Agent Lavender: The Flight of Harold Wilson

by Tom Black

  Mullin, however, had been busy with his own problems, which Haines could not begrudge. The World in Action man had been able to offer a cryptic hint of some hope on the horizon, however, and the following month major changes began happening in Whitehall. Mountbatten was still in place, but in the words of Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in the United Kingdom, ‘the motherfuckers are gone’. The unexplained mass-sackings in the civil service, and the fiery death of Cecil King, had intrigued Haines – but he had checked himself. He had learned when to leave well enough alone.

  His job at the TUC had come soon afterwards, and the increase in his profile had brought with it a renewed amount of hate mail. He felt like replying to half of them to say he sometimes still woke up shouting in the middle of the night, and he’d found it impossible to look a man in the eye since November 1975. Still, it was all more fodder for his personal account of the six years he had spent working for Harold Wilson – The Politics of Betrayal had received a quiet but well-attended launch in November and, while not being quite as successful as he had hoped, it had at least been enough to recoup nine months of lost earnings. He’d had enough left over for a new car – one of the first to have rolled off the production-line at the reconfigured Rover plant in Longbridge, one of the early victories for the Industrial Relations Council’s Board of Arbitration. Speaking of victories for industry, his current television could not be described as one.

  “Oh, come on!” he shouted, giving the set a final bash, before being rewarded with a hail of static before the sound and picture returned to proper focus. Richard Whitmore’s face appeared on the screen.

  “...formal start to what is certain to be one of the most dramatic election campaigns in recent history...”

  Haines shook his head in wry amusement, ‘one of the most’ was typical BBC – anyone would think Attlee had punched Anthony Eden’s wife in the face in 1955.

  “Lord Mountbatten, the First Lord of Treasury, is expected to request a dissolution of Parliament later today, following the conclusion of this afternoon’s Question Period. Lord Mountbatten, who is also expected to tender his resignation as head of government, is not believed to endorse any party in the election campaign, although sources close to the Leader of the Conservative Party, Mr Heath, suggest that the parties involved in the National Government will fight the election with a joint campaign.”

  That last point was probably a blessing for Reform, Haines mused to himself, given that it probably guaranteed at least a third of the old Liberal vote was up for grabs, though most of it would go to Penhaligon.

  “The Leader of the Opposition, Mrs Castle, Reform Party leader Mr Jenkins, and the Unionist Party Leader, Mr Enoch Powell, have all welcomed the announcement of the election, although sources in Reform and Labour have criticised the security arrangements that will limit campaigning prior to the commencement of Harold Wilson’s trial, which will open at the Old Bailey tomorrow...”

  Probably the first time since the schism that Roy and Barbara had publicly agreed on anything, Haines thought. He nestled into his chair, grateful his television was, at last, behaving itself.

  Harold Wilson had a decision to make. It was the first opportunity he’d had to decide anything in quite some time. As such, he was rather relishing the chance to mull it over properly. It was vital that everything be perfect.

  Running a hand over his smooth jaw, he was grateful for the shave he’d been allowed to have – under supervision – that morning. Another would be afforded him tomorrow. The decision he was about to make was also an aesthetic one.

  In front of him was a rack of suits, sent over by Mansfield at his request. It wouldn’t do to address the Old Bailey in the same knackered brown two-piece he had been arrested in, and the idea of facing down a high court judge in his prison uniform was not in keeping with his plan for a bombastic, theatrical and devastating performance in the dock.

  The constable in charge of shadowing him from now until he got there tomorrow afternoon was a young, good-looking fellow by the name of Paddick. Harold glanced at him for a moment, needing only a second to discern that the constable was staring right back. While Harold’s mind had entertained fantastical thoughts of escape once upon a time, it seemed there would be no getting away from the firm glare of the law today.

