultaneously, Falstaff. A paragon of vanity,
along, talking to my friend, the next I was sprawled in mendacity, idleness and debauchery — I could not
the street, wondering how long it would take before possibly comment — but also charismatic, life-
I felt pain — and what, precisely, I had broken. affirming and, according to Shakespeare’s
A finger, as it turned out, which throbbed all the way contemporary Leonard Digges, so popular with
to Euston. I took some painkillers and a mini Balvenie audiences his appearance guaranteed a sell-out.
and slept badly, watching reels on Facebook of base Falstaff is given the boot by his prince before he can
jumpers with GoPros strapped to their heads plunging do any serious damage and the last we hear of him
from cliffs and skyscrapers and bridges. And I dreamt is in Henry V, when Mistress Quickly, keeper of
about Boris Johnson, or rather the fall of Boris Johnson. his favourite bawdy house, reports to that prince,
One of the most enduring images of our soon-to-be- now king, his death from debauchery.
former prime minister comes from a happier time when Everywhere people are asking: what now for
he was mayor of London and a zip-wire malfunction Johnson? Will he continue to be the buffoonish
left him hanging in a harness, gamely waving Union Machiavel, now seeking the fulfilment of
Jacks at a delighted crowd. It illustrated so well his Mr boundless ambition from the sidelines? Will he
Toad persona — Poop-poop! — but also demonstrated be waiting for the game to reload, a Game Boy
his unusual capacity for defying gravity. I cannot think Churchill eager for another go? Will he be
of any other British politician who has managed to Falstaffian, seeking cash and favours in borrowed
withstand so much downward force for so long. accommodation, full of sack and capon?
What goes up must come down. In pastoral ministry These are sketches, approximations, projections
we frequently deal with the fallen, and quite often it of our own feelings and impressions on to a person
GES happens not as a consequence of their vices alone but who is as unknowable and elusive as any other. We
MA their accompanying virtues also, their best qualities fit their fall into the narrative we create, their
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GAZI bringing down archbishops this way, so their downfalls continue to live their unpredictable and unknowable
MA are wrought by their own well-intentioned work lives. And after a fall sometimes there follows a
MES rather than direct enemy action. Alphege, the first to moment of realisation — even for those who seem
DAY TI sublimely uninterested in holding themselves to
N account — of what drives them, what they long for,
U
HE S Will he be a Game Boy what they fear. An inventory, perhaps, of what is
OR T broken, where the pain comes from, whence the look of
ARNES F Churchill, waiting for hcaonrr boer tohne t mhea kfaicnegs o off t thheo msea anr onu nd you. The unmaking
M B the game to reload? Matt Rudd returns next week
O
T
The Sunday Times Magazine • 5
R E L A T I V E V A L U E S
André and Pierre Rieu
The Dutch violinist and his son on waltzing to stardom with the Johann Strauss Orchestra
André
transport. The cost nearly bankrupted us [the
My dad was the conductor of the Maastricht Symphony production left them €34 million in debt], but the
Orchestra, and he was definitely a conductor at home global media attention it brought was priceless.
too. He was very austere, directing us kids. He never I said to Pierre just last week, “How many concerts
showed love or said he was proud of me. My mother have we actually done since the start?” We did a
was worse. The only music allowed at home was rough count and figured it was at least 3,000. I’ve
classical. I’d never heard of the Beatles, only Bach and sold 45 million albums and before Covid we were
Beethoven. It was my wife, Marjorie [whom Rieu performing to 600,000 people annually.
married in 1975], who introduced me to popular music. Pierre and I can speak about everything, and I
My father was always working, so I did learn the value genuinely accept his guidance. He brings me back
of grafting from him. I showed musical promise from down to earth — like when he pointed out how much
a young age, which you’d think would thrill my father, our elaborate stage chandeliers were costing to ship.
but it was a source of friction. I wasn’t very good at I wasn’t a strict parent like mine were. Pierre could
school; I was a dreamer, always looking at the girls and bring girls into his room. I remember entering one
the blue sky. I followed my dream anyway and studied time and he was lying in bed with a girl — I made my
at the Music Academy in Brussels, finally graduating quick excuses and left. I should have started playing
from the Royal Conservatory of Brussels in 1977. the violin! I wanted to be a different parent from my
The lightbulb moment for my Johann Strauss father, so our home was filled with love, not pressure.
