The Benn Diaries: 1940-1990 (83 page)

Cabinet, and we came to the very important White Paper on pay,
Winning the Battle against Inflation
. Jim began by indicating that the Liberals would not support us on the control of dividends, and Michael called for it to be published on Monday.

We dealt with percentages and what we should do about low pay.

Denis said, ‘We should accept the 5 per cent limit recommended in the paper. The unions won’t endorse any guidelines but they do accept that the Government has a responsibility in this field and are only really expecting 5 per cent. The CBI can’t give a commitment but they like it very much.’

David Owen favoured the 5 per cent, as did Roy Hattersley, who said that 7 per cent would be too high and would mean higher inflation.

Stan Orme was absolutely opposed to a norm.

I suggested we put in an amendment, as we had last year, to the effect that the Government’s intention was to retain the level of real incomes in the current pay year.

Jim said, ‘5 per cent it is, and I have told the unions that they have all the weapons. We are naked in their presence and we need their co-operation. I said that at Durham and got a warm response.’

Sunday 30 July

The big news today is that the Attorney-General has announced that charges in the Jeremy Thorpe affair are imminent. The whole of British politics may now erupt over this. It will certainly affect the Liberal Party’s Election prospects.

Since there is no certainty that the Liberals are going to put up a candidate against me, I may be fighting a much harder battle with the Tories. I shall appeal quite openly to all the radical liberals in my constituency to vote Labour, and I’ll just have to hope that enough of them do.

Wednesday 2 August

Caroline came to dinner at the House – the anniversary of the day we met thirty years ago. We went up to sit in my room for the last vote before the recess was called: maybe the last vote of this Parliament.

Friday 4 August

Jeremy Thorpe was arrested today, along with three others, and taken to Minehead police station, where they were charged with conspiracy to murder Norman Scott. They were released on bail of £5,000 each, put up by Eric Lubbock.

All the rumours that Thorpe is implicated have turned out to be correct. It is the most tragic story. Here is a well-connected, brilliant, amusing man who won North Devon from the Tories in 1959, became Leader of the Liberal Party when he was in his thirties after Jo Grimond retired, and who in February 1974 carried the Party to its greatest electoral achievement since the war. And he has had this terrible anxiety on his mind, being blackmailed by this male model. The man is completely broken. The charge of conspiring to murder is obviously very serious, and if he is convicted there can be little doubt that he will go to prison. Inexpressibly sad.

The question now will be how much did Harold Wilson try to cover it up to protect Thorpe for political purposes?

Wednesday 6 September

Joan Lestor rang and told me that, at Brighton yesterday, Jim Callaghan had asked her where she was going to be over the next few days. She’s convinced an Election is imminent and thinks 28 September is a possibility, in which case the Election timetable would be very tight.

Thursday 7 September

Went into the office and found they were re-laying the carpet, which seemed very significant.

Cabinet at 10.30, and I was sure the Election was going to be announced. We met without officials present. Jim said that there had been much speculation and he had consulted his Ministers, especially Michael Foot and Denis Healey, but the responsibility was
his
, although it affected all our fates, and it was an enormous responsibility. He had considered other factors such as the Devolution Referendum, and the fact that according to most opinion polls Labour voters do not want an Election – though our activists do – and he announced that he’d written to the Queen last night to say that he did not propose to seek the dissolution of Parliament.

I was most surprised, and indeed angry that the Cabinet had not discussed a decision of this magnitude. The letter to the Queen had been sent, and that was it. I later discovered that he had decided this course on 17 August, so when he asked for our opinions last week, as a result of which I wrote to him, it was already a
fait accompli
.

He thought we might get a majority in Parliament on the Queen’s Speech debate and we would fight when we could see the prospect of outright victory. We could win now, but he said the position would be dearer once the improvement in the economy was felt more fully. He wanted to disprove the idea that governments just go for an Election at the first sign of a blue sky and he intended to make that point in his broadcast tonight. There would be difficulties ahead in the winter, but he wanted the electorate to see the full picture and not just the first stage of our recovery, because the real question was whether an early Election would help with unemployment, pay, or any
of the problems facing us, and the answer was no. He said he would prefer that there be no discussion of this matter because he could not unwrite the letter to the Queen.

Sunday 24 September

To Hyde Park to address the Anti-Nazi League rally. There was a lorry with a steel band playing, and there were tens of thousands of young people. The average age was about twenty to twenty-five, and there were banners and badges and punk rockers, just a tremendous gathering of people. It was certainly the biggest meeting that I had ever attended in this country – bigger than the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders demos in Glasgow.

A speaker from the Socialist Workers’ Party spoke from the platform first, followed by Arthur Scargill and me. Tom Robinson, a gay pop star and a committed socialist, sang. Bill Keys, General Secretary of SOGAT, and Dennis Skinner were there. As far as I know, Dennis and I were the only two Labour MPs. Multiracial rock music has given the movement leadership and it is a tragedy that the Labour Party can’t give a firmer lead, but it has never done so.

Tuesday 26 September

Moss Evans and I talked for an hour and a half; considering he has the Ford pay claim and a national Ford strike on his hands, it was amazing that he could come at all. I asked him how it was going. ‘I notice Terry Beckett (Chairman of Ford) got an 80 per cent pay increase today,’ I said.

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘we’ve known that was coming for ages – profit-linked of course. It just isn’t on; Ford have made great profits and our people have contributed to it.’

Moss told me it would cost the union a quarter of a million pounds a week to keep the Ford strike going, and they could borrow more money, interest free, from other unions.

He looked out of the corner of his eye to see my reaction to all this. I was quite impassive, and I said, ‘I just want to know how we’re going to get out of it without being painted into a corner like Ted Heath was. Jim feels that reducing expectations is the right thing to do.’

