The Benn Diaries: 1940-1990 (76 page)

‘That’s very cynical,’ I replied.

‘Well, being in this place has made me cynical.’

So I said, ‘Well, surely we must sustain the government campaign for our policies and get re-elected with a big enough majority to implement them?’

‘No, no, if you go along with this, you are going along with a coalition.’

‘Well, shall I resign?’

‘No, don’t resign. Just stay there.’

It was an awful meeting, and she was very upset and left the room.

Francis Cripps stayed and I talked to him, probing him. He said, ‘You can’t put it right with a speech. You have got to quietly make contact with all the people in the Labour Movement who are thinking it out for themselves and support them and encourage them and gradually re-create a new Labour Party from inside the wreck of this one.’ He was quite sensible. I’m sorry I was cross with Frances Morrell, but she is a difficult woman and I am a difficult man, and when I think I am right I am usually wrong.

Caroline and I went together to the Waldorf for the annual party given by the Thompson brothers, the Labour Party’s solicitors. The general rumour is there is a deal and we heard on the 10 o’clock news that Pardoe had said there would have to be a written deal.

Wednesday 23 March

A momentous day. As you might expect, the press was full of rumours of
deals and talks. I thought about it again this morning, and after talking it over with Caroline I decided I would oppose any long-term deal with the Liberals. I had a message before I left at 9.30 to say that the Cabinet had been called for 12.

I went to the Cabinet at 12 and there were crowds of people in Downing Street, including hundreds of photographers.

Jim opened the Cabinet absolutely red-faced. I have never seen him so red. It was strange; he was scarlet. Michael was white and drawn.

Jim said the Cabinet would recall that last week the Chief Whip reported we would lose the vote of confidence tonight, and that at the TUC-Labour Party Liaison Committee last Monday it was clear the trade union leaders did not want an Election. They had encouraged us to hold discussions with other parties while preserving the integrity of our party. ‘In the last two days,’ he said, ‘I have been engaged in talks and plans, including contingency plans for an Election on 5 May and the Budget problems associated with that. I am grateful for the forbearance of colleagues and I will now report the result of these discussions.

‘We began with high hopes for the support of the Ulster Unionist MPs and it is not clear yet what they are going to do. Jim Molyneaux and Enoch Powell would like to support us, and in these discussions we have not neglected the interests of Gerry Fitt and the SDLP. The Ulster Unionists have proposed that we recommend to a Speaker’s Conference that there should be more Ulster Members, and legislate to that effect.

‘Now,’ said Jim, ‘I won’t take the Cabinet through the long discussions which took place, but last night an agreement was reached with the Liberal Party which I will read, and will circulate. I would ask members of the Cabinet to return their copies.’ He said the documents would be signed by himself and David Steel; then he went through the details of the agreement.

By 20 votes to 4 – the four being Peter Shore, Stan Orme, Bruce Millan and myself – the Cabinet consented to the Lib-Lab Pact.

It was now about 1.20 and Jim said, ‘I must now ask those who have voted against it if they are prepared to go along with it.’

Stan Orme said, ‘Yes, Prime Minister.’

I said, ‘I can’t answer that question because, despite Denis’s comment that the Prime Minister speaks for the Party, all you can do round this table is commit the Cabinet. You can’t commit the Party. The Cabinet does not control the Parliamentary Party, or the National Executive, or the Party in the country, and therefore the best I can say to you, Prime Minister, is that there will have to be consultations with the PLP, with the Executive and, in my case, with my own constituency Labour Party, and I am afraid I cannot answer your question until those consultations are complete.’ He didn’t press me.

That was it and, feeling very sick, I went over to my office. Frances was in
the canteen and I scooped her up before she began her lunch and we had a talk. She was immensely agitated about the whole thing. ‘This is the Left losing again and we must do something immediately,’ she said.

So that is it. Without any consultation with Cabinet colleagues as a whole, Jim and Michael have negotiated something absolutely contrary to what Michael had told me on Sunday night.

Thursday 24 March

On the way to the office I went to Metyclean, which is one of my favourite ports of call when things are going wrong. I bought myself a Casio quartz clock computer which has the most fantastic facilities – gives you the time, works as a stopwatch and as a calculator, and has four alarms. It weighs four ounces and fits into your pocket I was thrilled with it.

