A Very British Coup (29 page)

It soon became apparent, however, that events might not follow the anticipated course. A meeting of Labour MPs was called for the following Monday, but the statement convening the meeting spoke of ‘electing' a new leader. This did not go down well with Labour Party members since it was nearly ten years since a party conference had relieved MPs of sole responsibility for choosing the Party leader.

All weekend delegations of Labour MPs were seen going out of the Chancellor's residence at Number Eleven Downing Street. The Sunday papers were full of speculation that Lawrence Wainwright would shortly announce that he was a candidate for the leadership. When the General Secretary of
the Labour Party rang to ask Wainwright to confirm or deny the speculation, she found Wainwright evasive.

Sure enough, when the MPs assembled on Monday evening Wainwright was a candidate. In the election which followed he beat Steeples by a comfortable majority. About fifty left-wingers abstained on the ground that the election was unconstitutional. The following morning an emergency meeting of the Labour Party National Executive unanimously endorsed Jock Steeples as acting leader.

The result was an unprecedented constitutional crisis. The King found himself with a choice of two Prime Ministers, both claiming to represent the Party with a majority of seats in the House of Commons.

The King was at Windsor when the crisis occurred. Three hours before the Parliamentary Labour Party was due to meet, a black Rover containing Sir Peregrine Craddock was admitted to the castle. He was received in a drawing room overlooking the long straight sweep of the Great Park.

There is no record of what was said. It is known only that Sir Peregrine was closeted with the King for about twenty minutes, after which he was driven back to London. Later the same day several prominent members of the judiciary were received and still later four senior members of the Privy Council.

The next day it was announced from Windsor Castle that His Majesty had asked Lawrence Wainwright to form a government.

The news was received with dismay by Labour Party members throughout the country. There were a number of arrests for the daubing of anti-Royalist slogans. In Glasgow serious rioting occurred on successive nights. In London all police leave was cancelled and security was intensified in public buildings.

The Labour National Executive applied to the High Court for an injunction, arguing that Wainwright was not the properly elected leader of the party. This was refused on the
ground that it was established practice for the sovereign to choose as Prime Minister the person who commanded the confidence of a majority of members of the House of Commons. The fact that he did not command the confidence of the Labour Party was neither here nor there. The case was thrown out by the Appeal Court and the House of Lords for the same reason.

Wainwright's Cabinet did not contain a single member of the outgoing government. Steeples was offered a minor post, but declined.

At its first meeting the new Cabinet announced that the request to America to withdraw its bases and other military facilities would be revoked. Britain would remain a full member of NATO and would only renounce nuclear weapons when the Russians did the same.

It was also announced that Chequers, the country residence of the Prime Minister, would be placed at the disposal of Harry Perkins for the purpose of convalescence. Ministers were unanimous in wishing him a speedy recovery.

That night at the Athenaeum rejoicing was unconfined. The head porter said afterwards he could not remember anything like it since VE day. Members who had not been seen in town for years showed up. Sir Arthur Furnival was there, looking fit and tanned after a sojourn in the South of France. The Bishop of Bath and Wells was there too, looking years younger. So was Sir Lucas Lawrence, a retired permanent secretary. Lord Kildare had come down from his castle in Scotland for the first time since that awful night when Perkins had been elected.

There was much backslapping and handshaking. Champagne corks popped late into the night (so much so that Berry Bros. and Rudd had to be especially opened to bring in fresh supplies).

Away from the hubbub, in a quiet corner of the dining room, Sir George Fison was giving a small dinner party. The editor of
The Times
was present. So was Sir Philip Norton from the Cabinet Office and Sir Peter Kennedy from the
Treasury. There was also a younger man called Alford, who was said to be a rising star in the BBC. And there was the mysterious Sir Peregrine Craddock.

Not all their conversation was audible to the waiters or the other guests, but the gist was overheard. “This time last year,” Fison was saying, “who would have dreamed we'd be sitting here tonight celebrating the survival of all we hold dear.” A waiter poured champagne as Fison went on to enumerate, “The Atlantic alliance, the Common Market, the House of Lords …” He had been going to propose a toast, but was interrupted by a telephone call. It was the night editor of his principal daily newspaper with a query on the front page editorial that Fison had dictated that afternoon. It was to be headed “A victory for sanity.”

When Fison rejoined his guests, Alford was telling a story about how a fellow called Jack Lansman, the anchorman on the BBC Radio Four breakfast programme, had done a little jig in the corridor outside the studio when he heard that Perkins had resigned. “Been nothing quite like it since the night Allende was overthrown in Chile,” Alford was saying.

Sir George proposed a toast to Craddock. “The British public,” he said, “would never know how much reason they had to be grateful to Sir Peregrine.”

Craddock smiled modestly and raised his glass of orange juice. “Everyone should feel proud,” he said. There had been no tanks on the streets. No one had gone to the firing squad. Apart from the odd demonstrator on the receiving end of a police baton, no one had even been injured.

In fact, he said with a wan smile, “It was a very British coup.”

Harry Perkins was not seen again in public for nearly a year. For most of that time he remained in seclusion at Chequers. Security was very tight. Once or twice a photographer with a long lens managed, by sneaking round to the back of the house, to get a shot of a lonely figure pottering around the rose garden. Fred Thompson, Jock Steeples and Mrs Cook were allowed the occasional visit. If the sun was shining they would sit with Perkins on the south lawn, drinking tea and reminiscing about what might have been. Neither Steeples nor Mrs Cook ever held office again.

When Perkins did return to the House of Commons he seemed a broken man. He wandered the lobbies and the tea rooms and sat on the occasional committee, but he contributed little. He remained popular with his constituents in Sheffield, however, and the City Council put a little plaque on the council house where he and his mother had lived.

When the New Year's honours were announced, Reg Smith of the United Power Workers became Lord Smith of Virginia Water. Sir George Fison also received a peerage. “For services in the cause of truth and freedom,” the citation said. Jonathan Alford was knighted and is widely tipped as a future BBC Director General. There was one surprise buried deep in the honours list: a CBE for David Booth, a young civil servant in the Foreign Exchange Department of the Treasury. No one – least of all Booth himself – seemed to know why he had been honoured.

Sir Peregrine Craddock retired to Somerset where he now grows prize-winning roses and plays the occasional round of golf. Once in a while he comes up to town and has a quiet lunch at the Athenaeum and a browse around the bookshops in Bloomsbury.

After the Windermere disaster Molly Spence's husband, Michael, lost his job with British Insulated. He now works in
Saudi Arabia. Molly and the children live with her parents in Sheffield. When she realised what had happened, she wrote Perkins a long letter explaining that it was all a terrible accident, that she had never meant to harm him, and begging him to forgive her. There is no reason to suppose Perkins ever received the letter. Anyway, he did not reply.

As for Fred Thompson, he married Elizabeth Fain and they moved away to Scotland where he now has a job on the
West Highland Free Press
. Thompson is said to spend his evenings writing a book which will tell what really happened to the government of Harry Perkins. There must, however, be some doubt as to whether it will ever be published.