by Tom Black
“We cannot dither!”
“We also cannot afford to appear too radical either,” Healey replied, “we have lost a great number of valued colleagues to Weform.”
“Who?” Benn scoffed, “they are either old men in the twilight of their careers,” referring to the likes of Michael Stewart and Lord George-Brown, “or newcomers in a hurry. They have no gravitas.”
‘No gravitas’ was a rather dismissive way of referring to the likes of Tony Crosland and Roy Hattersley, and Healey was going to point this out.
“This is the problem that we have, Tony. This isn’t Dick Taverne we’re talking about. We have lost almost a third of the Parliamentary Party and a number of trusted and popular figures – if we are seen as being implacable ostriches, we risk going backwards and shedding yet more support.”
That was clearly a rebuke to the new Leader of the Labour Party, and it did not go unnoticed.
“Denis, if you hold these views so stridently, then you a quite welcome to articulate them before the membership.”
“A membership that has not had a say over either of their past two leaders?”
“I am, of course, prepared to stand in a leadership contest should a challenger have sufficient support. Indeed, I think it would be a very good thing for this not to be a coronation.”
The MPs around the table looked long and hard at their Acting Leader, each one trying to determine whether he was hoping for a token challenge from the rump right. Fat chance of that, given that the only right wingers left in the party who hadn’t jumped ship to Reform were the older gentlemen retiring at the next election. There was a time when Jim would have been the obvious choice. Before ‘Wilsongate’ (Barbara shuddered), rumours had been circulating that Harold had decided Jim would have his tacit support when he eventually retired. But now, Callaghan was spending most of his time on his farm, and some windbag called Davies (obviously) had been selected to replace him in Cardiff South East. Apparently, in an echo of Sir Winston, Jim had informed close colleagues that he was ‘just so bored with it all’. Barbara had been surprised but not, obviously, disappointed. There had never been any love lost between her and Jim.
The hard left would probably be able to scrape enough nominations together, probably behind Heffer. Eric had enjoyed his brief period of ‘party leadership’ when the Liverpool Independent Socialists had become the Independent Socialist Party, though he had kept his head down since the NEC turned a blind eye to the irregularities of allowing him and his colleagues to rejoin Labour.
“I believe the shadow cabinet know my view on standing for the leadership,” Healey said calmly, still painfully aware that his student membership of the Communist Party made him a non-starter post-Harold.
“I also feel I should say now,” Michael Foot declared, “that I will not be a candidate against Tony.” ‘Because he’s got it locked up, the bastard’ hung silently in the air. Barbara realised now was as good a time as any.
“If I may, comrades?” she said from the end of the table.
“Please, comrade,” Benn replied with a good deal of graciousness.
“Thank you, Tony. I believe you are doing a good job as Acting Leader, as indeed you did as Deputy, but I am also aware that I have a body of support within the PLP, and the membership at large – whose views we should not ignore, of course. In the interests of an open debate, I would like to put myself forward as a candidate.”
Benn’s eyes widened.
“...I beg your pardon?”
Barbara was only too happy to repeat herself.
PART FOUR
The Trials of Harold Wilson
One month later
Chapter twenty-nine
Monday 1st November 1976 – 9:30am
“...and it would, of course, be only after O’Connor’s death that the move to accept ‘the middle-class embrace’ was accepted.”
Malcolm Chase loved Chartism. This much had been clear to him since he came across them in a book as a boy. Now in his second year of a History degree at York, the opportunity to travel to Birmingham for a lecture on the 19th century working class movement had been a dream come true. Dorothy Thompson, the leading light of Chartist history, was enrapturing him at this very moment.
At that same moment, however, the door burst open and a very fat man in something approaching a police uniform marched up onto the stage, flanked by two rather trimmer men in similarly paramilitary gear.
“This is an illegal congregation of subversives, as defined by the Sedition Act 1976,” the fat man announced, his moustache bristling, “and it falls to the Special Constables of the 1st District, West Midlands, to take you all into custody. I have here a warrant to this effect, please cooperate at once.”