Got back to my room at 7.40 and the phone rang. It was Jim. ‘There’s a letter going round criticising the arrangement with the Liberals,’ he said. ‘I just want to tell you that, if you sign it, it will be incompatible with your membership of the Government.’

So I said, ‘Well, I’ve already signed it.’

‘In that case I want your resignation.’

‘I had better think about it,’ I replied.

‘You know you have been sailing very close to the wind.’

‘Jim, all it says is that we should have a special meeting of the Executive. It doesn’t comment on the Liberal thing.’

‘Yes, but it has been started by Mikardo, and anything Mikardo does is bound to be damaging to the Party.’

I said, ‘Actually Eric Heffer asked me to sign it at the Party meeting.’

‘Well, that’s it,’ he said. ‘I want your resignation.’

I told him I wanted to think it over and he continued, ‘I know you saw Mikardo yesterday and it was a pretty uncomradely thing to tell him what went on in the Cabinet And it was pretty uncomradely to tell the newspapers.’

I said it wasn’t a very comradely thing for me to hear about the deal with the Liberals from Pardoe forty-eight hours before the Cabinet was told.

‘Well, we were very busy,’ said Jim.

‘Maybe you were. If you want to get rid of me I fully understand; perhaps having done a deal with Steel you don’t need me any more.’

Jim insisted that that wasn’t the case but he wanted an answer by tonight, as he was leaving for Rome in the morning.

After 11, I rang Number 10 and asked to speak to the duty officer. After a long pause, Jim came to the phone.

‘Oh, Jim – Tony Benn. I’ve withdrawn my signature.’

‘Well, I appreciate that very much,’ he said. ‘If it comes out that your name was withdrawn, will you say it was a mistake?’

Then I rang Frances and told her it was all over. ‘You should never have signed it,’ she said. ‘It has weakened your position.’

‘Don’t attack me, please, Frances. Don’t criticise me.’

Actually she is under pressure at the moment. She told me this morning she couldn’t go on, the strain was too great.

That’s the end of another immensely eventful day.

When I reflect on it, I probably should not have signed that letter.

Sunday 27 March

Caroline and I decided that we would not attend any more of the Sunday night dinners. I’m not saying some of the participants couldn’t be brought in in some way – Stan Orme and Peter Shore certainly could – but it must be on the basis that we really are trying to work out how to re-create the Party and not just stumbling on.

Tuesday 29 March

Brussels for the meeting of Energy Ministers of the EEC. I had breakfast in my room in Donald Maitland’s beautiful house. The room had heavy shutters which opened on to a balcony, overlooking a lovely garden bathed in bright spring sunshine. It was very cold, however, and flurries of snow were settling on the frozen grass.

We sat from 7 in the morning until 5.30 the following morning, but frankly I don’t think the discussions were interesting enough to relate in detail. I took my white mug and got tea brought to me throughout the day.

I took the chair, and the first thing I did in the session was to ask whether Ministers would agree to having the Energy Council conducted in the open. I went round each representative in turn and every one of them found reasons why it couldn’t be done – except Dick Mabon, bless him, who said yes. So that disposed of that idea.

The French are so good at Europe. I do admire them. They are clear-headed, logical, quiet, and they present their arguments in a Community spirit. The Germans, on the other hand, are blunderers and end up banging the table. The little five hate the big countries and band together to keep us in order, but they are frightened of the industrial and economic strength of Germany, whose geographical position allows her to dominate Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. Everybody worships France because of her skill in diplomacy and her grandeur. Italy is just a beggar on the southern flank, a transparently devious beggar.

I’m being very blunt because I’m angry! The Irish are trying to be helpful, but they don’t want to be thought of as an appendage of Britain. Indeed, to be lined up with the British all the time is a slight embarrassment for Dublin on the Continent, and so we can’t really rely on them for support.

Anyway, bed at 5.30 am.

Saturday 9 April

Slept till after 10, had a mug of tea and dictated my diary for the last four days.

