European Diary, 1977-1981

by Roy Jenkins

  No one had drawn my attention to the fact that the State Dinner that evening involved a black tie. I made vague suggestions to the Norwegians that perhaps they would not mind if I were unchanged, but it was quite clear that as they were proposing to give a very grand dinner they did rather mind. Oslo is a surprising place for a black tie to be obligatory. So I was forced to hire a dinner jacket, shirt, tie, even cufflinks, all of which were absolutely ghastly.

  Then off to the Asheroos Castle, a splendid medieval building with a magnificent site and commanding through its windows great views over the fjord in a variety of directions under the long Norwegian twilight which was far from over when we left at 11.30. Substantial speeches of about twenty minutes by the Prime Minister (Nordli)46 and by me, each announced by a fanfare of trumpets. Afterwards a slightly exhausting session with nearly all the Norwegian notabilities introduced to me.

  FRIDAY, 4 JULY. Oslo and Sundvolden.

  Early meeting with the Prime Minister in a modern building, chiefly notable for the fact that its roof, to which we ascended for a brief look-out, commands one of the best views of Oslo, a city whose site is so good that even the fact that it has hardly a single distinguished building, and that those few which have some pretence in this direction are mostly being destroyed, does not greatly matter. Nordli talked to me about the economy. He is preoccupied by unemployment, despite the fact that it appears to be only 1 per cent, though a little unevenly spread throughout the country, but preoccupied by it as an international rather than a Norwegian phenomenon.

  Then I had an hour’s fairly intimate talk with Frydenlund, about the world strategic position, the Schmidt mission to Brezhnev, how the changing balance of the North Atlantic Alliance affected the Norwegians–they are particularly worried about this, feeling that it was easier for them outside the European Community so long as America was the unchallenged captain of the boat and more difficult for them as the leadership becomes less clear.

  At noon I had an audience with King Olaf in the large palace which, like so many royal palaces, seems to have been built about 1840. We had Balliol (both honorary fellows) and his attendance at the Armistice Day ceremonies when I was Home Secretary to talk about, but we also had a certain amount of conversation about Norwegian history. I found him agreeable and in remarkably good shape for his seventy-seven years. He was dressed rather like Harold Nicolson used to be, in worn brown shoes and an old blue pin-striped London suit. He had just been presiding over a King’s Council, and was about to set off back to his house on the sea for some more sailing, being almost as keen an ocean racer as Heath.

  Left Oslo at 5.30 and drove out about twenty-five miles to the Sundvolden Hotel on a land fjord, which had a curious but definite charm.

  SATURDAY, 5 JULY. Sundvolden.

  I was struck by how much the village, with its two general stores, its clapboard houses and its general feeling of looking for a simple life on a high income, reminded me of parts of New England. An enjoyable picnic lunch on an island and a swim in the fjord which was remarkably warm on the surface but cold underneath.

  THURSDAY, 10 JULY. Brussels, Bristol and East Hendred.

  8.45 plane to London on my way to Bristol for my twenty-first honorary degree.47 Not one of the more exciting ceremonies, despite the distinction of the university. I was one of two honorands in the morning, the other being an internal university one. Fortunately no speech required from me at the ceremony but a brief one at the subsequent luncheon, where I enjoyed sitting next to the Chancellor, Dorothy Hodgkin.48 Motored back to East Hendred. Another thoroughly nasty day of weather.

  FRIDAY, 11 JULY. East Hendred, London and East Hendred.

  With Jennifer to a meeting at Colin Phipps’s flat in Draycott Avenue with him, the Social Democratic Association people (Haseler and Eden49), Dick Taverne, Mickey Barnes, Clive Lindley, John Harris, Jim Daly–I think that was all. David Marquand unfortunately was not there. Had a moderately satisfactory discussion with them for about an hour and a half. Lindley quiet but sensible. Daly also sensible; John Harris spoke very well; Phipps in the chair; and the SDA people, though Haseler better than Eden, looking like hard-faced men who had done badly out of the Labour Party. The difficulty is that they are interested in spoiling tactics, which I am not. Mickey is interested in a charge of the light brigade and so in a more serious sense is Dick. However, eventually, with some sensible talking, not only on John Harris’s part (despite his preoccupation with Westward Television which was about to blow up) and also on Jennifer’s part, we managed to get them to agree that there was nothing that I should do, at any rate until after the Labour Party Conference. We should have a meeting in late October and see where we went from then. In the meantime, the SDA could do what they liked provided they did not implicate me, and those who are longing for action, like Mickey Barnes and Colin Phipps and maybe Dick, could associate themselves with them to the extent that they liked.

