A Very British Coup

by Chris Mullin

  The bedroom door was open. In the light from the landing he could see Annette lying on the bed, fully clothed, one leg trailing over the edge.

  “Annette,” he whispered, but there came no answer.

  He listened for the sound of her breathing, but he could hear nothing.

  “Annette,” he screamed, jamming on the light.

  She lay on the bed. Very pale and perfectly still. On the table by the bedside was a glass half full of water and beside her on the bed an empty bottle. The label on the bottle said, “Maximum dosage: three tablets.”

  10

  The weather in November 1989 was bitter. The lake in St James’s Park froze and the keepers had to break a hole in the ice for the ducks. Even the Astrakhan pelicans sought refuge from the cold in the shrubbery on an island in the lake and disappeared from public view.

  The weathermen forecast a white Christmas and as the evenings drew in the clear sky turned grey. “What we need now,” said Sir Peter Kennedy to Sir Richard Hildrew, as they took a lunchtime stroll across the park, “is a nice long miners’ strike.”

  The trade union leaders filed into the Great Parlour at Chequers and took their seats around the polished mahogany table. Before he sat down Bill Knight of the Engineers’ Union caressed the oak wall panelling. “This is what I call class,” he said and as he spoke his hand drifted to the blue and white porcelain on the mantelpiece. Despite impeccable proletarian origins most union leaders quickly adapted to the comforts of high office.

  Chequers, the country residence of the Prime Minister, is a huge Tudor mansion in Buckinghamshire donated to the nation by a patriotic magnate who would no doubt have revolved in his grave if he could have seen Harry Perkins sitting at his dining table.

  Or maybe he would not. For Chequers with its galleries and terraces and Old Masters had transformed generations of Labour Prime Ministers into country squires. When he first took office Perkins vowed he would have nothing to do with Chequers, but he was there before the year was out.

  “Gentlemen,” said Perkins, turning the cover page of the Cabinet Office brief on the table before him. The document was entitled “The first five years,” and across the top a private secretary had written in longhand “first draft”. The trade union leaders all had copies before them and they turned the cover page in unison with the Prime Minister. “Gentlemen,” Perkins repeated, “we are here to reach an understanding between the government and the trade unions on the management of the economy for the remainder of our term of office.” As he spoke tea was served by girls in the blue uniforms of the WRNS, seconded to Chequers for such occasions.

  Perkins chose his words with care. Every such ‘understanding’ between a Labour government and the unions had started by embracing prices, pensions, public ownership and a range of other issues dear to the hearts of trade unionists and ended up as a disguised incomes policy. This was a sore point with union leaders and Perkins was keen to reassure them. “Let me be clear,” he was saying, “we will deliver our share of the bargain.” The government would take control of the pension and insurance funds. Industrial capital would be made available at low rates of interest. There would be quotas on the import of manufactured goods, particularly cars and textiles. He was heard in silence and his pauses were punctuated only by the ticking of the fine grandfather clock in the corner.

  Not everyone was listening. Bill Knight of the Engineers’ Union was gazing out of the window at the frost-tinted north lawn. Reg Smith, general secretary of the United Power-workers was wondering if the portrait of Oliver Cromwell on the opposite wall would suit the living room of his house in Virginia Water. There are not a lot of power workers living in Virginia Water, but then Smith had come a long way since his days as a stoker in Battersea Power Station.

  Perkins stopped and asked for comments. Cups were refilled and the Wrens wheeled away their trolleys. Knight spoke first. “What about wages. You ain’t said nothing about wages.”

  “That’s right,” said Smith, “my lads will be asking for fifty per cent.” This news was greeted by a low whistle from Jim Forrester, the railwaymen’s leader. His lads would be lucky with ten per cent.

  Perkins concealed his anger, but his cheeks were flushed. Here were two men who had devoted years to fixing Labour party conferences into voting down just about every progressive demand on the agenda. Now here they were with their hands out at the first opportunity.

