by Tom Bower
Disraeli also made an appalling debut in the Commons, but the similarity between the two men goes no further. Parliament is a reservoir and generator of every human imperfection, especially jealous rivalries exaggerated by the importance which its Members attribute to themselves. The businessman in Parliament is never a happy animal, especially a maverick who is accustomed to respect from his employees and shareholders. For a boardroom dictator willingly to accept the lowly status of a junior politician requires substantial self-awareness, and the humility which Maxwell described when he won the seat had already disappeared. The new Member was impatient to change the world and even more impatient with Parliament's time-wasting traditions. There was a conviction which ran through all his speeches that, if only one hundred other Maxwells could be marshalled, the nation would be saved. He exuded an ambition for power but no one was certain how he would use it. Some even wondered whether Maxwell knew himself.
Soon after his victory, Harold Wilson told the nation that it faced a grave economic crisis. His drastic cure included import surcharges, a range of new taxes and heavy borrowing from the International Monetary Fund. The remedy provoked hectic speculation against sterling, a crisis which preoccupied Parliament and the media. During those tense weeks, Maxwell was bursting to speak - and he succeeded, but his reward was the evaporation of his ministerial dreams.
First, he suggested that Labour MPs should contribute 10 per cent of their salaries to Transport House, an idea which was not welcomed by the non-millionaires in the party's ranks. Then he loudly accused the previous Tory administration of 'cooking the books' on the use of an obscure technical term that described an army unit. He was accurate but it was an irrelevance. Then he complained that printing of the Commons voting lists which were provided 24 hours after the vote was too slow. Again he was right but his manner grated. Finally, he attacked Parliament's traditions and his own ministers for conspiring with the Opposition to approve the annual cost of Britain's embassies without a debate. The vote to approve the costs was to have been a formality to clear the way for a major parliamentary debate, but Maxwell protested amid shouts and insults, mainly from Labour Members, 'I did not realise, until I came into the House, how much of a rubber-stamping organisation the House of Commons had become.' He continued to speak for nineteen minutes while the crammed and agitated front benches waited to start the debate.
During his many forays abroad, he complained, he had been irritated by the condescending and dismissive attitudes of the public-school and Oxbridge types who then dominated the Foreign Office. Britain's diplomats were not helping to promote exports at a time when exports were falling 'alarmingly'. For them, trade was grubby, and Maxwell, like so many businessmen, was given short shrift in those citadels of class prejudice. 'What worries me considerably', shouted Maxwell above a rising clamour of complaints and abuse, 'is the extraordinary complacency and smugness.' Unfortunately for the messenger, the same blindness afflicted his audience who in unison shouted 'Nonsense' when he claimed that Britain was finding it harder to export its manufactures and the Foreign
Office's attitude was destructive. When he finally sat down he was praised by the Tories and derided from the Labour benches. Maxwell was unaware that the Tory support arose out of glee over the government's embarrassment.
The price he paid was severe. 'Crossbencher' in the Sunday Express dubbed him 'the biggest gasbag in the Commons. . . . This handsome, debonair 41-year-old made the first maiden speech of the new Parliament, and he has scarcely sat down since.' Crossbencher advised the newcomer 'with a touch of old-world courtesy' to 'Belt up'. In the Commons, he was snubbed and mocked by his colleagues. 'I am ambitious to get things done,' he said, but few were listening.
At the end of his first year, he presented his local party with an annual report of his activities. He had spent 3,260 hours working on constituency business, including 1,580 inside Westminster. There had been 92 contributions or interventions in debates and 65 questions; he had written 215 letters to ministers and had led 20 deputations to ministries; he had written 4,000 letters on behalf of constituents and met 780 constituents on personal matters; he had attended 115 public meetings, made 6,000 telephone calls and travelled 15,000 miles. Few politicians would expect to be judged on statistics but the daily reports of the Commons proceedings in Hansard reveal his unconventional approach. Regularly he walked into the chamber, bowed to the Speaker, strode to his bench and either shouted a remark or rose to speak without knowing what had just been said. Repeatedly, he was rebuked: 'If the honourable Gentleman had listened to the debate' or 'That is a point which is not in dispute' or 'The hon. Gentleman cannot walk into the Chamber at about a quarter to nine and expect to be allowed to interrupt. He is always doing it; I have watched him frequently.'
