Nadine Dorries and Nicky Haslam are perched on the big green sofa in her sitting room in the Cotswolds, surrounded by wallpaper samples, fabric swatches, photos of exquisite Louis XV armchairs and a cloud of cigarette smoke and bickering happily.
About colour schemes for her new home. And a television in a wooden cabinet with bifold doors that the former culture secretary has set her heart on.
‘No, no, no! SO middle class. You can’t have that,’ cries Nicky, appalled.
And, particularly, her suggestion of a ‘nice plaster ceiling rose’ in place of the overhead light. ‘Vile, absolutely vile! You are certainly not getting a ceiling rose. They are the most awful, common thing in this whole world.’
They can’t even agree on when they became best friends.
‘We met at a party in London,’ says Nicky, 86, and today a vision in a brown corduroy suit, burgundy cravat, cap, beaded bracelets and lovely white teeth.
‘No, no, no, sweetie, it was in the Cotswolds,’ says Nadine, 68, in understated beige.
‘No, DARLING,’ says Nicky firmly, fag in hand. ‘It was in London. With Joan Collins. And I remember because there’s always an instant with someone you really immediately love. They do one little thing when you meet them, like say, “God, doesn’t Joan Collins look awful!” and you love them for ever!’
And he laughs and stubs out his cigarette as Nadine makes frantic shush signs from her end of the sofa and mutters, ‘Oh my God, you are going to get me into so much trouble! It wasn’t even me who said it.’
Anyway, with apologies to Dame Joan – maybe she was having an off day – that was more than two years ago and, ever since, the pair have been great, if unlikely, besties.
Nadine Dorries and Nicky Haslam, surrounded by wallpaper samples and fabric swatches, can’t even agree on when they became friends
The former culture secretary’s suggestion of a ‘nice plaster ceiling rose’ in place of the overhead light prompts: ‘Vile, absolutely vile! You are certainly not getting a ceiling rose. They are the most awful, common thing in this whole world’
One, Britain’s most famous and poshest interior decorator who, over many years, has been best friends with everyone from Wallis Simpson to Andy Warhol, the Rolling Stones to Jean Shrimpton, has attended more parties than anyone on the planet and has said he loves a teeny bump of cocaine before, well, any major activity.
The other, of course, a writer, columnist for this paper and former politician who was brought up on a council estate in Liverpool, but who has done very nicely, thank you very much. For the past couple of years they have been hanging out at each other’s houses (barely five minutes apart in the Cotswolds) and at the pub.
But mostly at parties where Nicky smokes endlessly, drinks tequila and they both spend a lot of time discussing everyone else there. ‘Have you seen what she’s wearing? Oh dear!’
They are still marvelling at the awfulness of the Claridge’s Christmas tree unveiling party in December. ‘Oh my God, that party – ghastly. Ghastly!’ says Nicky, and makes a vomit face in utter disgust. ‘Though everyone wanted to talk to you – Bob Geldof, Richard E Grant…’ says Nadine.
Anyway, somewhere along the way, and perhaps foolishly, they agreed that Nicky would bring his brilliantly eclectic style to Nadine’s home – made of honey stone – and prise her away from her beloved beige. ‘I’m mostly retired, but what’s the point in having a friend who’s a decorator, if he doesn’t decorate your home,’ he says.
(In case you haven’t read about it in a recent column for this paper, Nadine recently downsized from a far bigger and grander house a few miles away, and it hasn’t been easy.)
‘The whole process blew my brain up. Downsizing was very hard and so emotional. My big house had status and prestige,’ she says very honestly. ‘I know I shouldn’t say it, but I couldn’t help thinking, “What are my friends going to think of me – that I’m broke? That I’m getting old?”’
So now she and her tiny house – of which Nicky strongly approves – have been added to a client list that includes the King, Sir Mick Jagger, Rod Stewart, Paolo Gucci, Brian Ferry, and fellow Cotswolds dweller Anne Robinson, who reportedly paid £200,000 a room for the pleasure.
Which means that Nicky is very much in charge. Which is a bit of a shock, because Nadine loves to be in control.
And because, well, so far it hasn’t gone entirely smoothly.
For starters, their styles are so very different.
A house designed by Nadine would be all creams and chromes. ‘Cotswold chic’, I think it’s called. All light and lovely with a nice bit of dark furniture – a bit like I’m dressed today’, she says, smoothing her beige dress down. And that is exactly Nicky’s worst nightmare.
‘Gah! Ghastly. That’s not decorating, that’s just styling. Anybody can do that – it’s just beige rot! For which I blame Kelly Hoppen, who I happen to like very much and is the sweetest person, but she’s got terrible ideas.’
He, meanwhile, loves colour, texture, an awful lot of beautiful furniture and endless things to catch the eye. ‘You need a lot of things to make a small room bigger. And never, ever, any ceiling lights. So common.’
Nicky has never really been one to keep his views to himself. He’s long been a self-styled arbiter of taste, and every Christmas since 2018 his annual list of 40 Things I Find Common has been printed on a tea towel (now £50), and has included everything from Bono, type 2 diabetes, Antony Gormley sculptures, Wordle and Kilner jars.
It always causes a social stir. Particularly last year, when he included the Welsh Guards. Naturally, he applies the same approach to decorating.
‘And please do call me a decorator,’ he interjects. ‘Because that’s what I am. NOT an interior designer. Anyone can do that.’ Unfortunately, a lot of his decorating bêtes noires would normally be on Nadine’s wish list.