Dorothy Thompson, still stood at the lectern, looked furious. As the fat man tried to put her in handcuffs, she stepped back and demanded the right to read his ‘warrant’. He loudly refused and instructed his men to ‘seize her’. This was enough to ‘set the room off’, as Malcolm had heard others say.
“Unhand her!” shouted a man in tweed in the second row, “you’ve no right!”
“Am I to understand that you are all resisting arrest?” bellowed the fat man.
“We reject your authority, sir!” yelled a tall woman as she stood on her chair, “the police force, and the state monopoly on violence, exist thanks to the consent of the governed and policed—”
“Shut your mouth!” screamed the fat man, who promptly blew a whistle. The door flew open again and what looked like two dozen ‘Special Constables’ began pouring into the room, truncheons out and helmets on.
“First Blackstone Edge, now this!” cried Owen Ashton, before picking up his wooden chair and brandishing it like a lion tamer. The Blackstone Edge Gathering, a traditional Chartist festival and nowadays an annual meeting of Chartist historians, had indeed been broken up in a similar fashion in May. Malcolm had narrowly avoided a broken nose, but a dozen others had been released from custody with rather worse injuries than they went in with. A further three others were still ‘awaiting charge’ under the provisions of the Public Order Act.
“Come on, Malc, if they want to do us in like this, we’ll give them a fight!” said Stephen Roberts as he bounded past, rolling up his sleeves. Someone started singing Song of the Low, and more voices joined it as the seemingly unending stream of men in black tunics flooded through the door. Malcolm found himself backing towards the wall of the lecture hall, then saw Owen take a truncheon-blow to the head. Dorothy was now lying on her front on the stage, six ‘constables’ pinning her down. Roaring with anger and clenching his fists, Malcolm surged forward into the chaos, a century-old protest song ringing loud in his ears.
Sir Michael Hanley had come to enjoy his regular meetings with Lord Mountbatten. The Earl of Burma always had a story to tell. Of Delhi, perhaps, or of his wartime escapades. More recently, the story of how he had convinced Mrs Castle, the new leader of the Labour Party, to support – via abstention – his government until January. Apparently it had been a charming affair, in which Mountbatten had admitted he would have sent for Castle if he had been tasked with forming an anti-Wilson government in 1968, which the new Leader of the Opposition couldn’t help but find oddly flattering. Hanley could believe it – the First Lord of the Treasury was good company.
But what Sir Michael really appreciated these days was just how pliable Mountbatten had become. Since the Anglo-Irish Agreement squeaked through the Commons in September, the old man had been metaphorically wounded, and appeared to have taken on a matching physical burden. The assurances the League were able to give him of a stable government able to ‘weather the crisis and preserve the liberties we hold so dear’ were like music to his ears.
As Big Ben struck noon, Sir Michael placed another report from Operation Greenland on the First Lord’s desk. Mountbatten picked it up, and his face fell.
“A public brawl? Spilling out into the streets? Twenty-four injured? Sir Michael, this is not what we are trying to do.�
�
Sir Michael turned on the sincerity.
“I agree, First Lord. This is intensely regrettable. But these measures are what the country needs—”
“Are they?”
Sir Michael was caught off-guard.
“Sir?”
“Are they really what we need, Sir Michael?” Mountbatten said. His tone was not aggressive, or even angry. It was tired.
“Sir, the risks to our society posed by infiltration and sedition have been exposed by the Wilson Affair. The breeding grounds of men like Harold Wilson must be purged from our country. I did not join the Service to arrest and oppress, First Lord. I joined it to keep this country safe. With a heavy heart, I, like you, accept that this is what we are doing.”
The First Lord of the Treasury exhaled heavily and sat back down.
“You are right, of course,” he said wearily, “I am just getting a little tired of it all. I want the country back on its feet, and it seems that we take another step back every time another Special Constable caves in the head of a Woodcraft Folk organiser.”
