The Benn Diaries: 1940-1990 (86 page)

Cabinet at 10.30, and it was one of the best discussions we’ve had in a long time.

School caretakers and maintenance workers are out on strike now, and Shirley Williams said there were picket lines outside many schools, in some cases supported by the teachers. The unions were saying that children and teachers could cross the picket lines but that no effort must be made to carry out the caretakers’ work. The strike of the maintenance men meant that temperatures in schools were falling below the 60-degree legal minimum, making it impossible to keep the schools open.

‘This is fantastic,’ said Jim. ‘When I was at school there were days when you couldn’t put your pen in the inkwell because the ink was frozen. What nonsense.’

Shirley pointed out that the Health and Safety regulations required it.

Jim asked how the Cabinet was going to survive. We had got to the point where indiscipline was threatening the life of the community and the Government must have a clear line. The situation was extremely grave and the Tories could win, giving Mrs Thatcher a mandate for the most violent anti-trade union policy. But at least the trains would run on time, he said.

He praised Peter for his speech in the Commons yesterday when he urged us to spell out that what was happening in this country was a threat to democratic society.

I didn’t believe that. ‘I have always worked on the principle that, where large numbers of people behave irrationally, something else is usually wrong. People feel a deep sense of injustice and they don’t feel properly represented. We have to be careful not to fall for this idea that everybody has just gone mad. David Owen says that what is happening is pure thuggery, but I doubt that. It can’t be easy for people to go on strike. They lose their income and they have a deep feeling of anxiety. When I was in Newcastle recently, I heard an NUJ man deliver the most violent attack on the management of his paper and he swore that he would die in the last ditch with the printers. I discovered that he was a Tory candidate for a north-east constituency.’

I said, ‘Look, PM, before we go any further, you have made many references to an Election but we’re not being asked as we go round this table to agree to an Election if this policy fails. That raises quite separate considerations.’

‘Well,’ Jim replied, ‘I am not ready to carry on. I am fed up with the NEC and a defeat this way would at least be an honourable end to this Cabinet. I’ll
tell the TUC that I’ve had enough because when I read their document, it really filled my cup of disillusionment to overflowing. Someone else can take up the leadership because I am not going on.’

Denis Healey said, ‘We all understand the strain you’re under as the “youngest” member of the Cabinet.’

‘All I can say,’ Jim replied, ‘is that if we have an Election we are likely to be defeated.’

I said, ‘I very much hope the minutes won’t record that’, and Sir John Hunt shook his head.

As we left the Cabinet, I was so annoyed with what Denis had said earlier about middle-class guilt and so on that I said, ‘Speaking as a peer of the realm, I hope nothing I have said will be attributed to middle-class guilt.’

Thursday 15 February

The Gallup Poll puts the Tories 20 per cent ahead.

Thursday 1 March

Cabinet at 10.30 and the first item concerned the devolution referenda in Scotland and Wales which are taking place today. Jim suggested we react slowly to tomorrow’s press stories. We had given people the choice and the Government must not rush to a decision.

Then Jim went on to the claim by nurses in NUPE, COHSE and the Royal College of Nursing, saying they were the ‘heroines of the hour’. But Denis felt it would be difficult to give the nurses more money even on the basis of the RCN commitment to no strike action.

At this stage Jim and Denis got engaged in a nasty exchange, with Jim pressing for more money for the nurses and Denis resisting. What would be the repercussions on the Health Service and the Civil Service?

‘Denis is trying to put me in the dock,’ said Jim. ‘I spend 80 per cent of my time on pay and I shall decide how to handle this.’

Friday 2 March

Today the results of the referenda were announced. The Welsh voted about 4 to 1 against devolution, and the the Scots 32 per cent in favour of the Assembly and 30.8 per cent against. So the Yes vote in Scotland was well below the requirement of 40 per cent of the electorate. Now the Government’s life is at risk.

Sunday 4 March

Referenda results in the papers – lots of speculation. Will it bring the Government down? etc, etc. I rang Jim at about 11.45 and offered to go in if he wanted to have a chat.

