The Benn Diaries: 1940-1990

by Benn, Tony

  I said that the real difficulty was that, up to now, it had been understood in the Office that by the Queen’s personal command stamps that did not embody the head could not even be submitted for consideration. I said this had led to a most unfortunate situation in which designers were full of new ideas but these were not allowed to be transmitted because it was generally thought that the Queen herself had refused to consider them. I said I didn’t know whether this was true or not but it seemed to me the straight forward thing to do was to come along and ask whether this was as a result of a personal command of this kind. The Queen was clearly embarrassed and indicated that she had no personal feeling about it at all. I said I knew she wouldn’t and that I knew this was all a misunderstanding but that it was rather ridiculous that there should be these lovely stamps available which she wasn’t even allowed to see.

  I thought in many cases the head would be right, but there were all sorts of other ways of doing it, such as embossing the head in white or having a silhouette, or a definitive stamp affixed to a commemorative or pictorial stamp, and that all I wanted – as I was not a designer or a philatelist – was the right to submit stamps of all kinds to her. She indicated that she had never seen any of these stamps and would be interested to see them. I said, ‘Well, I’ve got some in my bag’ (having brought David Gentleman’s collection as provided this morning). The Queen wanted me to leave the new designs with her but I explained the difficulties and she agreed to see them on the spot.

  This was exactly what I had hoped would happen so I unlocked my bag and spread out on the floor twelve huge design models of the stamps provided by Gentleman and also brought out his album of foreign stamps. I then knelt on the floor and one after the other passed up to the Queen the Battle of Britain stamps bearing the words ‘Great Britain’ and no royal head on them. It was a most hilarious scene because I had my papers all over the place and she was peering at something that had obviously never been shown to her or even thought about at the Palace before.

  At the end I packed up and said I would take them away but that I was delighted to hear that she approved of a scheme under which we could submit things to her for her consideration. I said I hoped I might come back in a few weeks and that was the end of the audience. It had lasted about forty minutes instead of the expected fifteen.

  As I was going out, Sir Michael Adeane – who I suppose might have been listening via a microphone during the audience – assured me that there had never been any indication whatsoever from the Palace that non-traditional stamps would not be acceptable. It was most amusing because of course it was quite untrue. But I said I was delighted to hear this and that now we could submit all sorts of designs. ‘But I think the monarch’s head has to be on the stamps, doesn’t it?’ he said. I replied that there was no rule about it but that it had always been done; but now that we could send in the new designs we could see where and when it was appropriate. He looked extremely uncomfortable.

  So I went back to the House of Commons feeling absolutely on top of the world. The fact is the Palace is determined not to get into any controversy in which they might be seen to be responsible for holding back popular clamour for change. The real enemies of course are those forces of reaction – the Tory Party, the Civil Service, the Palace flunkies and courtiers – who use the Queen as a way of freezing out new ideas. No doubt she herself shares the views of the flunkies but the Crown has to be extremely careful. I had always suspected this was true but am now convinced that if you went to the Queen to get her consent to abolish the honours list altogether she would nod and say she’d never been keen on it herself and felt sure the time had come to put an end to it. Of course when you do that you have to be terribly charming and nice and I tried as hard as I could to do a little Disraeli on her with all the charm I could muster.

  I went back to the Office and called the Director-General and Mr Wolverson in and told them about my visit to Number 10 and the Palace. They were a bit astonished I think that I had gone straight to the Queen and raised the question of the head with her.

  To dinner with the Yugoslav Ambassador, Mr Prica, and his wife. Also there were Denis Healey, who told blue jokes throughout the whole of dinner, and George Thomson and one or two others.

  Bed very late. It had been the best day since I took office with almost complete victory on the whole front. Now I must be sure to follow it up.

  Thursday 25 March

  At 10.30 this morning, Sir Kenneth Clark, Paul Reilly and James Fitton came to see me about stamp policy. I told them about my interview with the Queen and the new free policy for designers. They seemed excited by it and were not as critical as I had feared, but Sir Kenneth Clark said that George V had told him when he was a young man and first appointed to the Stamp Advisory Committee, ‘Never let the sovereign’s head come off the stamps.’ Sir Kenneth had promised that he would not. At this stage I expected that he would announce his resignation. But he said that he felt that this pledge would be honoured provided they remained on the definitive stamps, which is perfectly agreeable to me. All in all it was a much more successful morning than I had expected.

  Saturday 3 April

  My fortieth birthday. The family came in early with gifts. Then we had tea this afternoon with Mother. It was a lovely day and we sat in the garden for a bit.

  Friday 7 May

  Tilling has been promoted to head of Organisation and Methods Branch and he wrote me this delightful assessment of my period as PMG to mark the occasion.

  A new era was opened when Mr Anthony Wedgwood Benn became Postmaster General in October 1964. Mr Benn, young and forward-looking, was determined that the Post Office should become a science-based industry. He applied this principle not only to his department’s services but also to his own post, and at the General Election in April 1969, the ancient office of Postmaster General was abolished and a ‘Rapidec’ Mark 999 computer was installed in Room G1 at Post Office Headquarters in St Martin’s-le-Grand.