  “Wages,” said Perkins calmly, “will have to be part of the whole package. If we are going to put money into social services and industrial investment, then we have to go easy on wage claims for the moment.”

  “My members will accept that,” said Bob Sanders of the local government workers. Even as he spoke he was nervous. He had seen four Labour governments in his working life. Each one started by promising the moon and ended up turning on the unions. But he would give it a try. He was now a year off retirement and his lifelong dream seemed to have come true. Britain had a real Socialist government at last. He did not want to see it become bogged down by wage militancy. “Providing,” added Sanders, “and only providing that the government keeps faith on its share of the deal.”

  “My members only earn half as much as yours.” Sanders was speaking directly to Reg Smith. “Of course they’d like a fifty per cent increase too but they recognise it’s a question of priorities. They attach higher priority to reducing unemployment than to higher wages.”

  “We’re here to represent the employed, not the unemployed,” snapped Smith. Then he stopped abruptly because he knew he’d gone too far.

  “Speak for yourself,” said someone at the end of the table.

  After that the meeting went more Perkins way. It was agreed that there would be no limit on public sector wage claims. Trade union negotiators would however be asked to bear in mind that there were other ways of improving living standards beside higher wages. Not everyone went along with this. Smith declared that his power workers would be going all out for as much as they could get. And he was heard to say that, if Perkins did not watch out, he would have a strike on his hands.

  *

  Sir Philip Norton was casting an eye over the Cabinet minutes when the phone rang. It was Fiennes of DI5. “You wanted some background on Lady Elizabeth Fain.”

  “At last,” said Sir Philip.

  Fiennes read from his notes, “Daughter of the fourth Earl. A former equerry to the King, a thousand acres in Somerset, former colonel in the Coldstream Guards. Retired from the army seven years ago.”

  “Never mind the father,” said Norton impatiently, “what about the girl?”

  “Aged twenty-five. Private income of £11,500 a year. A mews house near Sloane Square. All fairly predictable really,” said Fiennes wearily.

  “And the phone tap?” Sir Philip drummed his fingers on the desk top.

  “Nothing much. Her life mainly seems to consist of organising dinner parties or being invited to them.”

  A blind alley, thought Sir Philip. Still, it had been worth a try. He was just about to thank Fiennes for his trouble when Fiennes said, “One curious thing, sir. She has made a couple of calls to a number in Camden. Chap by the name of Fred Thompson lives there. Seems to be that young leftie who works in the Prime Minister’s office. Strange, someone with her background mixing with a chap like Thompson.”

  “Yes,” said Sir Philip, “very strange.” Thanking Fiennes for his help he replaced the phone. So that was how Perkins knew about the conversation at Watlington. In future he would be more careful. You couldn’t trust anyone these days.

  The phone rang. It was Fiennes again. “One other snippet that might interest you, sir.”

  “Go ahead, Fiennes.”

  “This Fain girl has just started a job as a research assistant in the Shadow Cabinet office at the House of Commons.”

  “Has she by jove?” said Sir Philip. “We’ll see about that.”

  Fred Thompson was in his Camden flat preparing to set out for the launderette when t
he phone rang. It was Elizabeth Fain. She sounded upset. “Fred, I’ve been fired.”

  Thompson dropped the bundle of dirty shirts he had been stuffing into a pillowcase and sat on the floor by the telephone. “Why on earth …?”

  “They said my work wasn’t up to scratch, but I’ve only been there a week and nobody complained until yesterday.” Poor Elizabeth. She was almost in tears. Normally she was so composed. “I asked why they hadn’t complained before and they came over very funny. Said they had really been looking for someone who knew about economics but they never said a word about economics when I was interviewed.” Her voice trailed off.

  Thompson was about to commiserate, but before he could say a word Elizabeth spoke again. “Fred, you don’t think it has anything to do with what I told you about my weekend in Oxfordshire with the Nortons?”

