The Benn Diaries: 1940-1990 (80 page)

Wednesday 3 August

At 61 went to see the PM. While I was waiting outside, Beaumarchais, the French Ambassador, scurried out. I spent about an hour with Jim. He was red-faced – with embarrassment, I thought. I said, ‘It is very nice of you to see me. I felt somehow it had all gone wrong last Friday when we discussed the Common Market. I know you think of me as Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, but really I am Hyde, Hyde and Hyde again!’

‘But looking like Jekyll.’

‘Maybe,’ I said. I told him I didn’t think the Conference was going to be destructive; there was a way round.

So then he apologised. ‘Do you know, to be perfectly honest, I was very rude to you, and I think I was unfair. I told Ken Stowe at the end of the day that I had overdone it, and I worried about it all weekend.’

‘For Heaven’s sake, don’t apologise, you had a hell of a day. Anyway, I was a bit worried and I wanted to come along and have a word with you, motivated by the same spirit.’

So, like many rows with Jim, it blew up and blew over and blew out. And I am awfully glad I went to see him because he couldn’t have been nicer. I wanted to make peace with him and retreat a bit.

He said, ‘I thought you were really trying to wreck the whole Government and withdrawing as leader of the Left in order to take over.’

‘Look, it isn’t like that. I am trying to persuade people, and I think if we get the framework of the Conference right then we can have a meaningful debate.’

‘Of course,’ said Jim, ‘there are people on the Executive who just want to wreck the Government. I know there are.’ He does have an obsession about this but I didn’t pursue it.

I described the outline of what I would like to say about Europe. He said, ‘Well, if you were to admit that the debate isn’t an in––out debate, that would revolutionise the Conference.’ I said I’d think about it.

He was very friendly and I told him I much preferred dealing with him than with Harold. He half repeated the apology and I felt embarrassed. I did tell him that I was glad that none of that sensational Cabinet had appeared in the Sunday papers. I had quivered as I opened them.

‘Well, thanks for coming. I appreciate it very much.’ And on that note I left.

Tuesday 9 August

Spent the morning working on the false private medical treatment story. Dick Clements had sent me a copy of a franked postcard conveying the inaccurate
Tunes
story which had been sent to the
Tribune
office, and we also discovered that
Labour Weekly
had received one as well.

I could just see the number of the frank so I rang up the Post Office and, believe it or not, it turned out to be the European Movement frank. So it was from their office that these postcards had been sent, which may mean that they were the source of the story in the first place, though I can’t prove that.

Wednesday 10 August

Stansgate. Caroline went shopping. I had twelve hours in bed, which is my way of recovering. Later Caroline and I went for a jog in the lovely warm weather.

Monday 15 August

Damp, misty and sunless but quite warm. Red box arrived. Melissa wrote from Italy. Joshua rescued an injured baby rabbit and has put it in a box until it recovers.

Tuesday 16 August

Little bit of sunshine. Went shopping. The rabbit died.

Wednesday 17 August

Thunderstorm, and a really wet day. Red box arrived. Elvis Presley died.

Thursday 18 August

I should mention that over the last two weeks there have been clashes between the racialist National Front and the ultra-Left in Lewisham and Birmingham, and the papers have been in a frenzy. The press is doing its best to put all the blame for the violence on the ultra-Left and then use the National Front as an excuse for banning demonstrations.

Monday 3 October – Labour Party Conference, Brighton

Conference opened. Denis was called in the economy debate and spoke for ten minutes, then Barbara wound up. She may not be at the next Conference and won’t be in the next Parliament so it could be her last Conference speech. She was so keen and spoke skilfully, with passion and fire, but it didn’t lift the Conference – I don’t think anything could have done. Ted Castle is dying, I’m afraid – he looks terribly ill.

After lunch I dealt with the Chancellor’s dilemma. He was in effect saying that under capitalism you couldn’t do better than we had done. I argued that we needed structural change if we were to make progress.