“We can fight the hysteria, First Lord,” soothed Sir Michael, “and we are doing so. Mr Bentine’s programme, ‘How to Spot a Decent Leftie’ has been very popular and has been shown a dozen times on the BBC now. It is going a long way toward completely eradicating the spates of irrational violence against loyal British subjects who merely happen to have left-of-centre views.”
Mountbatten grumbled incoherently, then nodded.
“You are right, again. I am simply despondent today. My apologies. What else is there to discuss?”
“A few of the new detention provisions require your signature for an extension, First Lord.”
“I thought that required a judge? Or the Home Secretary?”
“It used to, yes, sir. Just sign here and here, please.”
Mountbatten readied his pen and gave only a perfunctory sigh before writing.
A discreet ride in a P5 later, Sir Michael was in his own office, and picking up the receiver of his direct line. Dialing a number he now knew by heart, he spoke when the person at the other end gave their name.
“Tomorrow night.”
Enoch Powell was getting bored of pubs. The hostelries of Kensington and Chelsea were all well and good, but the ones outside Victoria station tended to be either soulless, converted banks, pretentious European-style wine-bars, or the sort of place that the Kray Twins would have turned down as “a bit rough for the likes of us”. Much to the Member for South Down’s indignation, the one that he was currently sat in seemed to embody elements of all three.
Fortuitously, his contact was already waiting for him.
“Mr Powell,” the man sitting in the snug, nursing a pint of lager shandy, bobbed to his feet.
“Mullins, is it?” Powell said, hoping that he was giving the impression that he was already on the verge of leaving.
“There is only one of me,” Chris Mullin replied, “at least the last time I checked.”
The slightly flippant response was a mistake. Powell dragged himself up, bristling furiously.
“I do not have the time to be sneered at, Mr Mullins, nor have I the patience to pretend to enjoy drinking in this sort of establishment.”
Mullin backtracked – loath though he was to show any diffidence towards the man facing him.
“My apologies, sir,” he said, holding his hands behind his back to stop him clenching them, “I did not mean to insult you, but a mutual friend of ours has informed me that you may wish to know the current composition of Lord Mountbatten’s inner circle.”
There was a pause. Eventually, Powell sat. He did not take the pint glass in front of him.
“I take it by the quiver in your voice that ‘inner circle’ does not refer to Mr Heath – he has never been a man to inspire fear.”
“Quite,” Mullin replied. “I suppose that the best way to refer to them would be ‘Cabal’ – although I understand that the term is a somewhat nebulous one. Our mutual friend described the composition to me in some detail – I suspect that the concept itself will not be of any real surprise to you?”
It was not. Westminster was not a large place, and even to a backbencher such as Powell, the rumours of extra drivers being added to the books of the Government Car Service, clandestine meetings at Chequers, and men in double-breasted suits being ushered into Downing Street well after the last sitting of the Commons had been the subject of many a hushed conversation in the Tea Room ever since. Powell confirmed he’d heard some rumblings.
“Well,” said Mullin furtively, “listen carefully and be ready to move if someone – anyone – comes and sits near us. What I’m about to pass on is incredibly sensitive information.”
“You have my attention,” Powell said, flatly.
Over the next few minutes, Mullin gained more than that. His source was apparently highly placed, and while Enoch’s first instinct was to scoff harder than he had ever scoffed before, too much of what Mullin said made sense. The names and faces were too familiar, and the claims of what they were capable of were plausible enough.
“So, to reiterate,” said Mullin, draining his shandy, “there’s a core of five, around Mountbatten himself, of course.”
“And the Cabinet,” Powell said, a hint of hope in his voice. Mullin laughed and shook his head.
“Nope. You really think Lord Carrington is running the MOD? They’ve all been marginalised, they just don’t know it. Mountbatten goes into Cabinet meetings with a set of ideas, listens patiently then tells everyone what they’re going to do. With some exceptions, of course – I’m fairly sure that bringing Transport out of Environment and adding ‘Public Works’ to the brief was legitimately Howe’s idea.”