Orchestra came when a local theatre director in Marjorie and I talked about our feelings with both
Limburg said he wanted to organise Strauss evenings our sons [Marc, their eldest, is an artist]. I love being
with ballet, and could I arrange the music? But there a grandparent to five too.
were only five of us working for him and I said it Covid was a worrying time because I had 120 people
wouldn’t sound right. So that gave me the idea to form to pay, without any tour income. I consider the
a bigger orchestra of my own [in 1987]. I went knocking orchestra my family, so it was morally important to me
on the doors of record promoters and performing at to do this. It cost millions. I was even thinking about
weddings and restaurants until things took off.
Did I think it could grow into this worldwide
phenomenon? My gut said yes because it’s a way of Performing gives me energy. After
bringing classical music to the masses in a fun, relaxed
a concert my tuxedo is wringing
environment. I’d seen Strauss waltzes performed as
encores growing up and I looked around and saw the
wet but I could go on for hours
whole audience getting involved. That’s what makes
our orchestra special. There are lots of laughs and we
want to get up and dance in the aisles. I never wanted
to do things the way a traditional orchestra does.
Performing gives me energy. When I come off stage
at the end of a concert my tuxedo is wringing wet but
I could go on for another three hours. I want to send the
audience home with smiles on their faces. But before
I go on I’m nervous, I don’t know whether we’ll succeed.
I design everything, from the backdrops to the
orchestra’s attire. Pierre has been around since he was
a little boy, helping out, and then came to work for me
as a production manager at 19. I’m a detail freak and
back then, before the backdrops were digital, I noticed
some cracks in one and I pulled him up on it. He then
taught me an important lesson: when the first thing out Main: André, 72, and
of my mouth is a criticism, it’s not helpful for morale. Pierre, 41, backstage
I dream and Pierre makes it happen. In 2008, when at the OVO Arena
I asked him to build an exact replica of Vienna’s Wembley. Right:
Schönbrunn Palace, he did. He had to build two more together in
after that, due to the time it took to dismantle and Maastricht in 1982
6 • The Sunday Times Magazine
P O R T R A I T B Y P A U L S T U A R T
selling my beloved Stradivarius [the 1667 violin is so S T R A N G E the job done. The company had grown so fast and along
valuable it has its own bodyguard]. I could always buy the way some people had abused André’s trust. He isn’t
H A B I T S
another one, but I can’t replace my work family. a trained entrepreneur — he’s a violinist.
I don’t like the snobbery of traditional classical music. André has taught me by doing, rather than telling
It’s often pigeonholed as austere. I’m an entertainer André on Pierre me. He had a dream, he followed it and achieved it. He
and music brings people together. I’m so glad to have He’s obsessed isn’t weighed down by boundaries. Except ultimately
Pierre with me on this journey. with restoring the ones I give him, now that I’m the company VP and
vehicles from producer. I’m probably the only person, apart from my
Pierre
the Second mother, who can actually do that. But it has not been
André was always there for me growing up. When World War an easy dynamic to establish. One of the first things I
my brother, Marc, and I were at school he practised so changed was to bring more equity between the various
when we returned home he was waiting for us. In the Pierre on André groups in the company, like the crew and the musicians.
evenings, after putting us to bed, he’d walk across the He sometimes We now eat and travel together.
street to be picked up by the bus for the Limburg likes to ride When my children were born 13 years ago, I say I fell
Symphony Orchestra. There were hopes that I’d have a bike during down the ladder from being his son to being the father
some musical talent, but when I grew frustrated with rehearsals of his beloved grandchildren. When the children
practising the violin before school one morning were babies he always made sure to stop his tour bus
I crushed it over my brother’s head. It’s not for nothing at our house before going home to see Mum. Bringing
that people say you shouldn’t teach your own children. happiness to people is key for André. I would love to
After school I went to study law, but I soon dropped help with his dream of making it big in the US. No
out to join the family business. I loved the behind-the- dream is too challenging for us together n
scenes buzz of his concerts, but there were troubles in
the company. I came on board to help sort things out. Interviews by Sarah Ewing.
There I was, a 19-year-old newbie, trying to corral Happy Days Are Here Again! will be in cinemas
40 roadies. It was hard, but André trusted me to get from August 27; andreincinemas.com
The Sunday Times Magazine • 7
How I made
myself at
home in
Trump’s
White
House
8 • The Sunday Times Magazine
Kellyanne Conway,
the former US
president’s queen of
“alternative facts”,
tells Josh Glancy
about her bond with
her boss — and the
war it sparked with
her husband and
daughter
The Sunday Times Magazine • 9
husband from hell” was Trump’s she knows how to navigate the court of
characteristic counterpunch. King Donald. If he runs again, expect him
“I didn’t respond at the time,” to have her by his side.