But it didn’t come over well. I must record that Hilary was shocked,
Stephen didn’t like it and Caroline was appalled, so I can’t pretend it was a success. The fact that Jim came up and said, ‘Congratulations, that was a real leadership speech’, didn’t exactly please me. I think the Left were very disappointed.

Friday 7 October

Last day of Conference. Apparently Edna Healey and Evelyn Jones had a discussion on Monday – which Caroline heard – over the fact that Jack Jones had criticised Labour Ministers for expensive living.

Although on the face of it Jim has got his way, in fact he has failed entirely to change the Executive. Radical motions were carried, and the vitality of the Party is phenomenal.

Sunday 9 October

There was an account in the papers of how Henry Ford agreed to Jim Callaghan’s request to site Ford’s engine plant at Bridgend, South Wales – which explains why the pay policy could not be applied to Ford.

Melissa and I went out for a two-hour walk and we had a lovely talk. She has terrific admiration for Caroline: Melissa is a serious feminist.

To the Harts’ for dinner with the Foots and the Booths. Judith described her meeting with the Cabinet Secretary, Sir John Hunt, held at Jim’s request, about the security services’ supposed confusion between her and Mrs J. Tudor Hart. Sir John Hunt confirmed that there had been a mix-up, and I said I didn’t think that likely because the security services did a very thorough job.

Michael said, ‘I sat with the Prime Minister when Judith was reappointed in March, and the security services did raise some objection.’ He said Jim was good on security matters; an inquiry into the Wilson bugging story would not be helpful, but Jim was not against a general look at the problem at an appropriate time.

After dinner we discussed pay policy and I said I thought that the proposed sanctions on firms to restrict wage rises were illegal, that they were acts of impropriety, that they were not effective or credible and would be politically dangerous.

Michael just blew his top and shouted, ‘You just want us to go back to inflation. Face the real problems – you have got to help the lower paid.’ He was red with anger.

Judith mentioned our industrial policy.

‘I’m not against that,’ said Michael. ‘That’s different.’

‘It isn’t different,’ I said. ‘If you want to get pay agreement and understanding about pay, you have got to implement the industrial policy.’

Jill rebuked Michael for being so excitable.

Monday 10 October

Reg Prentice had wide coverage for his attack on the Labour Party and his decision to cross the floor to the Tories.

Saturday 15 October

Mrs Thatcher’s speech at the Tory Conference yesterday was reported in the papers. She had attacked me, and others, for having attended a public school and said that it was the direct grant schools that had given people of her class an opportunity which they would not otherwise have had. It was a very subtle argument. She did well and encouraged the Conference, though the reality is that the Tories are deeply worried that they might not win the next Election.

Caroline’s birthday, and we had a lovely tea party at home.

Bing Crosby died today.

Tuesday 25 October

Luxembourg. The Research Council began at 10.15 and after long discussions Henri Simonet, the Belgian Foreign Minister, said, ‘I ask you to take note of the fact that there is a 5 to 2 preference for siting Jet at Culham, with two abstentions, one of which will rally to the majority. Accordingly the Jet site will be in Culham.’ So that was satisfying.

I loathe the Common Market. It’s bureaucratic and centralised, there’s no political discussion, officials control Ministers, and it just has a horrible flavour about it. But of course it is really dominated by Germany. All the Common Market countries except Britain have been occupied by Germany, and they have this mixed feeling of hatred and subservience towards the Germans. It is such a complex psychological relationship. But our self-confidence is flowing back now.

Friday 4 November

This morning the headlines were hysterical. The
Financial Times
had ‘Callaghan Warns of Winter Strikes; Labour Ready to Fight Unions on Pay’. The
Guardian
: ‘PM Appeals for Restraint through Hard Winter’. ‘I’ll Stand up to Miners Says Jim’ from the
Sun
and ‘Lights Stay Off; Blackout Threat to Kidney Patients’ in the
Daily Mirror
. The
Morning Star
: ‘Power Peace Hope Fades’. The
Daily Mail
: ‘We’ll Fight the Strikes’.
The Times
: ‘Prime Minister Appeals to the Nation for Support in Winter of Dislocation’.