  After lunch to Battersea Old Church for Hayden and Laura’s wedding. Very pretty church and attractive service with good music. Vast Grenfell and Bonham Carter clans. A day of strong wind and scudding cloud, but bursts of sunshine, and the talk and riverside semi-party outside the church highly enjoyable.

  SATURDAY, 12 JULY. East Hendred.

  Ian Wrigglesworths to lunch. He was engaging, buoyant, friendly, attracted by some new development, but inevitably and naturally non-committal about what he would do. Another dismal day’s weather.

  THURSDAY, 17 JULY. Brussels.

  Lunched with COREPER and had a not very satisfactory discussion with them as to whether the brake should be off the financial mechanism for three years or two (BBQ again). The French firmly in favour of only two, Germans inclining that way. I think this will prove quite a difficult issue at the Council next week.

  FRIDAY, 18 JULY. Brussels.

  Saw Dondelinger as chairman of COREPER, and in three-quarters of an hour’s talk got him rather back on to the lines of the three-year option, saying that this was my view of what had been intended on 30 May and, I believed, equally firmly that of Colombo.

  MONDAY, 21 JULY. Brussels.

  Dohnanyi to lunch with Jennifer and me, rue de Praetère. Found him engaging as usual, although very sticky on the financial mechanism point, and possibly on the non-quota section of the Regional Fund too. But I think he is prepared to give on the latter issue. He told me that he was so difficult on the first issue not because his nerve was damaged by his reception by Schmidt after the British settlement, but because he knew Schmidt was not willing to move an inch further, because he (Schmidt) felt very strongly that Mrs Thatcher had got away with too much already.

  Also Schmidt was further miffed because about three days before the Brussels Council at the end of May, he had assured Dohnanyi, who told him that he thought he could see his way through, that he (Dohnanyi) was quite wrong, he was deceiving himself, there was no chance of a success, because the gap between the British and French position was too wide to be bridged, and that was why he (Schmidt) was not going to try. Therefore when Dohnanyi brought it off, Schmidt, to say the least, had mixed feelings.

  Council from 5.45 to 7.30, which was concerned with enlargement points, and then an hour’s meeting with the Spaniards, Calvo Sotelo taking a fairly hard line, before going home to give Gaston Thorn50 dinner. He is keen to stay on as President of the Council as long as he can, certainly until November, which I think is pushing it a bit, though his position is different from mine in 1976. He knows the Community much better and his Government responsibilities involve him in Community business which mine did not.

  In general, he seemed keen enough to be informed and I told him I would give him my opinion on issues and people frankly, provided he did not pass it on, but that if he did pass it, I would know pretty quickly, and then could not continue to do so. I hope this bargain sticks. He seemed disinclined to assert a role in the choice of other Commissioners. He showed great interest in the house on the way out, how had we found it, did it bel
ong to us, costs etc. I later discovered that this was because he was making a big bid with the Belgian Government to get them to do up and put at his disposal an official residence. As they have one spare—a very grand one in the rue Ducale -1 think he may get away with it, but somewhat cynical comments about his intending to live in great pomp are floating around the Belgian Government.

  TUESDAY, 22 JULY. Brussels.

  Council, and during the morning we satisfactorily disposed of the non-quota Regional Fund issue. The BBQ went less well, rather as I had feared, with the Germans taking an even harder-line position than the French, and Carrington -1 think wisely—made little effort to make a great issue of it, and accepted a compromise which was two-thirds of the way towards the Franco-German position.

  WEDNESDAY, 23 JULY. Brussels and London.