This was the period when Maxwell won his reputation with the wider public by actively seeking media coverage. At the Commons bar, drinks were always on Maxwell. If his guest asked for a single, a double was ordered. Desmond Wilcox, then the executive editor of BBC television's Man Alive programme, recalls that 'Maxwell would always, at that time, make himself readily available for a TV appearance.' He wanted recognition for himself and his theme which was that Britain's businessmen should follow his own example and export more, curb their accumulation of capital and increase their investments. As will be seen later, throughout his parliamentary career, he vigorously expanded his own business interests. The media publicity was not confined to his political pronouncements but was mixed with his commercial coups, negotiated either from Fitzroy Square or from his office in Parliament.
No business opportunity was ever missed, including those offered in his constituency. At the beginning of 1966, after buying a large factory at Fenny Stratford and the site of Bletchley Printers, he bought a 50,000-square-foot building at Olney with surrounding land. It was sited adjacent to the Wolverton railway workshops, where his promise to create 1,200 jobs was still unfulfilled. His plans were frustrated, he explained, because he could not obtain road access to the site. This latest acquisition was completed just after he spoke in a Commons debate where he had praised the proposed Land Commission. 'For too long we have seen marketeers and land speculators holding the community to ransom,' he said. That speech echoed a previous attack during a constituency meeting in April 1964 against 'land speculators [who] have already cashed in on a gigantic scale'.
Land was an issue which found Maxwell confused. Since the early 1960s Whitehall had mooted a new town for North Bucks which would be built on 27,000 acres of agricultural land and be called Milton Keynes. Initially Maxwell opposed the compulsory purchase of the land, the denial of compensation to tenant farmers and indeed the whole scheme, arguing that the expansion of existing towns would be preferable. But at the beginning of 1966 he changed his views and clashed in particular with the railway workers in Wolverton. 'He told them frankly that they were old-fashioned and uninspired,' recalls Barnard, his agent, 'and began telling them how they should run their local council to take advantage of the new town. They didn't like his interference very much.' It was a slight hiccup which was temporarily forgotten in the excitement of a new general election.
Harold Wilson prided himself on his sense of timing and the announcement of the election in March 1966 coincided perfectly with graphic newspaper accounts of disarray in the Conservative ranks. Few departing Members of Parliament doubted that a Labour government would be returned with a working majority and that a ministerial reshuffle would follow. Maxwell left Westminster hoping that Wilson, having paid off his political debts, would finally recognise his talents and invite him to assist in the rescue of the economy. On the eve of his own departure, Maxwell re-entered the chamber of the Commons and waited until just before the last formalities were completed to jump up and say farewell. Two days later he proudly told his local newspaper that the chance of speaking the first and last words of a Parliament 'must be millions to one'.
The confident Labour candidate fought the election wit
h a new agent, Jim Lyons, since Barnard was himself standing as a candidate. Lyons inherited a highly tuned election machine and was presented with the campaign slogan, 'Let Harold and Bob finish the job'. Maxwell rushed around the constituency, extolling his record and his achievements, which included raising the money for a hospital and keeping a local railway line open. He was rewarded with an increased majority of 2,254 which, as Lyons said, was due to 'an outstanding Member of Parliament, the enthusiasm of our members and their will to win'.
For Maxwell, the victory was a personal triumph but his return to Westminster was an anti-climax. He was not invited to join the government and it seemed unlikely that he would be given the opportunity in the lifetime of that Parliament. 'You're neither a trade unionist nor an intellectual socialist,' Crossman told Maxwell. 'So Harold won't have you.' Tam Dalyell, reflecting a common view, says that 'The problem was what job Harold could have given him. It would have to be important and that was too difficult.' According to Merlyn Rees, 'He had been too rude to people but one had to feel sorry for him.' Maxwell accepted that he would remain a backbencher for the next five years and launched himself in every direction. 'He was like the charge of the heavy cavalry,' says one of his party colleagues. 'He whooshed past with enormous speed and strength but one had absolutely no idea where he was going.'