  Meanwhile, the Post Office had undergone rapid expansion and change. Its capital investment rose to £ quinillions annually as its Headquarters, Regional Headquarters and local Telephone Area and Head Offices were all replaced by computers of increasing size and complexity. All the staff of these offices were retained as programmers, translating their previous work into binary code for the computers. Indeed, so great was the programming programme that the staff of the GPO had increased to over a million by 1 January 1984: 500,000 programmers and 500,000 engineers to tend the computers. All the staff had been transferred to the Central Organisation and Methods Branch on temporary promotion.

  At their head was Sir Henry Tilling, GCB, who had been appointed head of the Central Organisation and Methods Branch soon after Mr Wedgwood Benn became Postmaster-General, and these revolutionary changes have been made under his baleful supervision. In an age dominated by machines, Sir Henry maintained the antiquated principle that machines existed to serve mankind, and, while he remained in office, the Post Office continued to serve the public’s needs – unlike the rest of the public services which were run entirely for and by computers. Sir Henry, in his fortress in Stepney, retained not only these out-of-date principles but also old-fashioned habits which marked him as one of an earlier generation of administrators. He had his room heated by a coal fire and his tea served every afternoon from a silver teapot made 200 years before his birth. Needless to say, these unhygienic habits and his backward-looking, humanist-based policies caused resentment and discontent among his staff and the computers, and, when he eventually retired on 24 January, 1984, he was replaced by an Omniscient Mark 5 Computer.

  By 1 February, 1985, there was a marked deterioration in the quality of the Post Office services, and with the collapse of the communications network in 1999, the world entered a new dark age, in which the darkness was more profound and prolonged than that which succeeded the fall of the Roman Empire.

  Saturday 8 May

  I wrote this verse today to celebrate Tilling�
�s departure and promotion.

  A PMG’s PS named Tilling

  To contemplate change was unwilling

  He’d detected decay

  Since Sir Brian Tuke’s day

  And the future appeared to him chilling.

  The Department admiring this trait

  Picked him out for promotion one day

  Each new project he’d stop

  Brought him nearer the top

  Till as DG he had his own way.

  The savings in manpower he made

  Were a hundred per cent a decade

  He brought back the horse

  And the whole postal force

  Were retired with their full pensions paid.

  The most famous speech that he spoke

  Was dismissed by the press as a joke

  But ignoring their moans

  He ripped out all the phones

  And reverted to signals by smoke.

  His achievements were legion I’m told

  And historians now make so bold

  As to claim he undid

  Just to save a few quid

  Innovations five hundred years old.

  His knighthood he felt that he’d earned

  By the millions of letters he’d burned

  And he always did boast

  That they played the ‘Last Post’

  On the day the PO Board adjourned.

  His retirement to live in his den

  Was marred by a fellow named Benn

  For – still PMG –

  He chuckled with glee

  And built up the service again.

  Wednesday 26 May

  To the National Executive this morning, which was held at the House of Commons. Only two things of interest came up. One was that the statement on Vietnam which did nothing more than to explain the Government’s policy, including the reasons why we have supported the bombing of North Vietnam by the Americans, which I found and find hard to take. Harold explained the position and his general argument is of course that public declarations are less effective than private pressure. I didn’t feel it was the time to say anything but I’m sure that a lot of people there, like myself, are extremely unhappy about the way in which things are going.

  Friday 28 May

  To the Daily Mirror building to have lunch with Cecil King and Hugh Cudlipp. I had apparently gravely upset Cecil King by not having attended one of his functions earlier and the message reached Caroline through Lew Grade that he was hopping mad with me and had said, ‘I snap my fingers and Harold Wilson comes to lunch but I can’t get this man Wedgwood Benn. Who the hell does he think he is?’

  Cecil King is a big and rather grim man and Hugh Cudlipp, the ageing boy genius, is not all that attractive. I decided to talk frankly about the Office and how awful the civil servants were, how necessary it was to reorganise the whole thing, how the telephone service couldn’t be be put right for a long time and how the postal services need to be reshaped, and to be forthcoming generally. I think I’m much too careful in talking to the press and probably most of my colleagues are much more free and easy and it pays off.

  After lunch they got down seriously to the business of the fourth channel, in which they are vitally interested since they are majority shareholders in ATV, which is the one company that wants to take over the fourth channel. I told them that I would be sorry to see it allocated until I was absolutely satisfied that there wasn’t some possibility of regional television performing a community function, buying programmes from programme contractors and broadcasting some University of the Air stuff. They didn’t say much but were obviously disappointed and angry.

