The Benn Diaries: 1940-1990 (93 page)

After lunch Willy Brandt gave the closing speech and talked about the three challenges: new technology, the Cold War and the North–South divide. He went through it in his thoughtful way, as he always does, and he got a warm reception. I must say, my feelings did change a little. I felt more warmly disposed to them because they may sound pretty conservative in Europe, but when you hear them in America they are beacons of light in a dark continent.

Looking back on the conference, it was a significant event, although the media didn’t cover it at all in America as far as I can make out.

Afterwards I went to the Aeronautical Space Agency museum with Edith Cressoil, a French socialist deputy in the European Parliament, who is here with Mitterrand, and together we touched the piece of moonstone that was there – it was exciting to see and feel it.

Friday 12 December

The Prime Minister yesterday was in South Wales, where there was a big demonstration, with 1,200 police on duty and fifty-five arrests. And an egg hit her car. Then there were pictures on television of her speaking at a CBI dinner in Cardiff saying demonstrations don’t help to get jobs – that it gives Wales a bad name for investors, and all the rest of it. Here is a woman entirely without any human sympathy whatever, applying rigidly capitalist criteria at a time of great hardship and deliberately widening the gap between rich and poor. The country is ready now for major unrest.

Monday 22 December

To the Friends of the Earth Christmas Party. What became clear from chatting to people there was that they were mostly pre-socialist in their thinking. One felt that all this concern was the middle class expressing its
dislike of the horrors of industrialisation – keeping Hampstead free from the whiff of diesel smoke, sort of thing. It was also a bit of a warning that local Labour Parties could become full of people like this, like the Liberal Party with no solid working-class and trade union experience behind it.

Friday 26 December

Late lie-in. Collected Melissa and she and I walked across the park. It was a fantastic year for press hysteria and violence; a few days free of that at the moment is welcome.

In 1981 there will be the Special Conference and I think some form of electoral college will be established. Michael Foot will certainly be re-elected unopposed. My intention at the moment is to stand against Denis Healey for the deputy leadership in order to pinpoint the real issues for the Party, but I don’t expect to succeed.

I think the possibility is that there might be some minor breakaway from the Labour Party encouraged by Roy Jenkins and supported by Shirley Williams; if Mrs Thatcher gets into serious trouble, they may try to bring together a sort of national-reconstruction government with a federal European shift, a statutory pay policy and proportional representation. I have a feeling that the political fight that lies ahead will be a bitter one.

Monday 26 January 1981

Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams, David Owen and Bill Rodgers were splashed all over the front pages with their ‘Limehouse Declaration’, so called because it was made from David Owen’s home there in East London. It is a turning point in a way because from now on the Labour Party is going to be treated as if it is illegitimate, and resentment is growing strongly in the Party about this.

The big news tonight is that thirteen MPs are supporting the Council for Social Democracy, and the media are giving it massive coverage. If there is going to be a new political party, which the Gang of Four claim, that is important news. But the Left are holding their hand and I think that is right. I don’t think it’s sensible for us to attack the Social Democrats at the moment; let them come out with their own policies and then we shall raise the question whether Tom Bradley and Shirley Williams on the NEC, and Bill Rodgers in the Shadow Cabinet, can be allowed to plan a new political party while remaining in the Party. It is absolutely wrong.

Tuesday 27 January

Beause Bill Rogers has resigned from the Shadow Cabinet, I take his place. At 9.30 I went to see Michael Foot, and it turned into the most sensational interview.

He mentioned the NEC tomorrow, and said, ‘I don’t see why we should pass this resolution of Party loyalty. Why do we need it?’

I explained, ‘Because the Social Democrats are saying they are going to leave.’

He said, ‘It’s quite unnecessary.’

So I replied, ‘Well, it’s quite straightforward: if you don’t like it, vote against it.’

He was angry and red-faced.

I said something like, ‘You’re certainly very soft on the Right, buttering up Bill Rodgers all the time, but I notice you chose this morning to attack me violently in the PLP meeting. You have really been all over the shop to try and keep the Right in the Party, and you don’t feel quite the same about the Left. Why didn’t you attack Bill Rodgers for the “myths”
he
is spreading?’