We talked over the phone about how to win the Election, about the women’s vote, and so on. He was sure we could win, and we couldn’t just walk away from the devolution issue. We would discuss it with the PLP. He
thanked me for ringing and I said I didn’t want him to think his old friends were deserting him in his moment of need.

Thursday 8 March

Cabinet, where Jim pointed out that the Thorpe trial would start on 13 April and the Liberals wanted an early Election to avoid all the embarrassment. We should lay the order for repeal of the devolution legislation and offer all-party talks with the liberals and the Tories on the future of devolution.

At 12.35 Jim sent the officials out and we had a talk on the timing of the Election.

Jim said, ‘Mrs Thatcher – and don’t ask me how I know this – wants May because she thinks she will be able to exploit pay problems in the local government elections campaign that month. She’s going to campaign against bureaucracy, for the restoration of freedom, the reduction of direct taxation and an increase in indirect taxation. And she’s going to ask for power to clip the wings of the unions.’

Wednesday 14 March

EY Committee at Number 10. Jim warned us to expect another vote of confidence in about two weeks’ time. If the worst came to the worst, said Jim, we had better leave Thatcher to inherit the situation. If prices rip, the Tories will have to cope with it and then we’ll get back in again because of their inability to cope.

Sunday 18 March

Had a call from Bill Burroughs to say there had been a terrible mining disaster in the Golborne Colliery near Wigan. He arranged for an RAF plane to fly me and Colin Ambrose to Manchester, and we drove over to the colliery.

We waited with the Mining Inspectorate people and rescue teams and others till Sid Vincent, the Regional Executive member of the coalfield, arrived. Three men had been killed and eight badly burned. It was really very distressing. I asked if I should go to the hospital but I was told the relatives were too upset. That’s the third big colliery disaster that I have been to, one in 1975 and then Bentley Colliery last year.

Came back in a raging blizzard about 9.30 pm.

Thursday 22 March

Cabinet at 10.30, and Jim told us that Richard Sykes, our Ambassador in the Hague, had been shot dead along with his footman. Nobody knew why.

Jim handed round the table his statement on devolution, which we discussed at great length. It is dear that we might buy a month of support but, when we come to the end of the talks with the Tories, Liberals and Nationalists, we’ll be voting on the orders to repeal the Scotland and Wales
Acts, and on that we can’t survive. So the Election will have to be in May, though Transport House and Jim and all the pro-Europeans want it on 7 June.

Sunday 25 March

Hilary told me that Rosalind had asked her doctor how long she had to live if she took no further treatment. She was told between three and six months – maybe longer. She doesn’t want any more treatment. She is on a grape diet and looks frail but is active. She’s spending a lot of time at Stansgate now, alone, thinking and walking. A most courageous girl.

Wednesday 28 March

To the vote of no confidence in the Government. Roy Hattersley, it was said, tried to get a couple of Scottish Nationalists to support us by promising an inquiry into prices in Scotland and Wales, and had given Frank Maguire, the Independent Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone, three bottles of whisky and offered an inquiry into food prices in Northern Ireland, to try to gain support. I sat on the Front Bench next to David Owen and Roy, and it looked as if we might have won at first because one Member came from the Aye Lobby and put his thumb up. He apparently thought we’d won by one vote – 312 to 311 – but actually we had only had 310 votes. As the tellers came in, Spencer Le Marchant, the Tory, took his place at the right of the table facing the Speaker and we knew that they had won.

So at that moment the Labour Government ended. Jim and Thatcher made short statements and as we walked out Labour Members sang ‘The Red Flag’.

That’s the end of a memorable day in British politics, the first time for fifty-four years that any government has been defeated on a vote of confidence.

Thursday 29 March

I heard today that KME had finally gone into liquidation on Tuesday – symbolically, the day before the Government was defeated.

Cabinet was advanced by half an hour because of our defeat. Downing Street was jammed with photographers behind the crush barriers. Jim announced the date as 3 May. Parliament would end next Wednesday. The new Parliament would meet on 9 May for swearing-in and it would be officially opened on the 15th. We were then given a long list of Bills that the Tories agreed should complete their passage, because after losing the vote of confidence we can only legislate with their consent. It didn’t include the Education Bill.