  Harold’s mind had been entertaining less ridiculous things recently. He had been pleased to note that he had been having more and more ‘good days’ than ‘bad days’. There was still the odd occasion when he found himself unable to name the Speaker of the House of Commons, and there had been that breakfast when he’d demanded to know how the Canadians were doing in their advance across the Scheldt. But overall, the peace and quiet seemed to be doing him some good. It didn’t take much to send him into a wave of nostalgia, however, but he supposed that wistful memories would be the norm for anyone with four walls as their daily existence.

  As soon as he considered that thought, he spotted something that cast his memory back a very long time. With a smile, and a disregard for Paddick’s narrowed eyes, he remembered Oxford…

  “I want it to be real. How can I not? Braver men than me are dying in the Spanish sun, laying their lives down against fascism. I... am not strong enough. I am not made for war.”

  “Then what are you made for, Harold?” said Cole quietly.

  “Lying. And being a bloody genius.”

  “That’s the spirit,” grinned Cole.

  “But they really want... people like me?”

  “Absolutely,” said Cole, now leaning on his desk, “young men like yourself, with a fierce moral compass and an understanding of the superiority of the Soviet system.”

  “Something Stalin seems to intend to prove with show trials and execution squads,” said Harold darkly. Cole flared up.

  “The General Secretary faces enemies, wreckers and spies from all sides!” he hissed, “he may be using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, but what price the workers’ state, Harold? What price liberty? What price paradise?”

  Harold nodded, slowly.

  “I do understand, sir—”

  “You are not to call me that.”

  “Sorry. I do understand. I know the current ‘show trials’ are done with a heavy heart, and real traitors are being exposed as a result. Stalin is sweating and slaving, as all the Russian workers and peasants are, to maintain the vanguard so that one day the workers’ state will truly exist. To do all that, knowing you will die long before it comes to fruition, is the mark of a truly selfless socialist.”

  His speech finished, Harold watched Cole’s face carefully. Had he said enough? Done enough? God knew he believed it, deep down – his cynical side had momentarily got the better of him – but now was not the time to appear in any way questioning of the cause. He exhaled as Cole’s smile returned.

  “Very good, Harold, very good indeed. For what it’s worth, I feel sick reading some of the reports out of Moscow too. But the greater good, Harold – the greater good.”

  “Absolutely,” Harold agreed with a vociferous nod.

  The two men spoke some more, with Cole giving Harold the address of a quiet party in London that he would be required to attend the following month. As the clock struck eight, Cole suggested it was time Harold returned to the JCR. People would talk – they’d probably assume something rather more sordid, but it was best to avoid rumours of any kind.

  “I’m afraid this shall be the last time you and I discuss this matter, Harold,” Cole said as Wilson put on his coat, “once you arrive at that party, you will be subject to some questions from a man who will become your ‘handler’ – you’re familiar with the term?”

  Harold nodded.

  “Good. I don’t know who he is – I don’t need to – but my understanding is he will take care of everything. And take care of you.”

  “I cannot wait. Thank you.” Harold held out his hand. Cole shook it, then stopped.

  “Oh, Hal, one more thing.”

  Harold raised his
eyebrows.

  “You’ll have a codename. I have pencilled you in to be... let me see...” Cole walked over to his safe and retrieved a notebook, “...Agent Lavender.”

  “Agent Lavender?” Harold repeated.

  “Yes. Pleasing smell, I’ve always thought. And a very lovely colour.”

  Harold Wilson, forty years older and stood in a jail cell, now held a tie in his hands.

  “That one, then?” said Paddick, flatly.

  “Yes,” said Harold, holding it up to the light and ensuring it was indeed lavender, “it’s a very lovely colour.”

  Enoch Powell looked dismissively at the text that had been prepared for him. The ‘Unionist Lionhead’ that acted as the party’s new emblem still struck him as entirely the wrong message to send out, but – as Maurice had been so insistent to tell him at the latest campaign meeting – it would play well with people who thought that Whitehall still had a claim to Suez. Since becoming Party Leader, Powell had been distressed to discover that day-to-day control over his diary had been taken from him – to say nothing of his speeches.

  How on earth someone could have confused Catullus with Cicero was quite beyond him. He began amending the typewritten sheet with his ever-present fountain pen.