  This highlights in my mind one of the great difficulties of being a socialist in the sort of society in which we live. The real drive for improvement comes from those concerned to make private profit. If, therefore, you deny these people the right of extending private enterprise into new fields, you have to have some sort of alternative. You have to have some body which wants to develop public enterprise but our present Civil Service is not interested in growth. It is geared to care and maintenance. The nationalised industries are not yet moving rapidly enough.

  The thing to do is to find people who are keen on growth and give them the authority to grow on something other than a commercial basis. This seems to me to be the central problem of socialist practice today and I feel sure the answer lies in devolved authority. I don’t believe that it is the drive for personal gain that makes private enterprise so energetic. I think it is the fact that when you are running your own show you have the authority to do what you want to do. And I’m sure the lesson for us is dear. We have somehow to create a multiplicity of public authorities and allow them to get on with the job. This is the case for splitting the Post Office up into its component parts as separate nationalised industries and for the progressive development of mixed enterprise where the state can work in partnership with those who are keen to break fresh ground.

  Postal Controllers’ dinner tonight. It was a real postal occasion. The whole general directorate were there together with postal controllers from all over the country. The first speaker, Mr de Grouchy, made a characteristic Post Office speech in which he poured scorn on the automatic telephones as if they were new-fangled devices. He said the Post Office had always been run by broad-minded ignoramuses at the top.

  Replying, I drew attention to two occasions when the Post Office had been wrong in opposing innovation. One was the introduction of mail coaches in 1784 and the other was the statement in 1879 by Sir William Preece, the Engineer-in-Chief to the Post Office, when he said he saw no future for the telephone. I said we had a lot to learn from those who opposed change. Then I described the ‘feasible service’ and said we were considering it.

  After me came Mr Jackson, who was eighty-two – one of the last surviving surveyors. He was a wonderful old man, upright, with a stern sense of duty, a good sense of humour and ready to argue all over again the case against mail coaches in 1784. He couldn’t have done it better. I think I nearly overstepped the mark but I’m glad I said what I said. It was an enjoyable evening and it did bring a head the conflict between innovation and conservatism which has been rumbling along inside the Department since I’ve been there.

  Sunday 13 June

  I read yesterday morning that the Beatles had been given MBEs. No doubt Harold did this to be popular and I expect it was popular – though it may have been unpopular to some people too. The Daily Mirror’s headline was ‘Now They’ve Got Into The Topmost Chart Of All’. But the plain truth is that the Beatles have done more for the royal family by accepting MBEs than the royal family have done for the Beatles by giving them. Nobody goes to see the Beatles because they’ve got MBEs but the royal family love the idea that the honours list is popular, because it all helps to buttress them and indirectly their influence is used to strengthen all the forces of conservatism in society. I think Harold Wilson makes the most appalling mistake if he thinks that in this way he can buy popularity, for he is ultimately bolstering a force that is an enemy of his political stand.

  The other thing this week that’s in my mind is the developing situation in Vietnam, where the Americans are now deciding to invade in full strength and we are left in the embarrassing position of appearing to support them. I believe this is an untenable position and sooner or later we shall have to come out and say what we really think. The argument that we are keeping quiet in order to retain influence is of course fallacious. The real reason is quite different. On Friday night there was the first ‘teach-in’ at the LSE in London on Vietnam. It was based on the ‘teach-ins’ that have appeared in the United States and which are an aspect of the non-violent movement. I think they probably will have an influence and I’m told that whenever Harold Wilson’s name was mentioned at LSE people booed. It may well be that when the time comes the Labour Government will have been held to fail not because it was too radical but because it was not radical enough.

  Wednesday 16 J
une

  To the House of Commons where a Mr Sheppard came to see me. He had written to me eighteen years ago at Oxford asking if he could address the Oxford Union and I had written a non-committal letter back to say he couldn’t but that if he would ever like to see me I should be glad to do so. He turned up last night at home saying he did want to see me and Caroline put him off. I rang him thinking it might be something important and he came this afternoon. He said that he had worked for twenty years on the greatest idea ever, which he’d written down on a piece of paper. He handed me this in an envelope and when I opened it, it said, ‘Everything everywhere moves. It always has done and it always will. EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE MOVES.’ He wanted me to take this to the Russians and the Americans so they could share the truth equally. He was a real nutcase but it was quite comic.

  At about 5 o’clock this morning Raymond Fletcher collapsed in the Tea Room and it was a horrible sight to see three people holding him down and hear him groaning. Whether it was an epileptic fit, as was rumoured, or not, I don’t know. But this is the price we pay for this late-night folly.

  Tuesday 29 June

  I have discovered that my instructions on stamp policy have simply not been followed. I asked to see the artists’ instructions to those who were designing the stamps of the new Post Office Tower. I discovered that the instructions remained exactly as before and that no reference at all had been made to the fact that the Queen is prepared to receive non-traditional designs. The instructions all specified as usual, ‘The Queen’s head must be a dominant feature of the designs.’ This is in strict contravention of what they know has been agreed and what I want. Unless you watch them like a hawk they simply don’t do what they’re told.