On procedure, Jim said Ministers would receive word about the use of official cars, writing articles for the press and so on, which he was sure we’d treat ‘with our usual regard for instructions’.

On the manifesto, Jim emphasised, ‘I want to make it absolutely clear I am not prepared to be worn to a frazzle by an argument with the NEC, and I hope other members of the Cabinet will take up the battle and not leave it entirely to me. The Cabinet will have a meeting with the NEC later, but I am not prepared to see the NEC give instructions to Ministers in a future Labour government because the purpose of the manifesto, if it has one, is to appeal to the public and to give the general direction of policy. The NEC wants detailed commitments and I shall resist that.’

Friday 30 March

Ron Vaughan picked me up from home at 3.30 to take me to Paddington and told me that a car had blown up at 3 o’clock in the House of Commons car park. We later heard that the car belonged to Airey Neave, Conservative MP for Abingdon and shadow spokesman on Northern Ireland. It exploded as he drove out of the car park, causing the most terrible injuries. He died later in Westminster Hospital, after being cut out of the car with an oxyacetylene lamp.

He was a very courageous man who had been a prisoner of war at Colditz, but he took a hard line on Ulster and that presumably was why he was killed – by the Provisional IRA or another splinter group. But this does introduce the possibility of tremendous police protection and pressure for a toughening-up of security measures. I am sad and sorry at what has happened but it confirms my belief that we must have a new look at Northern Ireland.

Sunday 1 April

Hilary gave me for my birthday (on Tuesday) a long stick with a mirror and torch attached so that I could look under my car for bombs. Joshua had given me exactly the same. So touching.

Monday 2 April

Haifa million civil servants are on strike.

To the National Executive at 11 to discuss the draft Election manifesto. Jim Callaghan said it was well rehearsed and we’d had more democracy than before, but the Tory manifesto would be very general with a few major themes: to reduce taxes, to cut the power of the unions, and to assert law and order. We should do something similar – to focus on cutting unemployment, getting lower inflation and dealing with union unrest by negotiation. Jim had produced a draft of his own.

He continued, ‘On a quite different matter I must warn you that with the political assassinations that have taken place, particularly Airey Neave’s, there is a risk to NEC members. Therefore on the issue of Northern Ireland and terrorism we should have as little difference as possible between
ourselves and the Tories. I think there should be talks with both parties to discuss it.’

We stood for a moment in Airey Neave’s memory and Shirley Williams suggested sending a letter of condolence, which was agreed.

Joan Lestor asked what was meant by an agreed response to terrorism. Did it mean capital punishment?

Jim said no.

After some argument, Eric suggested that a small group should be established now to reduce the manifesto to the right length, and Jim then asked, ‘What about
my
document?’

So by 17 votes to 6 it was agreed that a sub-committee be set up to consider the two documents. A long discussion then ensued about who should be on it. In the end it was agreed that the members would be Jim Callaghan, Frank Allaun, Eric Heffer, Denis Healey, Tony Benn, Michael Foot, Lenajeger and Russell Tuck, to meet at 6.15 tonight at Number 10 and no doubt work through the night on it.

As we were leaving, I told Jim that I had been asked to do an interview on the Harrisburg nuclear accident, and he said that was all right so long as I was at the manifesto meeting tonight.

Over to the House through the civil servants’ picket lines. There was a lot of security at the House, as you’d expect.

Then the drafting group which had been set up this morning met at Number 10 for the manifesto discussion. It was a dramatic evening. Jim Callaghan took the chair in the Cabinet Room, which was overawing for NEC members who hadn’t been there before. Apart from the members agreed this morning, there were David Lipsey, Reg Underhill, Ron Hayward, Joyce Gould, Jennie Little, Geoff Bish and Tom McNally. Because of the strike of civil servants there were no Number 10 staff but a Private Secretary brought in a plate of sandwiches and drinks at 8pm. I had about four ginger ales but there was no tea. At midnight the messengers appeared and brought refreshments, so the old ‘family retainers’ formally made their protest and came back on duty.