Monday 7 November

The papers are full of attacks on the firemen’s strike and the power workers’ strike. Yet the
Daily Mirror
carried a report that Princess Anne has spent £100,000 on new stables with a swimming pool to clean her horses and special lighting and heating in the stables so that they dry off immediately after a race. This is the Britain of Jubilee year.

At 5 we heard that an 84-year-old woman had died in hospital shortly
after having an operation which had been interrupted by a power cut. In fact, she had had three heart attacks, one before, one during and one after the power cut. The operation had taken place in a high-risk warning period, the standby generator had failed, and she had been resuscitated and died after the power had been restored.

Tuesday 8 November

Over to Number 10 for EY Committee. Jim took me aside before the meeting. ‘I hear you’re saying this is not a problem for the Government. You’re not suggesting the power workers be paid?’

‘Well, it wouldn’t present a problem for the Government,’ I said.

‘But this is unofficial action.’

‘Jim, are you after winning the pay policy or grinding every shop steward’s face into the mud? You must leave me with some discretion on how I handle this matter. I’m trying to improve the Government’s position.’

I had a message from James Bretherton that John Lyons, General Secretary of the Engineers’ and Managers’ Association, had rung with regard to my favouring the unofficial strikers’ demand that they shouldn’t lose any pay. His men have been helping to cover the strikers’ work. Lyons said that, if such payments were made, his members would withdraw their support. I must say his influence throughout this dispute has been entirely unhelpful and negative.

Ronny King Murray, the Lord Advocate, had some urgent news for me. ‘You are shortly going to get a memorandum on a proposed change of policy on AEA guards. It will suggest that people holding plutonium should be shot on sight. I want you to know because this will be presented to you as the view of all the law officers, but it is not my view.’ I was grateful for the information.

Monday 14 November

On my way to work this morning, it made me sad to see the firemen picketing outside the fire station just behind the Army and Navy store in Victoria. These men of such courage, who lose a man a fortnight in fires and are paid below the national average income, are now being put in the dock. But the ones who appeared on television today, the first day of the strike, came over very well. They were asked about their consciences and they replied. ‘We have got consciences but a conscience can’t pay the mortgage.’

Every time they show soldiers fighting fires, it draws attention to the tremendous dangers that face firemen. I don’t think the Government is going to win on this.

Tuesday 15 November

At 10.15 I went to the Defence and Overseas Policy Committee [DOP] of Cabinet at which we were discussing the Falkland Islands. I am not a
member of DOP as a whole and I am involved only with respect to the oil in the region. All the Chiefs of Staff were there. Before us was a secret Joint Intelligence Committee report marked ‘Delicate Source – UK Eyes Only’ which pointed out that the Argentinian forces were strong enough to take over the Falkland Islands, with their population of 1,950, without a shot being fired. David Owen reported that the Argentinians were likely to be very tough if the negotiations scheduled for December in New York fell through.

When I was called I said I appreciated the gravity of the situation but to divide the sovereignty of the islands with a three-mile limit from the sovereignty of the areas outside, where the oil is, could have tremendously damaging implications for us. It might be better to be defeated on this point than to concede it now. Going to UN arbitration was ruled out because world opinion was against us.

Jim, in a very John Bullish mood, said, ‘World opinion may be against us, but they might feel differently if the Argentinians attack the Falklands.’ So he asked the navy to send out two frigates and possibly a nuclear submarine
before
the negotiations began. A very tough line.

We were all sworn to secrecy about the military operations. I don’t like secrets.

To the Friends of the Earth reception to celebrate the end of the Windscale Inquiry and had a long talk to Walt Patterson and Tom Burke, the director. They are a great crowd. They’ve done very well, and gradually their view is beginning to be taken seriously. I must get them into the Labour Party.

Tuesday 22 November

This evening I was handed a letter from Number 10 referring to a meeting I had arranged with colleagues to discuss the Europe direct elections Bill.