  “How could it? I told no one except …” He had been going to say, “except the Prime Minister,” but stopped himself just in time. Yes, of course that was it. He knew exactly what had happened.

  “Except who?”

  “Elizabeth, let me buy you lunch. I’ll be over in twenty minutes.” Thompson put down the phone and scooped the pile of fifty pence pieces he had been saving for the launderette into the pocket of his raincoat.

  Out on the street he hailed a taxi to Sloane Square. They lunched at a bistro on the King’s Road and afterwards drove in Elizabeth’s Volkswagen to Hyde Park. Walpole the spaniel came too. That afternoon they held hands for the first time.

  “Coming on to snow,” said Sir Peter Kennedy as he brushed the flakes from his Aquascutum raincoat. The sky was greyer than ever and the lake in the park remained frozen. An old lady was feeding breadcrumbs to the ducks although the sign said she shouldn’t.

  “No sign of that miners’ strike you were hoping for,” said Sir Richard Hildrew, as they hurried across the park towards Whitehall.

  “No,” said Sir Peter, “but looks like the next best thing. The power workers are threatening a go-slow after Christmas.” By the time they reached the steps leading into Downing Street the snow was falling fast.

  11

  One reason why the British ruling class have endured so long is that every so often it opens ranks and absorbs a handful of its worst enemies. Reg Smith was a case in point.

  He was six feet six in his bare feet. His greying hair was closely crew-cut and this, combined with a broken nose and half closed eyes, gave him a somewhat menacing appearance. Out of earshot, he was known to most of his colleagues as Odd Job. Within earshot he was referred to with deference. Reg Smith had presence.

  He started life in a crumbling terrace of back-to-back houses in Chester-le-Street, County Durham. But for the second world war he would have followed his father down the pit, but instead he was conscripted into the army at the tail end of the war. A sergeant by the time he was demobbed, he signed on as a stoker at Battersea Power Station.

  Chairman of his union branch within no time, after two years he was sent as a delegate to the national conference of the United Power Workers’ Union. At about this time he joined the Labour Party and before long he was attending the annual conference as a union delegate. Those with memories long enough recall the day when Reg Smith was at the sharp end of the class struggle. There was even a time when he would not have taken offence at being described as a Marxist.

  But times changed. At the end of the 1950s a ferocious battle was taking place to wrest control of the United Power Workers’ Union from Communists. Smith saw the way the wind was blowing and weighed in on the side of the moderates. Not long after, a vacancy as a district organiser was advertised in the union journal. Smith applied, got the job and never looked back.

  He first came into contact with the Americans at a conference organised by the Ditchley Foundation in the summer of 1981. The Ditchley Foundation is not exactly secret, but nor is it exactly public either. Its purpose, according to the prospectus, is “to provide opportunities for people concerned with the formation of opinion from the United States and Britain … to meet in quiet surroundings.”

  The ‘people concerned with the formation of opinion’ tend to be mainly bankers, businessmen, politicians and diplomats. Occasionally a right-wing trade unionist is invited to discuss how to keep his members under control. That was where Reg Smith came in.

  The ‘quiet surroundings’ are a magnificent eighteenth-century mansion secluded among oak and beech trees in the rolling countryside of Oxfordshire.

  After his first Ditchley conference Smith found that he was plugged into an international network of very powerful people. Like all powerful people they were obsessed with the notion that someone somewhere was plotting to take away the power and status they had amassed.

  The American embassy arranged for Smith and his wife to go on an expenses paid tour of the United States to learn about American labour relations. In Washington they even arranged for him to spend five minutes with the President and a photograph of the event occupied pride of place on the mantelpiece of his Virginia Water house.

  The powers-that-be knew that one day Reg Smith would come in handy. And with the election of Harry Perkins, Smith’s hour had come.