“This ‘core of five’...”
“Ah, yes. The League of Gentlemen.”
Powell blinked.
“Excuse me?”
“Like the Jack Hawkins film.”
“I’ve seen it,” said Powell over his glass, “ex-servicemen get together to rob a bank?”
“The very same. Appropriate, in a way.”
“Do please get to the point, Mr Mullin.”
“Oh yes. Well, they call themselves the League of Gentlemen, or League for short. Mountbatten even uses that as a shorthand when he wants to arrange a meeting with them. His staff all think they’re influential but irrelevant Moaning Minnies who Mountbatten pretends to listen to. The truth is very different.”
“Who are they, exactly?” asked Powell, in need of a reminder.
“Like I said, there’s five. First, I suppose, is Cecil King. The head of the serpent. He brought them all together. Turns out he did try to lead a coup against Wilson back in 1968. Apparently, he went to see Mountbatten in the middle of the night. The good Earl told him to eff-off then.”
Enoch smiled. He’d heard the story. Mullin continued.
“In the aftermath, he went a little bit doolally. Eventually got deposed from the board of the Mirror group after unilaterally writing an editorial that called for ‘extra-Parliamentary action’ to remove Wilson—”
“Forgive me, Mr Mullin,” interrupted Powell, “but I know all this.”
“Yes, yes. Well – ever since he was rather spectacularly vindicated last year, King’s stock has been on the rise. A lot of people on Fleet Street made their start under him, and when he was revealed to have been a Cassandra all long, he was quickly back in the right circles. He’s a bit of a celebrity to some journos now. Ironically enough, most people see him as a man using the power of the free press to control the dangers of government excess. Though no-one at the Guardian, of course—”
Powell had been steadily taking all this in, but raised a hand at this point.
“What exactly is he doing?”
“He’s controlling the press, Mr Powell. You must be old enough to remember Beaverbrook – if you don’t mind me saying – well, this is the cloak and dagger equivalent, brought terrifyingly up to date for the nineteen-seventies. They h
ardly use D-notices any more – King will have dinner with the right editor, explain where they should be looking, and reward people with a scoop on some bunch of bastard reds in the lower ranks of the civil service or something.”
Mullin was speaking very fluently and easily, but Powell couldn’t quite believe he wasn’t lying. Still, he pressed on.
“Who else?”
“Sir Michael Hanley. The real power behind the operation. Has MI5 wrapped around his little finger, has unprecedentedly cordial relations with MI6, and dines with the Met Commissioner twice a week. What he wants, he gets, put simply. The ex-CA Special Constables were his doing, it’s believed.”
“Is General Walker involved?”
“No. He’s too barmy, even for the League. He approves, though, which is why he’s shut up about you being the only man capable of leading the UK. Commiserations.”
Powell glowered.
“Go on.”
“Well, Hanley makes all the extra-judicial stuff happen, but the legislative agenda is established by Ross and Norris McWhirter.”
“Of Guinness Book of Records fame?” said Powell incredulously.
“The very same. They’re very right wing, big fans of yours, too.”
“I know,” said Powell, irritatedly recalling their various home invasions last year.
“They’re the brains behind the League, effectively. They just also happen to be… fairly bonkers. Racists, though Ross moreso than Norris apparently, and very well-connected with the right of the Tories. Lots of MPs and junior ministers end up proposing ideas that really began in Ross McWhirter’s festering little brain.”
Powell grunted.
“That takes us to four. Who is the fifth?”
“Ah. Michael Bentine.”
“Michael Bentine?”
“The very same. He’s the public face. Everyone thinks his weekly ‘family hour and public information broadcasts’ are just helping out the Tories, and Ted Heath in particular, but really he’s involved in policymaking with the McWhirters, particularly on Defence. He’s been trying to advance proposals to expand the Army for the last six months. He’s had success, too – you were at the Second Reading of the Army Reserve Bill, weren’t you?”