‘Yes,’ said Moss, ‘when you talk to Jim he says, “The mass of the people are with us and will continue to support us”, but, you know, the rank and file of our people are the public too. We have a million and a quarter T&G workers and we are just as much members of the public as those who don’t want wage increases. You can’t re-create the Social Contract, you just can’t do it. You’ve got to have flexibility now, we’ve got to be able to renegotiate in industry.’

Friday 29 September – Labour Party Conference, Blackpool

Sir Fred Catherwood, Chairman of the Overseas Trade Board, Terence
Beckett, and today Joe Gormley and Ray Buckton have all been attacking the rigidity of the 5 per cent pay limit. Jim is digging his heels in and Denis Healey had been in Washington saying the same thing to the IMF.

Saturday 30 September

Pope John Paul died yesterday after only thirty-three days as Pope.

Barbara Castle is extremely keen to have a vote tomorrow, though she herself intends to abstain. She is anxious to crucify the Executive over the very issue on which she was crucified in 1969, when she was forced to drop
In Place of Strife
.

Sunday 1 October

To the National Executive to consider the motions to Conference. Barbara Castle had an emergency resolution opposing the EMS but she took twenty minutes to speak on it. She quoted Harold, Jim, Roy Jenkins, the Party, the TUC and so on. She doesn’t know when to stop.

Anyway, we voted, and Barbara’s motion denouncing and rejecting the EMS was carried by 16 to 9 – a tremendous success.

There is great excitement and there is no doubt it is the Left’s Conference. Jim can’t ignore that completely.

Monday 2 October

Joan Lestor delivered her Chairman’s address, ending with a quote from Tawney, and that was followed by an overwhelming vote against smoking at the Conference, so that was the end of my pipe.

Denis Healey breezed in and made an awful speech about how we must all support Jim and so on. After Michael had wound up with a call for loyalty, to everyone’s amazement the motion against the 5 per cent was not remitted but carried by about 4 million to 1 million, and the alternative strategy motion was carried without a vote. The Right tried to be clever by endorsing the Government’s stand on economic and monetary policy and calling on the Movement to support it, as part of a general vote of thanks to the Labour Government. They thought they’d get it through but it was actually defeated by 3 million to 2.8 million. The result was dazzling, and Jim’s whole position now is endangered.

It’s hard to know how to react, because the IMF and the City of London may withdraw their support from the Government, and Heath and Steel might offer to back Jim up. The trade union leaders will be embarrassed by all this, but their rank and file had to be allowed to speak. We can’t do anything without the support of the whole Labour Movement.

I refused all requests for interviews because it only makes trouble.

In the evening I went with Caroline and Stephen to Tiffany’s Ballroom
for the Labour Agents’ Ball, where the big news was that Jim had decided not to attend – the first time in years that he’d missed it. The agents, who are mostly right-wing machine men, were utterly demoralised by the vote.

Tuesday 3 October

Yesterday’s vote against the Right’s motion in support of the Government was significant because it prevented the Conference from facing both ways, as it did last year.

So Jim started the day with a handicap, though I must say he went on to make the best speech I had ever heard from a Party leader at Conference. He was modest and fair, and he said that nowhere else could such an intelligent debate about pay policy be held. Yesterday’s debate was outstanding for its relevance, and for the experience of those who argued the case.

‘But the White Paper stands,’ he said, ‘and we have to prevent inflation from rising. Conference defeated the Government’s pay policy yesterday and that was a dramatic moment.’

He went on to talk about the Government’s achievements, about the caring society and participation and pressure groups. I sent him a little note, which I heard later was well received.

Wednesday 4 October

Dennis Skinner was fresh from his NEC victory and looked slightly manic and aggressive. Eric said, ‘That man frightens me. Is he really democratic?’ Dennis is a pyrotechnic; he isn’t frightening at all. He’s just pleased because it’s another left-winger on the NEC.

Monday 9 October

It is a fortnight tomorrow since I last wrote to Merlyn Rees reminding him about my question of whether my telephone had been intercepted, so I decided to write again.

I don’t know why I have plucked up my courage so much, but I have no intention of being diverted from it now.

Tuesday 10 October

Anthony Tucker of the
Guardian
came to see me, and I told him that I believed he was right about being victimised over his stand on nuclear issues. He said, ‘It’s not just me. Professor Lindop of Bart’s Hospital, who is a member of the Flowers Commission and is a well-known expert on radiological protection, wrote an article for a paper in the East of England. She was violently attacked in a letter from Michael Michaels.’ (Michael Michaels was my Under-Secretary at the Ministry of Technology.)

He also pointed out that there was a Euro-nuclear link, in that pro-Common Market people were also pro-nuclear, as I am well aware. He maintained that John Hill, Chairman of the AEA, had complained to the Editor of the
Guardian
about what he, Tucker, had been writing. As a result, Tucker had been undermined. He gave me a copy of a memorandum that he had written to the Editor and I drafted a minute saying that I would not have the Department penalising journalists because they were critical of our policy. When I showed it to James Bretherton afterwards, he advised me to consult Bernard Ingham, since it did imply a criticism of him.

Wednesday 11 October

As I was about to go to a press conference at 5, I saw a brown envelope marked ‘Personal’ in my tray and, though I yearned to open it, I went to the press first.

Back upstairs I read the letter, which was from Merlyn Rees, and it was astonishing. He apologised for the delay, said that he thought the acknowledgement made it clear he
had
seen my letter, but that I could not be told whether or not my telephone was being intercepted. That had been the practice and he was not prepared to vary it in respect of a Member of Parliament. The fact that I am a Privy Councillor, a Cabinet colleague and a senior member of the Government made no difference to him.