  Commission for a total of six and a half hours—much the longest Commission day for three or four months. Much of the afternoon was taken up with dealing with the difficult question of the necessary altering of the Commission’s contract with ICL for our own computers. We also had Gundelach for a good deal of the time on a packet of agricultural measures, including various settlements he had made with New Zealand and his negotiations with Australia. Then a tricky discussion at the end, everyone being very defensive and even suspicious, about the setting up of a small working group to do preliminary work under this Commission on the mandate for reform of Community finances given us by the Council, but which we will not be able to complete. However, we ended up in quite good temper at 7.15.

  Back to my office for some signing and an end-of-term drink with the cabinetbefore the 8.45 plane to London. The last six weeks have been very wearing, not because I have been tremendously hard-worked—no long-distance travel since India, no major issue since the BBQ—but because of long-term exhaustion. I do not feel the normal sense of satisfaction at the end of a summer term and am even beginning to have, partly because of the formidable prospect at home, slight doubts as to how much I am now looking forward to the end of the four years. That may be just natural perverseness.

  THURSDAY, 24 JULY. London.

  Shirley Williams came to see me for an hour at Kensington Park Gardens on the most lovely evening. She was as engaging but elusive as ever, on the whole taking a pessimistic view, thought the (Labour Party) conference would go wrong, certainly on policy issues, very likely on some of the institutional issues as well, and then most surprisingly, and in contradiction to what she had been telling me in the spring, said that she was far from certain that, even if Callaghan went, Healey would be elected leader of the party in the autumn. She thought Shore was catching up on him fast, and there was always the possibility of Foot being persuaded to run. So, she regarded everything as being very open, including what she is going to do.

  It was nice of her to have come and I wished, as I think she did, that she could have come to our dinner for Crispin’s fiftieth birthday which then followed. We had a party of thirty in the River Room of the Savoy: four members of his family, Robert Armstrongs and Michael Pallisers, Plaja, both Davignons and Emile Noël from Brussels, Henri Simonet, who had told me he was in London, Ted Heath, Caroline but not Ian Gilmour as he was attending Seretse Khama’s funeral, Ann Fleming, Evangeline Bruce, Janet Morgan (the editor of the Crossman diaries, now in the Cabinet Office), Arthur Schlesingers, Nicholas Gordon Lennox’s,51 Thea Elliott, Harlechs and George Weidenfeld. I think that was about the lot. Good food, beautiful evening, nice view from the River Room, adequate speech from me but a better one, well phrased and turned, by Crispin.

  FRIDAY, 25 JULY. London and East Hendred.

  Neville Sandelson52 to see me at his request to tell me that he wanted to give up his seat and concentrate on the Bar because the wearingness of his local dispute had become too great for him. Therefore at any time I wanted it he would resign Hayes and Harlington, which he was sure could be won on a Social Democratic ticket.

  To the Rodgers’ party in Kentish Town at 9.00, mainly in the garden on a baking hot night. About a hundred people, most of whom I had not seen for four years. Very enjoyable; the natives seemed thoroughly friendly! I suppose there were about fifteen MPs, and the rest academic or journalist figures. Drove to East Hendred, where we arrived with rain beginning (typical end of July weather pattern in a bad summer: a couple of days of great heat dissolving into a great thunderstorm).

  TUESDAY, 29 JULY. East Hendred.

  The Marquands came late to lunch. However, as it appeared they had driven the whole way from Derbyshire, whereas we thought they were coming from London, and had indeed to drive back to Derbyshire in the afternoon, they had done very well to come at all. Sat out for two hours or so in the afternoon having a long political discussion, David and I being very much of the same, not over-sanguine, mind. David’s judgement I think is now more sensible, and his tactical approach closer to mine, than that of almost any other member of the group.

  WEDNESDAY, 30 JULY. East Hendred.

  Robert Maclennan to lunch. His position was totally sympathetic, and interesting in his reports on a number of other people, though he tends to operate in a lonely way. He would like to break, he thinks he could carry Caithness and Sutherland as an independent or Social Democratic candidate or almost anything. But he does not want to do it as the only MP, though he would do it with a very small group of two, three or four, and thought that if we had Bill Rodgers we could get many more than this. But there was a possibility even without Bill.