  “Now that I have found myself, like Cincinnatus, taken from my plough and asked to serve,” he read aloud, “it is clear that I have no choice left but to do so – well, ‘in rebus asperis et tenui spe fortissima quaeque consilia tutissima sunt!’”

  “You could decide to translate that prior to delivery,” came the languid voice of Alan Clark, “it may rather go over the heads of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce.”

  Powell glared at the Unionist Party’s Spokesman for Immigration.

  “I understand that you have something you wanted to raise with me?”

  Clark gave a simpering little smile.

  “You know how we have always been at pains to talk exclusively about ‘voluntary’ repatriation?”

  The Leader of the Unionist Party gave a small nod.

  “Well,” Clark continued, “Jim and I were approached by a chap who left Ipsos just before Christmas, and, well – take a look for yourself.” he said, placing a small file on the desk.

  Enoch Powell considered it with some distaste before reading it.

  After a minute, he adjusted his spectacles.

  After another minute, he began to nod, noticeably this time. Clearing his throat, he spoke with no small amount of incredulity in his voice.

  “A nine percent swing?”

  “Oh yes,” Clark said, barely hiding his delight, “it practically destroys the NF vote in the marginals where we are competitive with Labour, or Reform, as the case may be – and more than makes up for the slight loss of the Trades Union vote we’ve suffered since Keith made his speech about abolishing the Board of Corporate Relations.”

  Powell absentmindedly stroked his moustache.

  “This is to make up for all of your anti-Fox Hunting nonsense, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t mind admitting that it is a positive additional factor for me,” Clark replied, shrugging his shoulders, “but it is largely moot at this point – we aren’t going to have any meaningful breakthrough in the Shires anyway.”

  That much was true. The latest polls had the National Conservatives well ahead in the Home Counties, although they were looking at a couple of losses in the inner cities. Not so much ‘National Party’ as ‘Country Party’, as Denis Healey had quipped on Any Questions? the previous week.

  “There is starting to be talk of a cordon sanitaire developing around us from the Liberal-Conservatives, the Reds, and the Pinkos, Enoch,” Clark continued, enjoying the nickname the Reform Party’s choice of magenta posters had really brought upon themselves, “and whilst this certainly isn’t going to help stop that...”

  “It’ll accelerate it, surely?”

  “Quite possibly, but the crucial matter is that it still gains us votes,” Clark concluded, jabbing the desk with his finger.

  Powell clasped his hands in front of his face. That much was obvious. The NF had done well in the ‘Crisis Parliament’; many members of ‘Civil Assistance’ had been only a goose-step away from them in the first place, and despite Powell’s insistence on having nothing to do with them publicly, they had certainly proved useful in sapping votes from many Old Labour voters.

  “It certainly helps us that Mr Jenkins is practically seen as a Liberal anyway.”

  Clark grinned, “and The Sun has been ever so helpful in discrediting Mr Benn’s ambitions to turn us into a People’s Republic.”

  The Member for South Down drummed his fingers. There was something about the whole business that sickened him, not least because it conjured up images of people being bundled into vans.

  “I don’t think that I can bring myself to do it, Alan.”

  “Oh, we don’t have to actually do it!” Clark said, throwing his hands up, “you don’t even have to say it personally. Just allow Nicholas or Teddy to drop the idea that we are ‘considering’ it to someone at the Telegraph. That will probably be enough to get us another dozen or so seats. It’ll allow us to nail our colours to the mast without risking anything too much, and if we don’t win – and we might not, you know – it should give us some additional bases to work from in ’81 or whenever.”

  The Leader of the Unionist Party walked over to the window, looking across to the now ubiquitous ‘Anti-Fascism, Anti-Capitalism, Anti-Everything’ encampment that was still ensconced in front of New Scotland Yard. It was effectively the student politics equivalent of Don Quixote’s attack on the windmills. Something was still rotten in the United Kingdom, and it was clear to Powell that there was still so much to be done.

