by Tom Black
“Even if you did it for the wrong reasons. I am exceptionally proud of our record in government. So are a lot of people.”
Roy allowed his flash of anger to show itself.
“And now, forever, it is tainted.”
Harold shrugged and stood up.
“And you mean to tell me it wasn’t already tainted with bourgeois reformism? You’d know all about that. How goes the Weform Party?”
Roy tried not to laugh out loud, and instead found himself overcome with a very angry form of pity. Eventually, he said what every fibre in his being had wanted to say since Brussels last November.
“Why?”
Harold snarled.
“Because look around you, Roy! Look where we are! The degree of civilisation in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.”
“Dostoevsky.”
“Yes, a ‘bloody Russian’.”
Roy scoffed.
“Harold, you know my disgust has nothing whatsoever to do with petty xenophobia! We are talking about treas—”
Harold interrupted.
“Oh, gosh, no, Roy. Petty xenophobia from Le Roi Jean Quinze, handmaiden of the Great European Project?” he advanced towards Jenkins until the cell’s bars kept him from taking another step.
“Harold, look—”
“No, Roy. You accuse me of treason, of betrayal, and meanwhile you spend every waking minute destroying the Labour Party and wedding us to the merchants and capitalists in Brussels!”
“Don’t pretend the two are in any way comparable, Harold. You are better than that,” Roy snapped, “or, rather, I thought you were.”
“You believe what you want. You always did.”
Roy looked down at the floor, then spoke quietly.
“You still haven’t told me why.”
“If this is a ploy to get me to start spilling the beans—”
“No,” said Jenkins firmly, “your refusal to answer questions is well-documented. I have wondered why they haven’t got David Dimbleby down here, he always seemed able to rattle you.”
Harold scowled as Roy continued.
“I’m not here to pump you for information, Harold. I’m here because... because I want to know. Really, I do.”
The two men stared at each other again, remaining silent for about a minute. Harold finally spoke.
“I did it for the people, Roy. And don’t laugh – I did. Marx thought this island had everything necessary for revolution – and it does. Industry, a natural resource base, good trade links and an educated workforce. Everything one could possibly want – except, as Marx himself said… well. Why don’t you finish the quote, Roy?”
“‘Everything necessary for revolution,’” Roy said, keeping very still, “‘except the desire to have one.’”
“Exactly correct, Roy. As you so often are. It makes it so frustrating when you then go off on some CDS-fuelled nightmare tangent of reformism!”
It had been a long time since Roy had been baffled by Harold Wilson, but the sensation was slowly returning. Harold continued.
“You see, Roy, don’t you? I had to do what I did. I did it for the people of this country – if that means betraying its crown, then that’s an added bonus, frankly.”
“But you deliberately mismanaged the economy… the people’s money—”
“There’s no proof of that, and I’ve not admitted it,” said Harold, still sharp as a button and not about to confess to anything by accident, “and I kept the people out of a jingoistic war in South East Asia, didn’t I?”
Roy removed his glasses and massaged the bridge of his nose.
“But the Soviets, Harold. You tried to help them overtake the entirety of the West!”
“Again, no proof of that at all, Roy. But if that is what I did, would it have been so wrong? I had to help show the superiority of the socialist system. The inherent failures within capitalism always reveal themselves in time – any part I played would only have accelerated their exposure. If the people knew the economic truth, socialism would be here by Christmas!”
Jenkins took a moment to remind himself the man opposite him in a spitting, raving rage had once been the Prime Minister. He had also once been a man Roy grudgingly respected.
“To think that you once ran the country,” he said, not even attempting to hide his disgust, “and all the while you were looking to benefit another state. Your heart was never in it, was it? All those things we did? I know you never gave me your wholehearted support when I was at the Home Office, but I thought that was for political expedience, not treason!”
“Reformism never works, Roy!” Wilson shouted, taking hold of the bars of the cell, “but you were far too good at making it look like it did. You all were. Why do you think I did my damnedest to make it look like homosexual liberty could never be a priority under a capitalist system? Allowed Beeching to be unleashed on the railways? Why do you think I tried to expose the inherently reactionary nature of ‘western democracy’ during the abortion matter? Why do you think I manipulated Jim into destroying In Place Of Strife?”
Roy raised his voice.
“But all of this, to aid the Soviet Union, Harold? That monstrous abhorrence of a state?”
For the first time, Harold hesitated. He remembered how he’d felt in the boat last November, when all had become horribly clear.
“That was regrettable,” he admitted, “but how better can a man serve a working model of socialism?”
Roy sighed.
“So socialism is the one, true way, is it?”
“I know you think I’m a lunatic.”
“That’s by the by. Everything you did, you did to prove that hypothesis?”
“I dispute that it’s a hypothesis. But yes, Roy. If you like.”
“Then I’ve got what I came for.”
Roy turned to Marley, and the guard started walking towards him.
“You know, Harold,” Jenkins began as he did up his coat, “I thought I’d have a lot more to say to you. I really did.”
“I’m not surprised,” muttered Wilson.