Restless and ambitious he seized every opportunity regardless of the effect on his credibility.
In 1966, the publishers Calder and Boyars were prosecuted for publishing Hubert Selby's Last Exit to Brooklyn on the grounds that its description of a homosexual affair was obscene. Bernard Levin described it as 'a dreadful, savage and shockingly moralistic book about a corner of New York where, to quote the British publishers, "nothing matters except the precarious dollar and the pleasure of inflicting violence on someone weaker than oneself."' Most of London's legal and cultural elite opposed the prosecution and hoped that it would meet the same fate as the case against D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover in 1960. Their overwhelming opposition made the prosecution's task of finding expert witnesses who could evaluate the book's literary merit particularly difficult and it was therefore relieved when Maxwell was prepared to testify in what everyone accepted was a watershed case. Described as a publisher, politician and family man, Maxwell appeared at Marlborough Street Magistrates' Court and condemned the book as 'brutal and filthy' and added that he was 'horrified to be a member of the same association' as the publishers, who 'disseminate this muck for profit'.
Maxwell's appearance as an expert on literature was puzzling. He had never previously shown an interest in novels and it was reliably rumoured that some of his shelves in Headington contained purely decorative book facias. Maxwell's condemnation of profits was also peculiar since he boasted about the pursuit of money, and his own bookshops had been selling the very book whose ban he demanded. The prosecution was successful but the conviction was later overturned on appeal. Maxwell's reward was to attract the added dislike of publishers who had not experienced the Simpkins crash. Two years later he admitted to the Daily Express, 'I'm probably the most unpopular publisher among publishers. But I pay no attention to these matters. It's largely sour grapes. Remember, publishing is a trade for gentlemen. It's supposed to take three generations and 150 years to succeed.' The same article quoted an 'acquaintance' about Maxwell: 'He's really incredibly complicated - megalomaniac, naive and sensitive at the same time. On the whole I admire him. He's nearly all hot air.' Fifteen years later Maxwell made a bid to buy Mayfair, the sex magazine. 'With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do,' said Ralph Emerson, but Maxwell's inconsistency was driven by self-promotion, to cement his self-esteem.
Like so many entrepreneurs, Maxwell had watched in frustration as Britain's industrial performance slid uncontrollably, and he blamed both the managers and the unions. Before the election of 1964, Wilson had often spoken about the need for technology and dynamism but the promised revolution had still not materialised. 'If only the nation would follow my example,' Maxwell was often heard to say, 'so many problems would be cured.' All that talent was at the nation's disposal but was rejected by the Labour Party, which was still steeped in the emotion, mythology and philosophy of state control. Maxwell was not in tune with much of the party. In particular, he could not understand the Labour stalwarts from the north who had graduated from the coal villages or the industrial slums. Their single-minded sentiment and political credo, which was ingrained with the bitterness of their local communities' fight against a pernicious class system, was alien to him. His own worldwide travel had exposed him to industrial and technical revolutions which were unknown to most workers from Bradford and Birmingham, but to his irritation they relished their ignorance and spurned his experience. They regarded Maxwell as an arrogant millionaire; after all, when charged with dangerous driving for shaving while driving at 90 m.p.h. in his Rolls-Royce, he failed four times to appear in court to answer the charge. The dialogue never began. 'His success and wealth annoyed people,' recalls Richard Marsh, who had been appointed Minister for Power and who would invite Maxwell to ministerial parties.
Marsh regularly hosted receptions for foreign delegations at Lancaster House and because budgets for interpreters were limited was grateful if Maxwell agreed to attend. On one occasion, as Maxwell strolled from one group to another changing languages to crack jokes, he arrived in front of Marsh and Sir Robert Marshall, who was then the Deputy Permanent Secretary at the Ministry.