Conway tells me as we mull it Conway, 55, sat at the centre of the
all over in two long phone presidential soap opera, but she was also
conversations. “I didn’t respond in the star of perhaps the strangest subplot of
kind when the tweeting men in my the Trump era, in what was admittedly a
life, President Trump and George crowded field. When Trump tussled his
Conway, were going at it. People way to victory in 2016, Conway and her
wondered out loud if [George and I] husband — a renowned conservative lawyer
had a plan, some kind of plot or scheme. — were a golden couple in Trumpworld.
There was no plan. If this was all done They had an apartment in one of Trump’s
for show, please remove me from the towers. George was talked about as a
starring role, cancel the rest of the season possible pick for Trump’s solicitor general.
and refund the audience’s money. Because But he didn’t get that job, or any other in the
nobody told me this. Put your popcorn administration. After becoming convinced
down. It’s not a show, it’s my life.” that Trump was a dangerous madman, he
No one captured the spirit of the Trump joined the resistance as a central figure in
hen it comes to settling scores, Kellyanne era quite as perfectly as Conway. Campaign the Lincoln Project, a much-maligned
Conway is just as adept as her erstwhile manager, senior White House counsellor, group of moderate Republicans who
boss Donald Trump. After four tumultuous spinner without equal, purveyor of ganged together to try to wind Trump up
years as a senior counsellor of the good ship “alternative facts” (her own infamous and bring him down.
Donald, Conway bided her time when she phrase, coined about the crowd size at It began with the odd tweet but soon
left the White House in 2020. The hush was Trump’s 2017 inauguration), the flaxen- mushroomed into full-blown, full-time,
never going to last, though. Now she has haired New Jersey politico took her boss’s full-throttle opposition: a barrage of Twitter
unleashed a broadside memoir against all pugnacious energy and casual relationship threads, columns and interviews lamenting
who wronged her: the liberal media, the with the truth into TV studios across the the damage Trump was doing to America.
Democrats, Jared Kushner, Steve Bannon land. When Trump wanted to ban The Conway marriage became the talk of
and — most notably — her husband, immigrants from a selection of majority- gossip-addled Washington. Was it still
George, who after being a prominent Muslim countries, Conway was out there functioning? If so, how? By the time the
Trump supporter fell out with the former claiming that two Iraqi refugees had Conways’ daughter Claudia, then 15 years
president in spectacular fashion and committed the “Bowling Green massacre”, old, weighed in with a series of TikToks
launched a one-man mission to bring him which never happened. By surviving almost savaging her parents — even at one point
down, baffling onlookers as to what on earth a full term in the nest of vipers that was revealing that her mother had contracted
was going on. “Stone cold LOSER & a Trump’s White House, Conway proved Covid-19 — the world was intrigued,
bemused and a little saddened by the
damage that politics, social media and the
harsh light of exposure appeared to be
Left: Donald Trump doing to this family.
shows appreciation Conway is not one to let others have the
for his campaign last word and her book is a feast of cattiness
manager at an and self-justification. “You abandoned me
election night rally, for Twitter,” she rages at George. “And she’s
November 2016 not even hot.”
During the Trump years Conway often
Previous pages: — and understandably — responded to
Conway’s Oval speculation about her marriage with
Office decorum was George by telling reporters it was none of
called into question their damn business. In fact when I ask her
in 2017 when she how things are between them now, she tells
knelt on the sofa me the same thing. “I didn’t allow Trump to
during a meeting affect my marriage, George did,” she says.
with leaders from “These questions are really for him. You
historically black have to ask him if it was worth it, to change
colleges and his mind. Trump didn’t change, I didn’t
universities change — George changed.”
In truth, though, she has plenty to say on
the matter: the book is absolutely brimming
with jibes at George. Conway writes about
how her husband “descended into the
quicksand of Twitter” and “violated our
marriage vows” by making his feelings
about Trump public instead of having a
confidential conversation among spouses.
She calls him “boorish”, complains how
much he “loved the attention” of the
anti-Trump media and criticises his
“sneaky, almost sinister” habit of going on
television to attack her boss without telling
10 • The Sunday Times Magazine