“It’s clear to me now that you are beyond help. That you always were. I wanted to know, if I’m honest, if there was anything any of us could have done to stop you. I’m sure you know it now falls to me to pick up the pieces that are left by the chaos you have wrought.”
Harold nodded, then froze.
“Christmas future,” he muttered.
“Excuse me?”
Roy looked at Wilson, who was now staring at him with wide eyes.
“It’s you,” he said breathlessly, “you’re— no. No, of course not. It was a dream.”
Harold suddenly stared at his hands, trying to work out what was real and what wasn’t. For the second time, Roy looked at him with genuine pity.
“Goodbye, Harold. And merry Christmas.”
Jenkins turned and walked with Marley toward the exit, then stopped at the door. He turned his head.
“I have to know,” he said, his back still to Harold, “was there anything we did that you were genuinely proud of?”
Harold furrowed his brow, but did not pause for long.
“Decimalisation,” he replied, “I’m quite glad we did that.”
Roy allowed himself a bitter smile.
“Of course,” he muttered, shooting one last look over his shoulder, “numbers.”
Marley walked Roy out of the cell and down the long hall to the exit, locking the gate that separated the cell from the rest of the room, but leaving the cell door open. Harold, barely even registering any of this, sat down glumly on the bed. He ran his hands through his hair and sighed, snapping back to reality when he realised he was being stared at.
Harold looked up, then froze as he made eye contact with the woman standing on the other side of the bars. Before he could say anything, his visitor turned on her heel and walked back towards Marley.
“I’ve changed my mind,” she was saying with some urgency, “I’ve changed my mind, I don’t w
ant to.”
“Mary...” said Harold helplessly, as Marley moved to reopen the exit door Mary had come in through. Harold felt himself seized with a desperate rage.
“Mary!” he shouted, pressing himself against the bars of the gate, “Mary!”
As Harold shouted again and again, and his wife was shown her way down the stairs and to a waiting car, the chimes of midnight rang out. It was Christmas Day.
Chapter thirty-two
Saturday 10th January 1977 – 9:30am
“What do you mean, ‘it’s inadmissible?’”
Peter Preston at least had the decency to look Chris Mullin in the eye.
“I mean what ‘inadmissible’ normally means, Chris,” the editor of the Guardian replied, “I’m no more a fan of the D-Notice than you are, but the Ministry were quite insistent about leaving it until after the election.”
Mullin scowled. Insistent or not, the Ministry had no right to not simply block a book, but to also block the act of reporting the block. Mullin had not been in the least bit surprised at the brief meeting just after New Year, when the Ministry for Information had so apologetically informed him that the first print run of A Very British Coup would be embargoed until after “the next general election”, but the totally limp-wristed attitude of the The Guardian had come as a surprise, as well as a disappointment.
“So,” he sneered at Preston, “you won’t publish the editorial, and now you won’t even allow this on the letters page?”
The letter was not nearly lucid as Mullin would have liked – there were far too many statements along the lines of “the self-inflicted and self-indulgent self-destruction of the British democratic left” – but it still set out the facts.
“Look, Chris,” Preston said, leaning forwards, “everyone on Fleet Street knows Mountbatten is on his way out. As soon as he’s gone, I assume that we will all have carte blanche whenever we like. It is purely in the run-up to the general...”
Mullin had already leapt to his feet and snatched the submission off the desk. He grabbed the sides of the table, facing Preston directly.
“Peter,” he said, breathing heavily in an effort to bring his anger back to a manageable level, “you know as well as I do that the only excuse for this extended purdah is to allow MI5 and the like to burn as many papers as possible.”
Everyone in the media knew that something had to have taken place to result in the arrest and detention of Michael Bentine and his ilk, although the firebombing of Cecil King’s house the previous week had cast the whole incident in a considerably uglier light.
“The Junta’s Chicken” had been the Sun’s headline, mainly because it had allowed them to get one-up on the Mirror – who had spent most of the past couple of months systematically denying that any of them knew who King was and didn’t they know that they were supporting the Labour Party at the next election, thank-you very much.
“Be that as it may,” Preston retorted, “you know as well as any of us that we need to tread carefully – King’s arrest will do us good in the long run, but I am sure you agree that we don’t want to look too carefully at who he was speaking to in Westminster – at least until those in question are out of office and cannot use Parliamentary privilege against us.”
“Surely, if nothing else, this business with Jeremy Thorpe warrants a story?”
Mullin had met with Sir John Hunt a second time shortly before Christmas. The Cabinet Secretary had been in considerably better spirits than he had been in St James’s Park, even going so far as to offer the journalist a brandy as he handed over a file simply marked ‘Exmoor’. The information within it was limited, but the reports were sound and the witnesses’ credentials impeccable.
In short, it was the sort of thing that the Guardian used to delight in reporting. Used to. Mullin made up his mind.
“You’re a coward, Peter,” he noted, getting to his feet abruptly, “more to the point, you are a damn fool who cannot see that he is becoming an establishment stooge.”
“Oh, fuck off to Canada,” Preston snapped.
He didn’t have to ask twice, given that Mullin was already putting on his coat.
“Goodbye, Mr Preston,” he said, gathering his papers. “There are still some brave people in this business, even if you aren’t one of them.”