Not just television cabinets and wall-to-wall cream in the hallway and stairs, where he’s now insisting on a cocoa-coloured floor with a wide mustard-and-yellow striped wallpaper.
‘Sometimes I have to guide you away from what you want,’ he says.
As well as ceiling lights – other than in a hallway where a pendant lamp is ‘OK’ – wall lights are also forbidden. ‘Lamps are better, but please, not pleated shades!’
And his head nearly blows off when Nadine says she fancies a nice bit of marble from a shop down the road called Marble World. ‘No, no, no. Real marble is disgusting. Looks horrible! So, so dreary. And I HATE green marble. Eughh!’
‘Unbe-f*****g-lievable!’ Nicky says of sourcing a beautiful Louis XV armchairs £1,000
Nicky’s exquisite hand-painted picture shows his vision for what Nadine’s bland box of a sitting room will become
He has also banned pretty much every stick of furniture she owns.
The two sofas – ‘wrong, wrong, wrong. The geometric rug – going. All the lighting. The three dark wood tables cluttering up the hallway – on the way out!’
(Which, presumably, is why, just before he arrived with his assistant, Flora, and bags and boxes of samples, she begged her builder to hide a new John Lewis shelving unit upstairs, so he wouldn’t see it. ‘Quick, quick, before he gets here – he’s not very good on the stairs.’)
In fact, he’s so fastidious that he can’t even look at a trio of pictures leaning against the wall. ‘No, no – they have to move. I can’t focus with them in my eyeline.’
The only thing he’s allowed her to keep is an antique cocktail cabinet that belonged to her late husband, Paul, who passed away in 2019.
‘I don’t love it, but you can’t really see it behind the door,’ he says. ‘Anyway, are the staff here going to make a cup of tea soon?’
So Nadine jumps up and pops to the kitchen to do the honours. And then he lights his fourth cigarette and really gets stuck in. Not about Nadine – ‘I adore her. I really do, but she needs help.’
But about ‘horrible, greasy Stanley Tucci, so overdressed and pleased with himself in his tiny clothes’. He met the American actor at the birthday party of his great friend, the late Jilly Cooper, down the road.
How, at the same party, he mistook Poldark heartthrob and one-time possible James Bond Aidan Turner for an Iranian taxi driver. ‘Tiny. Hideous. It was definitely him!’
And how much he adored both the late Queen – ‘wonderful woman who wrote me lots of nice notes’ – and the current Queen, with whom he has been great pals for years and finds ‘adorable’.
And how he’d never, ever decorate for the Beckhams.
‘Good God, no! I don’t want people with no taste! I want to work with people with good taste. They’ve got no idea. They wouldn’t know what taste is.’ It is only when I ask about William and Kate that he turns to his assistant, Flora, and asks, ‘What should I say?’
And she says firmly: ‘You must be very polite, Nicky.’ ‘Well he’s [William] my cousin so I can’t not be polite. Well… I think she does a very good job. Though I much prefer… no, no.I mustn’t say. Sorry, no. I’m not saying.’
And the smell of Californian rose petals hangs in the air for a moment as Nadine comes back in with the tea, and our conversation turns to his ‘proper friends’, like David Cameron – ‘though I didn’t think much of his politics’ – Jeremy Clarkson and Anne Robinson.
‘And they all adore Nadine – though maybe not Anne. Not yet.’
‘She’s terrifies me – scary, arch, forbidding!’ says Nadine.
‘She’s fun!’ says Nicky. ‘You just have to give her back what she gives you. And her autobiography [Memoirs Of An Unfit Mother] – fabulous! Really wonderful. One of the greatest books ever written!’
Nadine, in return, has taken him to parties at Boris and Carrie’s, her great pals down the road.
‘But he knew everyone there already! He always does. He’s an amazing raconteur and the best gossip you’ll ever meet and his phone rings constantly when you’re with him. It’ll be Lady Glenconner, Mick Jagger, Rupert Everett.’
Today, he’s a teeny bit unsteady on his feet – ‘We’re all getting on!’ – and despite a nasty chesty cough, gamely lights fag after fag, if not actually smoking much of each.
But there is absolutely nothing wrong with his sense of humour – making Nadine say ‘lesbian, lesbian, lesbian’ over and over during the photos, ‘because it’s the best word to make your face look good’.
Or his extraordinary talent for design.
Once we’ve cleared Nadine’s furniture a bit, he unfurls an exquisite antique rug that will become the centrepiece for her sitting room.
‘Ravishing, ravishing!’ he cries in delight. ‘Look at the swans thrashing about in the corners!’
He shows us pictures of the beautiful Louis XV armchairs he’s somehow sourced for £1,000 – ‘Unbe-f*****g-lievable!’ he says. ‘I love to save money!’
And, finally, he hands Nadine an exquisite hand-painted picture of what her bland box of a sitting room will become.
It’s all pinks and greens and textures and wonderful and you immediately want to be in that room, sitting on the sofa.
‘Oh my God. Oh my God,’ she cries. ‘You’ve blown my mind.
‘It’s not very beige. But it’s very beautiful. It’s gorgeous – all that furniture!‘
She seems to love it. At least on paper. It’s certainly very different from anything she’s ever lived in.
But most of all, she loves him. Impossible not to. What a brilliant, brilliant man.
So now for the big question, as the decorating team move in and her old furniture goes out.
Will she get used to all the chintz and lamps and those wild thrashing swans?
Will she invite us back to see the result?
And, most importantly, will they still be best friends, gossiping at parties about everybody else there, when it’s all over?