‘I hear that you speak German,' began Maxwell. 'Yes,' replied Marshall. 'Any other languages?' 'French.'
'It is extraordinary', replied Maxwell, 'how you educated people can only speak two foreign languages. I speak eleven.'
Forlornly, Maxwell waited for an appointment, although his politics seemed too varied for him to be identified with a group within the party who needed to be rewarded. For example, at the ceremony in 1966 to receive on Pergamon's behalf the Queen's Award to Industry, he told his audience that the pound would never be devalued because it would cause a 1929-type 'calamity'. When the pound was devalued one year later, he hailed it as 'the greatest opportunity for British exporters'. In autumn 1966, he urged import quotas and a freeze on wages but when the government imposed draconian tax increases to rescue the free-falling economy, he lectured Wilson from the backbenches on his own survival plan which contradicted those policies. The government, he said, needed to produce a plan to increase productivity, to scrap its prices and incomes policy and to join the Common Market. Nothing he said had much effect, not even a sane 117-page report which recommended that the state should use its discretion in procurement to improve industry's efficiency, remove restrictive practices, encourage productivity agreements, retrain labour and boost exports. Grossman sympathised with his predicament and produced what he genuinely hoped would be a helpful solution. He asked Maxwell to become the chairman of the House of Commons Catering Committee.
In 1966, the annual deficit of the Commons' kitchen had increased from £33,000 in 1969 to £57,000 in 1970, creating a combined deficit of £53,000. The Catering Committee blamed the losses on paying too much for food, on the abundance of waste, and on a complete lack of control over the movement of food and money through the kitchens. In summary, there was gross inefficiency and wholesale theft. Chairing the Commons Catering Committee was not a prestigious task and, as Marsh reflects, 'No one was queuing for the job and I was surprised when Bob took it.'
Maxwell's solution was radical. He negotiated a grant from the Treasury, fired a large number of the staff, reduced the quality of the meals and, at the price of eternal opprobrium, sold the entire cellar of vintage wines. At the end of the financial year, he claimed that his entrepreneurial skills had turned the huge deficit into profit.
His success, instead of enhancing his reputation, aroused the very antagonism he might have hoped to assuage. Question-time in the Commons was peppered with exchanges which were cannon-fodder to both wags and journalists anxious to poke fun at the million
aire socialist. He was asked about the substitution of powdered milk for fresh milk, the introduction of processed chips instead of fresh potatoes and the total weight of sausages consumed during one year (6,800 lb). Regularly, MPs used the occasion to deliver embarrassing blows by asking why oeuf en gêlée was no longer on the menu or why the tea room no longer served 'decent plain biscuits, only nasty cheap sugary ones'. It was demeaning, and although he claimed that the £33,000 loss had been reversed to an annual £20,000 profit, critics, inside" and outside the House of Commons, would later claim that his achievement owed much to accounting. If the Treasury grant and exceptional items were deducted, the annual losses had actually increased from £33,000 in 1968 to £57,000 in 1969. Crossman was nevertheless very pleased with Maxwell's performance.
Maxwell retired from the committee after two years, which coincided with the post-devaluation crisis, a wave of strikes, Cabinet splits and by-election defeats at home and the bitter wars in Vietnam and Nigeria. It was the nadir of the Labour government and, according to Cecil King, Maxwell was among those who wanted to be counted among the dissidents. 'Maxwell', he wrote in his diary, 'has been pestering Hugh Cudlipp [the editor of the Daily Mirror] with phone calls and letters. He really will have to be given the brush-off.' In public, Maxwell spoke about 'leading the nation away from the British sickness' but he lacked any following. So when Wilson appealed for the 'Dunkirk spirit' as the cornerstone in the fight for Britain's economic survival, Maxwell, driven by instinct and patriotism, was among the first to rally to the slogan. 'Once their energy and talent is liberated [sic],' said Maxwell about the British workers, 'nothing will stop this country regaining its place in the world.' His sentiment was genuine. It was only a short step from there to his association with a new campaign which won him national recognition.