Chris Mullin said nothing more as he left the Guardian offices for what he assumed would be the last time under its current editor. Hailing a cab, he requested an address in Soho. Ingrams was a shit, but he was at least an honourable shit.
It was always difficult to detect when Enoch Powell was nervous. Even his immediate family sometimes missed the telltale twitch of the nostrils, or the tendency to scratch the back of his hand. However, at the moment, the Member of Parliament for South Down was doing both – as he had been doing for almost fifteen minutes. He flinched as the Viscount De L’Isle, one of the more senior members of the Upper Chamber to have thrown in his lot with Powellites, entered the antechamber.
“Ready?”
Powell stroked his moustache, giving another furtive look through his speech. It was good, he reminded himself, damned good in fact – but was it enough?
He looked over at William Sidney, who was still awaiting an answer.
“Yes,” he replied, “I think we had better get a move on.”
The two men said nothing as they walked up the short flight of steps to the back of the stage. A large proportion of the UUP Parliamentary Party were waiting in the wings – waiting for the applause that they would give has he was anointed as leader. However, despite the best efforts of Molyneaux to convince him otherwise, Harry West was not one of them – being as he was on the pro-Devolutionist wing of the party, things had just ‘gone too far’ for his liking. Powell had sighed with resignation when he had heard that his emissary had failed – there was to be yet another split in the Ulster caucus.
West’s lack of presence, was, however, more than made up for by the likes of Julian Amery, John Biggs-Davison and, in a move that would rock the Conservative Party, the former Chancellor, Keith Joseph.
“It needs to be good, Enoch,” De L’Isle whispered in his ear, as the Duke of Atholl and the Earl of Dundee, two of the prominent members of the Scottish Raj to have accepted Powell’s invitation, sauntered through the stage door. Alan Clark, one of the bright young things to have been left in the wilderness after the Anglo-Irish debacle, was with them.
There was a reassuring pat on the back from his wife. Seconds later, Powell found himself standing in front of the lectern, half wondering how he had got there.
The crowd was larger than he had expected. The front rows were, obviously, full of journalists, whilst the assembled masses behind them were comprised of a far more respectable audience than he had feared. The guards on the door had clearly been effective at filtering out the Bovver Boys with safety pins through their ears. That was a relief – the last thing that the ‘last stand of law and order’ needed was a riot on the steps of Methodist Central Hall.
There were plenty of flags as well, including, he was proud to see, a decent number of Saltires. As the camera bulbs flashed, Powell spoke.
“In March 1886, the great radical statesman, Joseph Chamberlain, left the Cabinet in a determined show of principle. In the space of one morning, he found himself abandoned by all of those that his political life had depended on for the best part of twenty years. It was a moment of tremendous courage and conviction, and it was a decision that changed the party system of this nation for the best part of a century. Mr Chamberlain’s Unionists entered into coalition with the Marquess of Salisbury’s Conservatives – an alliance that has persisted for the past ninety years.”
There was silence now, aside from the occasional click of a camera shutter and the scribble of a journalist’s shorthand.
“However, the unity of radical and conservative has been abandoned. For all the efforts of like-minded, decent, and committed members of that old and ancient party, there is now a yawning void at th
e other end of socialism. A void that should contain a Conservative Party – but where is it?”
It had started as a sudden, strange fantasy. Enoch Powell held no illusions as to the exceptional fight that that was before him. Leaving the mainland for Northern Ireland had been more a pilgrimage than a conversion, less a Road to Damascus than to Santiago de Compostela, but it had still been a difficult choice. Sitting around the Cabinet table again had always been an unlikely dream, but it had still not seemed impossible – but as Member of Parliament for South Down, even that vain hope had been snuffed out. However, a nationwide focus once afforded a realistic chance of Whitehall.
For the first time in the best part of a decade, Enoch Powell felt that he was home again.
“It certainly has not opposed nationalisation,” he continued, “Not a bit of it! Mr Heath simply produced and supported the Industry Bill of 1972. Nor have they done anything to pause the nefarious influences of the trades unions, instead propping up the First Lord’s self-defeating ‘Industrial Relations Act’ – one that simply rewards those who pretend to aid the worker, rather than the worker himself.”
Where silence had been, there were now quiet murmurs of support. Not just from the blue-rinse brigade, too – audible positive mutterings were floating down from the young City professionals that were sitting up in the balcony. Was that a new electoral paradigm? Or was he just replacing the skinheads and maiden aunts with bankers and auditors? For it was people like them who would make the next decade, and the decade after that. Young men in a hurry, perhaps not too bothered by the menacing hordes at the ports, but concerned about high taxation and excessive state control. Was it possible to balance two such divergent groups? Enoch returned to his notes.
“What did Mr Heath’s government do to cut public expenditure?” Enoch questioned, “Did they do anything to restrict the money supply? Speak out against the perils of mass immigration? No – and I would be hard pressed to find any person in this room who can claim much to the contrary.”
Powell beckoned to his side as Sir Keith joined him from the wings, flanked by the rest of the Treasury team-designate. This time, there were gasps from the audience. Some had clearly not yet heard of Sir Keith’s defection.