  Negotiations between the Electricity Council and the United Power Workers’ Union broke down in mid-January. The employers, prompted by the government, wanted to take the dispute to arbitration, but Smith would have none of it. Instead he summoned a special meeting of his executive for the following Wednesday. Item one on the agenda would be a proposal for a work to rule to start forthwith. No one doubted it would be carried. The snow began to settle for the first time that winter.

  *

  The executive of the United Power Workers’ Union met in the seventeenth floor boardroom of the union’s smart new premises on the Euston Road. The offices had been an investment by the power workers’ pension fund and built on an old British Rail goods yard. The union occupied the top five floors with the other twelve rented out at considerable profit. When they first became public the plans for the lavish new offices had provoked criticism from some members. Several letters were sent to the union journal pointing out that the power workers were supposed to be against property speculation. The letters were not published. Smith saw to that. “Nothing’s too good for the working class,” he told the critics.

  To the south the boardroom overlooked Bloomsbury and beyond that the Thames. The river meandered in a grey ribbon from Tower Hamlets to Wandsworth. St Paul’s Cathedral, Nelson’s Column and the tower of the House of Lords stood out clearly, and in the far distance, the television mast at Crystal Palace and beyond that the beginnings of the Kent countryside. On a clear day you could even tell the time by Big Ben. Reg Smith enjoyed nothing better than showing visitors the view from his boardroom, particularly after dark when the whole panorama was a mass of twinkling lights. “One word from me,” he was fond of telling his guests, “and that lot would be in darkness.”

  Smith took his seat at one end of the solid oak table in the centre of the room. He brought the meeting to order by slapping the polished surface with the flat of his hand. There was immediate silence. “Brothers,” said Smith in an accent that owed more to Virginia Water than the Durham mining town of his birth, “it’s very simple. We’re asking for fifty per cent and an extra week’s holiday. The Board are offering us ten per cent and no extra holiday.”

  He cast an eye around the table in search of dissenters. There being none he continued, “We have made our position clear from the start. If there is no more money on the table, then we will be forced to take industrial action.”

  Again Smith scanned the faces. Despite the indignant tone in which he addressed them, his remarks provoked no nods of agreement. Left to themselves most members of the executive would have settled at ten per cent. They were moderates almost to a man. Indeed most of them owed their seats to the fact that they had featured on a slate of moderate candidates published in certain popular newspapers at the time of the election. Now they were being
asked to agree to industrial action in support of a wage demand that most of them privately considered was outrageous. It was a strange old world.

  “This afternoon your president,” Smith indicated a balding hollow-cheeked man immediately on his left, “and myself went to see the minister at the Department of Employment. All he could offer us was arbitration. We …” Smith looked again at the president, “… we told the minister that arbitration was completely unacceptable and that in view of the government’s intransigence we would be forced to take industrial action. To which the minister asked us to spare a thought for the economic situation of the country and the efforts the government was making in other areas. I …” Smith paused, “… we told him that this had no bearing whatever on the merits of our case.”

  Not everyone could bring themselves to look at the general secretary while he addressed them. When it came to the vote he could count on most of them but their hearts were not in it. Smith came to the point. “I therefore propose that we instruct our members to commence working-to-rule as from midnight tonight.” He paused to draw breath. “Any comments?”

  Midway down the table a large, debauched looking man raised the forefinger of his right hand. His shirt collar was concealed beneath an overhang of chin.

  “Brother Walker.”

  Tommy Walker represented the north-east division. His support was a certainty. “I agree with the general secretary.” He paused to muster synthetic indignation. “I think it is a scandal the way we’ve been treated. All these years we’ve been sliding down the pay league and now the time has come to put the power workers back where they belong. At the top.” He underlined the last phrase by bringing his hand down with a slap on the surface of the table.

  “Thank you, Tommy,” said Smith. A man at the end of the table was indicating he wished to speak, but Smith ignored him and scanned the other executive members. No one else indicated and so he returned to the man at the end of the table. “Brother Clwyd.”