The Benn Diaries: 1940-1990 (57 page)

I said, ‘I’m very sorry but what did you think the fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance of wealth and power was all about if it wasn’t this? I’ve made endless speeches about this over the years and you must take them seriously. If people don’t take them seriously and choose to present the argument in another way, well that’s a problem for them. What I’m trying to do is to take the enormous power of the trade union movement and harness it to productive effort.’

‘Well, Secretary of State, the problem is that you are trying to proceed with seven-league boots, and we think you’ve got to go more slowly,’ he replied.

‘Maybe seven-league boots,’ I said, ‘but I’ve been in the Department for seven months and I’m not aware of having done anything, made any progress at all. I’ve spent no money, got no legislation through, and I’m trying to get some indication that things are moving at all.’

Then he said that other officials felt that I was difficult to work with, and
although they were absolutely loyal in interdepartmental discussions, officials in other departments had said on occasions that the Secretary of State for Industry had gone completely off his rocker.

‘My view is perfectly straightforward. I try to say the same thing at the Conference, in Parliament and in the Department – and I don’t agree that these ideas are so very absurd Of course, I’m in a minority in the Cabinet.’

‘Ah well, you’re thought of as a devious Minister who mobilises people outside in support of your view in the Cabinet.’

Whether he was threatening to resign or not, I don’t know, but there was a sort of vague hint of warning in the exchange. Part really is an impossible man, and I would get rid of him if I could. Roy Williams said it was quite untrue that officials found me difficult to work with. There were a lot of them who were extremely attracted by the ideas, and loyal to them. He thought that Secretary was speaking more for himself.

Tuesday 29 October

I heard that there is a plan to put armed guards to protect all Cabinet Ministers, after yesterday’s car bomb in Dennis Howell’s wife’s car.

Friday 8 November

To the NVT motorcycle works at Small Heath in Birmingham for what turned out to be a very hostile meeting with about fifty shop stewards. I made a short speech and then they turned on me. ‘You’re just a tin-pot king thinking you can impose your will. You don’t care about the jobs here. Why should the Meriden works have help? Is it really a co-operative?’

From there I went in to the mass meeting in the canteen, where there were two or three thousand workers. Not a single shop steward wanted to come on the platform with me so I climbed on by myself, sat on the table and picked up the mike. It was a pretty rough, hostile meeting. I described what had happened and that I would try to give them an assurance of their future if we could get an expansion programme going.

Poore had clearly recognised that the feelings of the shop stewards and of the workers at Small Heath were against the Meriden co-operative. He had said this to me many times and I hadn’t believed him, but it seems that he was to some extent right.

After that, the Meriden shop stewards Bill Lapworth, Dennis Johnson, John Grattan and Geoffrey Robinson and I talked until 9. Broadly the strategy we worked on was this: we would get the shop stewards from all three plants together, and work for the objective of public ownership for all three plants in a British motorcycle corporation.

Caught the train back to London and got home exhausted.

I did get a clear feeling from today’s events of an alarming situation; there was the militancy of people sticking to their jobs, which I fully support, but at
the same time, the fear of slump means that workers will turn against workers and working-class solidarity will be strained to its utmost.

Friday 22 November

I walked through St James’s Park and got to Number 10 at 10.30, where the joint meeting of the Cabinet and NEC was taking place up in the State Dining Room.

Harold began by announcing that owing to the bombing in Birmingham last night, he wouldn’t play much of a part in the discussion but he hoped to look in and out. In fact, he disappeared altogether and except for one walk through the room later, he kept himself absolutely clear of the whole business.

The bombing story is absolutely dominant with anger rising, a petrol bomb thrown into a Catholic church, some factories in Birmingham refusing to work with Irish workers. The damage done to Irish people here, even though they may be Protestants, is terrible, every one a victim of this same awful process of escalating violence.

Monday 25 November

Walked across the park again this morning. The John Stonehouse drowning is a bit mysterious. Bob Mellish had dug out a Hansard text of the last written question John Stonehouse asked before he disappeared, requesting the statistics on death by drowning. It was a most extraordinary coincidence – or else very mysterious. People don’t believe he’s dead. They think that with the financial trouble that he’s in, he’s just disappeared. Coastguards on the Florida coast say that he certainly didn’t swim out more than fifty yards because they monitor all swimmers who go out that distance. I can’t bring myself to write to his wife, I don’t know what to say.

Cabinet met at 10.30 and the first item on the agenda was the report from the Home Secretary on Northern Ireland. His paper outlined the measures he proposed: to outlaw the IRA and other organisations, to provide for closer border checks with the Republic and to take powers to deport certain Irish people in Great Britain who had lived here for less than twenty years back to the Republic or Northern Ireland. The main provisions were to be temporary and would expire after six months unless continued in force by an order.

They were emergency powers of a pretty Draconian kind, including the power to extend the detention period from forty-eight hours to seven days on the Home Secretary’s instructions.

Harold Wilson asked, ‘I take it we’ll include other terrorist organisations’ and Roy replied, ‘Yes, but not the Palestine Liberation Organisation – or the NUM, no matter how difficult they get!’

Later, I saw Don Ryder and I offered him the chairmanship of the NEB, which was a bit of a formality since he already knew about it through
Harold. He is very managerial, rather conceited and he thinks he is the cat’s whiskers. But he will carry a degree of confidence and that’s about as far as I need to take it. I think if I give him a couple of strong union men he’ll be under a bit more pressure than he might expect.