He was angry about that. So then I said, ‘I have come from the left group on the NEC who asked me to request a meeting with you.’

He snapped, ‘Oh, so you meet before the NECs, do you?’

I said, ‘Yes, we do.’

He said, ‘Well, that’s very disruptive of committees if people meet and discuss them in advance.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ I remarked. ‘You went round and saw people to try to get 50 per cent for the PLP at the Wembley conference.’

‘I did not,’ he said.

‘I heard you had, but if I’m wrong . . .’

He repeated, ‘It’s very disruptive, a caucus of that kind.’

Well, since the husbands’ and wives’ weekly dinners met at his house throughout the whole of the Labour Government, to do exactly the same, I couldn’t understand his anger.

Then he asked, ‘You try to fix votes in advance, don’t you?’

I said, ‘No, I try to reach a sort of general agreement about things.’

‘You’re a bloody liar,’ he said.

So I just walked out, and that was my first meeting with my leader as a member of his Shadow Cabinet. I am not being called a liar by anybody. I was pretty steamed up. So I went back to the left group of Eric Heffer, Tony Saunois, Eric Clarke, Norman Atkinson, Frank Allaun, Joan Maynard and Jo Richardson, and I told them what had happened. They said, ‘Keep cool.’ I said, ‘I’m as cool as a cucumber.’

Later, while I was sitting in the Division Lobby waiting to vote, I talked to Peter Shore and told him that, in some ways, I admired David Owen because he was saying what he believed. I didn’t agree with him, but at least he was arguing his case.

Peter said, ‘If you admire that, you’ll have a lot of admiring to do in the next year.’

‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

He said, ‘Well, there’s a lot of fighting going on and I shall be in on it.’

We went through the Lobby together and as we walked along the corridor I sensed an absolute reservoir of anger against me. Peter said I was
obstructive; I think my relations with him are temporarily ruptured. As he is a very old friend, I am extremely sorry about that.

Monday 2 February

Went into the House and saw Michael Foot at 2.30.1 said, ‘Let’s just forget last week completely. We were all under strain and I know you have got a great problem on your plate.’ So that made things seem all right. I asked if the Gang of Four would go.

‘It looks as if they will. I am seeing them this afternoon.’

I said, ‘I don’t want them to go, but at the same time I don’t think we ought to offer them anything to keep them in.’

He replied, ‘Well, I won’t. On the question of a job, I can’t really do a reshuffle of the Shadow Cabinet at the moment.’

I said, ‘I understand that. Do whatever you need, but I would like Regional Affairs.’

I went to the Library and wrote out a brief which I dropped in for him to look at.

Thursday 5 February

Today a list of 100 Council for Social Democracy supporters was published. It included ex-Labour Ministers like George Brown and Jack Diamond, and Lord Donaldson, Michael Zander, Brian Flowers and the actress Janet Suzman. It was the middle class coming out in support of a break from the Labour Party. The BBC gave it tremendous coverage – the BBC is now the voice of Shirley Williams and Roy Jenkins.

I had an interesting phone call from Tony Saunois, saying that every member of the NUR executive except one had signed a letter condemning their General Secretary Sid Weighell for his recent statement that he would ‘spit in Tony Benn’s eye’.

Saturday 7 February

On the train back from Bristol I went to the front as we drew into Paddington, and a short, thin man of about sixty peered across and said in a Scottish accent, ‘Are you Mr Benn?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He told me, ‘Well, I was a fitter with your brother Michael in North Africa in 1943.’ It gave me such pleasure to talk to someone who had known Michael, and he said, ‘He was a nice man. Did he survive the war?’ I told him he had been killed in 1944 at RAF Tangmere. At that point a big man with a trilby hat and moustache who was standing next to us said, ‘RAF Tangmere? I was the station commander there. I was a wing commander in 1943.’

So at that moment, quite unexpectedly, on a Saturday night on a train from the West Country to Paddington, I tumbled back nearly forty years, and it gave me enormous pleasure.

Monday 9 February

I heard a rumour from a journalist that Shirley Williams had resigned from the NEC. It was later confirmed, and Ron Hayward let me read her letter, in which she said that the Party she had joined no longer existed. Such an arrogant statement, and designed to do damage to us.