  FRIDAY, 1 AUGUST. East Hendred, Rome and Bussento.

  8.50 plane to Rome. 1.30 train (late) to Sapri (to where the Italian police insisted on accompanying us). Bussento at 8.15.

  The house looked much as I remembered it, with the trees grown up somewhat. The new apartment blocks at the back do not make as much difference as had been feared. The house was full of people (twenty-two); Jane and Virginia Bonham Carter53 there with lots of friends.

  TUESDAY, 5 AUGUST. Bussento.

  After dinner got Mark (Bonham Carter) to describe in detail the story of his capture in Tunis in 1943, subsequent escape from the prison camp at Modena, and five-hundred-mile month’s walk down the spine of Italy before he crossed the Allied lines near Bari. Although I had known the vague outline before, I had never known a lot of the details and had never got him to tell it, which he was reluctant to do, but then did fascinatingly well.

  WEDNESDAY, 6 AUGUST. Bussento.

  Slightly racked by conscience that I ought to have gone to the state funeral which the Italians had organized for the seventy-nine victims of the previous Saturday’s bomb outrage at Bologna station. However, tormented myself quite unnecessarily as no foreigners were present, and the Italians clearly would not have welcomed them for it was an extremely awkward occasion politically, with only the Communist Mayor of Bologna, Berlinguer and Pertini, the old Socialist President of the Republic, being well received.

  Weather continuing absolutely perfect. I have never known it so good in Italy.

  MONDAY, 11 AUGUST. Bussento.

  Claus and Mary Moser and the David Fosters54 had arrived to stay in the early evening. Claus very bouncy—almost too bouncy, I thought, to begin with—but after dinner I found him extremely agreeable, talking very sensibly and interestingly about a lot of things: partly about music because David Foster is a great expert on its organization, Covent Garden, the Met, Salzburg, etc., but partly also about English politics, and partly about his life at N. M. Rothschilds’. A nice infusion and I am sorry that we are with them for such a short time.

  TUESDAY, 12 AUGUST. Bussento, Naples and East Hendred.

  10.38 train from Sapri to Naples. This Italian holiday was marked (i) by most exceptional weather—it never faltered throughout the eleven days we were there; (ii) by varying health, but a significant improvement on what had been the case before; (iii) by a phenomenal amount of reading—partly because I was not trying to do any other work I got through nine or ten books, including some semi-serious Roosevelt reading—the last
half of James MacGregor Burns’s second volume, Roosevelt the Soldier of Freedom) a hostile book by John T. Flynn called The Roosevelt Myth;) and Francis Perkins’s The Roosevelt I Knew. In addition to that I read several novels—some of them in proof brought out by John or Miriam Gross: Iris Murdoch’s Nuns and Soldiers, which I did not think nearly as good as The Sea, the Sea, although it has a certain attraction. I was easily able to get through it, long though it is; Barbara Pym’s A Few Green Leaves, which I thought a little pale and lacking in substance despite its elegant writing; Graham Greene’s Ways of Escape, which is a fragment of autobiography, not very long, built around the writing of a number of his books and rather good. Also Angus Wilson’s new novel Setting the World on Fire, which I did not think good at all but nonetheless got through. Also a book by Leslie Benson’s friend Jane Dick entitled Volunteers in Politics, which was an interesting, well-written description of the Stevenson campaign in 1952, about which she knew a great deal by direct experience, the Wilkie campaign in 1940, about which she also knew a certain amount from direct experience, and the Eisenhower campaign of 1952, which was based only on research but well done even so.

  In addition I read Misia, a high-class schmalz biography by two American pianists of Misia Sert, who was painted by Vuillard, Bonnard, Toulouse-Lautrec and Renoir, who was generally a fairly tiresome woman but who made quite an interesting subject. The last night I read three Lytton Strachey essays, on Gibbon, Macaulay and Froude. We were lucky to have stayed at Bussento and not to have moved up and down the peninsula as we had originally intended. The Bonham Carters were extremely welcoming and the Gross’ agreeable companions.