I talked to Frances about the whole impact of the civil war that has begun. Three postboxes were blown up at Victoria, King’s Cross and Piccadilly today. It is very alarming and one doesn’t know what’s going to happen but I suppose we’ll have to learn to live with it like the Irish do in Northern Ireland. There’s no doubt in my mind that we shall have to get out.

Monday 9 December

Frank McElhone arrived and I took him home for a meal. As he spoke to Caroline and me, it all came out again, his absolute disenchantment with my performance. He said that the Parliamentary Party remains centre and left, and that if I didn’t give some attention to the centre of the Party, I would never have any chance whatever. He still had great faith in me but he said I really did have to take this seriously now; even the Market was going to slip through, with only the Left voting against it.

Obviously, he was sick of the fact that I haven’t made much use of him over the last seven months, haven’t listened, and that there’ve been no perks of office. Then he said, ‘Look, I’ve got ten premium bonds in the bank. I haven’t got a penny behind me. I’ve just put a new loft in the house and I’ve told the children that if the Scottish Nationalist advance goes on, and I lose my seat, we’re back to a council flat, in the ghetto. We’ll just go back to where we started.’

He made it clear that his work with me made him hated both in the Lobby and the PLP, and he now feels that this makes life too difficult I think he suspects that his chances of becoming a Minister would be greater if he severed his link with me, and he needs the money as a Minister. I think that’s it, and I’ve done nothing for him: it’s very human and understandable. So, he actually wants to break the link as my PPS. He says that we’ll still be friends and that he’ll do what he can for me, but he does not want that organic link.

Saturday 14 December

Rang Joe Ashton and asked his advice on who I should appoint as my new PPS. He agreed to do it himself, saying, ‘I wouldn’t do it for anyone else, and I wouldn’t do it for you for a long period, but at this particular moment you need your friends around you, so I’ll help.’

That’s settled then. I’m very pleased because I like Joe; he gets on well with the media people, he has a good solid trade union background, he’s a journalist of note and linked very closely with the trade union movement, and as he is Chairman of the Industry Group of MPs we shall work very closely together.

Thursday 26 December

Boxing Day. Continued the draft of my letter to my constituents on the Common Market. I identified the five changes that would occur as a result of Common Market membership, stressing that I was writing as an MP and not as a Minister. I was not dealing with the arguments for or against entry. I added that I was ready to accept the verdict of the referendum but that we should respect each other’s views, and so on.

Saturday 28 December

Up early and stapled the copies together then sent them round to all nationals, to the Press Association, to the
Western Daily Press
, to the
Bristol Evening Post
, to Harold Wilson, to Joe Ashton, to the office, to Michael Foot and to Peter Shore. The copies went out at 12.30 and that was the die cast, though the release time is not until 1 pm on Sunday. I sat tight and waited to see what would happen. Sure enough, at 6.20, one of Wilson’s Private Secretaries rang and said the Prime Minister had received the text of my letter and wanted to know whether the copies have already gone out to the press. So I said, ‘Yes, they have, but if you are speaking to him, you might draw his attention to the fact that I do not deal with the renegotiation at all, simply the constitutional change that has occurred.’ He told me that I would be receiving a personal message later tonight from the Prime Minister. Then I did begin to think that he was going to make this the occasion for firing me and I became slightly anxious.

On the other hand, the issue is so crucial that I couldn’t possibly withdraw this one to please him. I rang Peter, who asked if there was any reason why I shouldn’t hold it back for a bit if the Prime Minister asked me to. It would be almost impossible to ring round all the papers and cancel it and I didn’t intend to do that. But it would be very disappointing to be fired at this moment.

Left for Stansgate at 7.30, and within a few minutes of arriving there, the phone rang and it was Roy Williams. He had had a telephone call from Stewart, one of the Prime Minister’s Private Secretaries, with the following message:

I said to Roy Williams that he should ring Stewart to say he had transmitted the message to me and that I did not believe that I had contravened the decision of 12 December; indeed, I did not recall having received the letter Harold referred to, responding to our joint request that Cabinet Ministers should be allowed to differ over the Common Market. Roy Williams couldn’t recall having received it either. So if the Prime Minister has made an error and this letter did not reach me, that puts me in a slightly stronger position.

But I emphasised he should say to Stewart that as the Prime Minister’s message contains a reference to documents, I would have to wait until Monday until I could have access to those documents and then I would send a minute in reply. This means that on Monday, in a fairly leisurely way, I can get the documents and study them and compose a very short response. I am not going to get locked into a long correspondence with the PM. He’s a very curious man; he simply won’t talk to any of his colleagues, he has to communicate by correspondence which creates an arm’s length relationship that is entirely artificial and unreal.

Sunday 29 December

Very nice to be away from the rush and furore. Joshua was busy with his car.

Came upstairs and began listening anxiously to the 1 o’clock news, which contained a reasonable summary of my letter. ‘The Secretary of State for Industry has made an attack upon the Common Market and said the British people would be signing away their democratic rights if we remain in the Common Market.’ They went on to list some of the democratic rights that I had said would be affected. There was no comment and there was an interview with Harold which had obviously been recorded before he went to the Scilly Isles.