  “If you consent, Enoch,” Clark continued, “we may even be able to have some discussions about giving a formal pledge to re-think our military commitments.”

  “That, Mr Clark, is entirely non-negotiable on my part,” Powell said, “simply put, we cannot go on like this – we are here to defend the United Kingdom’s territorial integrity, not the United States’, nor – for that matter – that of NATO.”

  Clark gave a short bark of amusement.

  “Excellent,” he said, taking out a battered notebook from his jacket pocket and noting something down, “I think we can use that.”

  Enoch Powell was not listening. There were far more important things to consider than poster slogans – not least the future of Toryism. Much as he disliked Mrs Thatcher, it was nothing compared to the loathing he held for Heath.

  As Clark left the office, Powell thought that perhaps some form of reconciliation was in order. Not with Mrs Thatcher, obviously, but perhaps with the sensible elements of Toryism that he still held fond memories of back from his days in Macmillan’s Cabinet. In the room opposite, the familiar tone of his secretary’s radio filtered through the cheap plywood of the temporary wall that had been erected when the Unionist Party had taken over the office space.

  “...with Lord Mountbatten expected to go to the Palace today – unusually, shortly after seven o’clock tonight,” Brian Widlake was saying as The World at One commenced, “yesterday’s poll by MORI has confirmed a small lead for the National Government – which Mr Heath is expected to lead during the forthcoming campaign. Mr Jenkins’ Reform Party continues to trail in the polls, with the Unionists close behind and neck and neck with Mrs Castle’s Labour Party. Speaking to the Today programme this morning, MORI’s Robert Worcester confirmed that Mr Powell’s party may hold the balance of power in a hung parliament.”

  Powell backed away from the door and walked over to the record player that was set to the side of the room. There would be more than enough incessant, pointless poll-reading to last a lifetime over the coming five weeks. Attempting to drown out the bulletin, he selected an LP almost at random – the Overture to Glinka’s Ruslan and Lyudmila – before returning to looking out of the window.

  On the street below, a police officer was chatting to
the Bangladeshi newsagent that had recently set up shop outside St James’s Park Underground Station. Considering all the proposed amendments to the Race Relations Act, the two men below seemed to be getting on as well as could be expected. Powell frowned to himself. What Clark had said to him was clearly electorally sound, but it also smacked of authoritarianism and the whip hand, neither of which appealed to his fundamentally laissez-faire attitude towards preserving the United Kingdom’s racial integrity.

  It had been well over a year since he had bought the paper from Mr Chaudhry’s shop in Pimlico. Despite all that had changed, he still encountered Aziz most days, although the shopkeeper was considerably more brusque and standoffish than he had once been. Powell was no fool, so it was quite clear why it was the case. But that, surely, did not make it wrong – did it?

  There was still so much left to be done. Jerusalem was not going to rebuild itself overnight.

  As Enoch Powell returned to his desk and furrowed his brow, the constable and the newspaper seller continued their amicable conversation.

  “Mr Reece, you know I want to hit the ground running in the new parliament.”

  “Absolutely, Mrs Thatcher, and I believe you will. The key to this process is exploring every avenue open to you.”

  Margaret practised her smile again. Gordon Reece did not grimace, as he had done fairly often when they began her training. The coach he had hired had worked wonders on her voice – apparently. Reece’s television and radio experience had come in handy in a great number of ways, and Margaret had every belief that she would, indeed, ‘hit the ground running’ next month.

  Yes, winding up the column had been a good move. During ‘Hot ’76’, the almost Shakespearean nickname the preceding year had already received, the time had been right for Margaret Thatcher to be the Voice of Middle England. But that was then, and this was now: as soon as Margaret had caught wind of Mountbatten’s intentions, she had consulted with Reece and sent a polite letter to the offices of the Mail. The column had done her good – private polling showed perceptions of her had recovered to a stronger position than she had been in prior to what she now called ‘That Week’. But Reece had been right – after a final, reconciliatory tract that seemed to forgive Heath of many of his apparent sins, the Voice had gone silent.