I should mention that on Thursday night President Carter announced that the Americans were going to wind down their reprocessing operations and stop work on the fast-breeder reactor because of the risk of proliferation from the manufacture of plutonium. It was a tremendous statement, and the BBC took it up immediately. John Hill attacked it on Friday’s 1 o’clock news, while Brian Flowers welcomed it.

I had a message from Number 10 that I was not to comment on it, which made me very angry – a British Energy Minister forbidden to comment on American energy policy! The nuclear lobby has obviously got at Jim, saying it will wreck our relations with the Common Market and upset the French and the Germans.

So I sent a message back saying that I wouldn’t comment on the non-proliferation aspects but I would like to comment on the energy implications. I got a message back that I wasn’t to do that either. It really is insulting, and I’m beginning to wonder whether Energy has now become far too important for me to remain in charge, and whether Jim might not try to move me to another department.

Saturday 23 April

James Bretherton rang to say there had been a blowout in the Ekofisk field and 4,000 tons of oil had bucketed into the sea in just twenty-four hours. I said I might go up there, and much of the morning was spent on that.

Jim rang me. ‘Your phone has been off the hook.’

‘I was just using it.’

‘Well, it was,’ he said. He was very shirty. ‘If you are going to look at the blowout, why don’t you go to Norway?’

I decided I would and sent a message.

Apparently the blowout is huge, there’s a force 10 gale and low cloud, but aircraft can’t fly lower than 5,000 feet in case there is an explosion, and ships have been banned for 25 miles around. I shall fly over the field and then go on to Stavanger or Oslo.

Sunday 24 April

Up at 6.30, and left for Northolt. I boarded an RAF Andover with James Bretherton, Bernard Ingham, Henry George, our Director of Petroleum Engineering, and a guy from the Board of Trade Marine Division, and we headed for the Ekofisk field.

We were kept at 3,000 feet and five nautical miles and it was a most remarkable sight – a great jet of oil and spray and the slick spreading a sheen over the water. A number of vessels were standing by, including a warship.

We cruised around for about half an hour, before going on to Oslo to
meet the Industry and Foreign Ministers. We talked for two hours at the airport hotel and they reported what had happened and went into all the other aspects – terrorism, fire, cost, fisheries and research.

Flew back, gave some more interviews at Northolt and came home. There was some coverage on the news but not much.

Thursday 28 April

Cabinet at 10.30. David Owen reported on Pakistan and the Middle East.

David Ennals interrupted in his odiously helpful way. ‘I would like, Prime Minister, if I may, to intervene for a moment to say how well I feel David Owen has done in his recent visits to Africa and the Middle East, and perhaps it would be in order, since we don’t thank each other very much, for this to be said.’

So Jim observed, ‘Well, I said how well David had done last week. I can’t say it every week.’

I said, ‘I take it this is the equivalent of Idi Amin eating his Cabinet Ministers’ – referring to a story in today’s paper from a Ugandan defector that Amin had killed a member of his Cabinet, had his liver cut out and mixed with his lunch.

‘If I started eating my Cabinet I don’t know who I would eat first,’ said Jim, looking around the table and settling on me.

The rest of the Cabinet was devoted to the direct elections issue.

I had a meeting to review the case of a Mr Gillen, who died in the early Sixties of leukaemia, having worked for three years for the AEA. His widow was claiming that his illness was due to his work.

Jack Jones had written to me several times about it, so in the end I called this meeting with the AEA legal, professional and medical staff, and the Department of Social Security sent their administrative and medical people along. Alex Eadie was there with me – which was a great comfort because, having been a miner, he was familiar with the whole question of compensation cases. I didn’t have much of a leg to stand on, to be candid, but I went into it very carefully. At the tribunal in 1964 the whole thing had hinged on whether it was probable or merely possible that this guy had contracted leukaemia from his work in the AEA. The judgement had been that it was only possible.

But on questioning them I was told that Japanese survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki had suffered this particular type of leukaemia; secondly I drew out that there had been some marginal change in diagnostic and analytical skills since 1964; thirdly, that the National Radiological Protection Board had been set up since 1964; fourthly, that an appeal had actually been heard since 1964.