Thursday 12 February

Went into the Tea Room at 6.30 and I stayed there until the vote at 10, talking to MPs, including Dale Campbell-Savours, who turned on me on the question of reselection.

‘Take John Sever, for example,’ he said (the MP for Brian Walden’s old seat, Birmingham Ladywood). ‘He’s a good man, votes on the left, a decent guy, and he’s in danger of being deselected.’

Alex Lyon, who was sitting with us, said, ‘Half a minute. When Brian Walden sat in that seat he wouldn’t let people join the Party. The selection conference which selected John Sever was made up of twelve people: seven were old ladies and five were from the Asian community and it was a rotten Party; indeed, the agent there was a former member of the National Front.’

The discussion got wider and hotter. Alex said he had been a good right-wing Jenkinsite until he went to the Home Office and realised that Roy Jenkins wasn’t remotely interested in socialism but only in himself.

Chris Price, the Member for Lewisham West, came and joined us. ‘Look, what really happened to the Party was that when Gaitskell became Leader in 1955 there was a plot to put in an élite of Oxbridge right-wingers to take the Party over. They were pro-American, pro-European and anti-Communist, and they got all the jobs in later governments. I never had a chance.’ He was bitter, absolutely right, and he threw a new perspective on the Party.

Friday 13 February

Went to Bristol for my surgery, an absolute mass of tragedies. Dawn picked me up and took me to the constituency’s Annual General Meeting. She had written a marvellous report on the Bristol South East Party. At the end, we had a discussion on my reselection and Cyril Langham said, ‘Why bother with a selection conference?’ I said, ‘That’s the point; we must do it properly.’

Then there was a series of speeches on the deputy leadership and the meeting was unanimous, with one abstention, that I should stand, so in reply I said, ‘I think if we are going to use the reselection procedure for choosing the MP here, we must use the electoral college to fight the deputy leadership. This is not a personal but a political fight and defeat doesn’t matter; if we let the media pick the Leader, they’ll soon pick the policy.’

Tuesday 17 February

Today, Duncan Campbell, a writer on the
New Statesman
, rang to tell me that
two years ago he had heard from an intelligence agent that Airey Neave had planned to have me assassinated if a Labour government was elected, Jim Callaghan resigned and there was any risk that I might become Leader. Then Neave was murdered, and now this agent was ready to give his name and the
New Statesman
was going to carry the story. He asked what I thought.

I said, ‘I’ve never heard it before. I can’t comment anyway; it would sound paranoid if I did. I get threatening letters of a similar kind.’

It doesn’t ring true in a way; it sounds like the dirty-tricks department trying to frighten me by implying that a serious assassination attempt was being planned. No one will believe for a moment that Airey Neave would have done such a thing.

Stephen came over and we went for a meal at the House, and Mrs Thatcher came in to the dining room with Denis Thatcher and Ian Gow, her PPS. Last Sunday Mrs Thatcher had said that the only difference between Shirley Williams and me was that she was the slow-acting poison and I was the instant one. So later, as I left, I said to Ian, ‘I hope the Prime Minister is taking the quick-acting poison. I wouldn’t want anything to go wrong.’ He laughed.

Voted at 11 and came home.

Wednesday 18 February

Talked to Caroline about the Duncan Campbell story, and her view was that this was the dirty-tricks department at work.

I rang Duncan Campbell and put this to him. But he said, ‘This man is a cynical, right-wing intelligence man who has given me accurate information in the past; he gave me this story two years ago, when I discussed it with Bruce Page, but we sat on it.’

I said, ‘It’s probably come back because, whereas two years ago the likelihood that Labour would make me Leader was very remote, today, now that Callaghan has gone and we have got an electoral college, the possibility that I will be elected Leader when Michael Foot goes is obviously more real. Therefore this is more relevant now.’

Of course Bruce Page would be delighted at the publicity that would attach to the
New Statesman
though it would involve sinking to the
News of the World
’s level of coverage. Then if I was polished off, the
New Statesman
could say, ‘Ah well, our man predicted it.’