The Benn Diaries: 1940-1990

by Benn, Tony

  Thursday 22 May

  In the Socialist Worker today was a piece saying that what really terrified the Establishment was that I was fighting for jobs, while they were trying to sack people and this was the real offence, together with workers’ participation and public ownership.

  So for the first time, the ultras have had to take on board my strategy and to identify the divisions between Healey and Thatcher, who are the monetarists, Heath and Shirley Williams, who are corporatist coalitionists, and myself.

  Friday 23 May

  Harold was on television tonight. He was questioned about the economic situation and the Common Market He just waffled Then they asked him about me and he said, ‘Oh well, Mr Benn is a bogeyman like Lloyd George and Churchill and Bevan.’

  Robin Day said, ‘But you’ve attacked him yourself, called him an Old Testament prophet.’

  ‘Well, he dreams about the future but what he says isn’t government policy,’ Harold said.

  ‘Are you going to dismiss him?’

  ‘When I make my ministerial dispositions, I shall see you get a copy.’

  That was a clear indication that he intends to get rid of me; actually it gives me a marvellous feeling of liberation.

  Tuesday 3 June

  Neil Kinnock picked me up and drove me to Cardiff. He thought it was essential to keep together all the people who had come to work in the Labour Movement against the Market. Two thousand people were waiting, an enormous meeting. Michael Foot turned up, the first time I’d seen him since he had come back from Venice and he looked pretty old and tired.

  There were a few ‘Keep Britain In Europe’ people waving their banners, which helped to make it interesting.

  Thursday 5 June – Common Market Referendum

  Up at 6 o’clock and back to London. Melissa and I walked to St Peter’s Church Hall, Portobello Road, where we cast our votes – the first time Melissa had voted.

  Back to Bristol, where Caroline met me and we drove around in a lorry for four hours with the loudspeaker simply shouting, ‘No to the Common Market.’

  The ITN 10 o’clock news predicted a 69 per cent Yes vote and a 29 per cent No vote, so it looks like an enormous majority for staying in.

  I rang Frances. She’s realistic about it. ‘Oh well, people are sick of elections, they are glad it is settled. Harold has scored a tremendous triumph, but it’s over and done with now. The Left has played its trump card and been soundly defeated. This is the moment really to fade out.’ If that is the case my inclination is to get out and work on the sidelines.

  I worked out a draft statement on the referendum. I would say that it had been a good debate and that I accepted the verdict. It is half past midnight, I am desperately tired. It looks as if in this great referendum, the British people have overwhelmingly voted for Common Market membership, but it may be that even the leaders of the three parties and the entire press have not been able to secure more than 50 per cent of the vote, and that is less than wholehearted consent. I must not be resentful but that might be worth pointing out.

  There is a swing to the right, which I think one has to accept will continue for the remainder of the 1970s. The 1980s may be different but it is going to be a long hard wait.

  Friday 6 June

  Got home from the POEU conference at Blackpool to find a dozen journalists gathered in the front garden, plus a television unit. I said I would make a statement when I had seen the complete results.

  Stephen and Hilary were in the house with Dick Clements, then Frances and Francis arrived, followed by Michael Meacher and Joe Ashton. It soon became clear that there was a Yes majority everywhere.

  Jack Jones was on the television, saying that if Tony Benn was moved from the Department of Industry it would be a grave affront to the trade union movement. He was serious, strong and principled.

  To the House of Commons at 6.15 to the National Referendum Campaign party. Neil Marten was host, Douglas Jay, Enoch Powell and many more were there. Enoch came over to me; I don’t think I’ve spoken to him properly since I attacked him in the Election for his rascist views.

  ‘Well, Enoch,’ I said, ‘you certainly got your case across clearly and concisely, and the great merit of it all was that it was good political education.’

  ‘The great political education is only just beginning,’ he replied.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He told me that he’d just come from the ITN studios in a taxi, and the taxi driver had asked him, ‘Are you Mr Powell?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Enoch.

  ‘What attitude are you adopting towards the Common Market, Mr Powell?’

  Enoch was much humbled by this and said to the taxi driver, ‘Do you remember I used to be a member of the Conservative Party?’

  ‘Yes,’ the taxi driver said.

  ‘Do you remember why I left the Conservative Party?’

  The taxi driver said no, he had never heard the reason. So Enoch asked how he had voted in the Referendum.

  ‘I voted No.’

  ‘Oh, did you?’ said Enoch. ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, I heard there was some talk of a European Parliament and I was not prepared to see the British Parliament put under a European Parliament.’

  The point Enoch was making to me was that the campaign had not gone on long enough for people to understand exactly what everybody was saying, but they had picked up the gist of it.

  At the end of the day, we heard that 17 million people had voted to stay in, and 8.5 million to come out, which was some achievement considering we had absolutely no real organisation, no newspapers, nothing.

  Monday 9 June

  Harold made his statement on the Referendum, and afterwards, in the Tea Room, I heard he wanted to see me at 6. I walked over to Number 10 and went into the Cabinet Room, where Harold was waiting, looking very brown and relaxed. I sat some way from him and he said, ‘I’ll come straight to the point. I’d like you to take Energy.

  ‘It is a very important department, dealing with North Sea oil; the negotiations with the oil companies are under way with Harold Lever and Edmund Dell. It involves the miners, who you know very well, it involves nuclear power which you know inside out, and that’s what I want you to take. You’ve got lots of energy, if you know what I mean,’ he said smiling.

  I didn’t smile.

  ‘You’d enjoy it,’ he said. ‘It’s a very important job.’

  I said nothing.

  ‘Well, haven’t you got any questions?’

  ‘No,’ I replied, ‘except how long are you going to give me to think about it?’

  ‘I must know soon. Two hours.’

  ‘Overnight.’

  ‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘Got to know by 9.45.’

  ‘Well, my wife is away till 10 and I want to discuss it with her, so what about 10.15?’

  ‘Nine forty-five,’ he insisted.

  ‘I’ll see you in the Lobby at 10. All right?’

  I picked up my coat and Ron drove me back to the House.

  I said to Roy Williams, ‘Clear up my office, remove my banner, take everything out as if I had never been here.’ I invited Stephen and Hilary to come to the House because I wanted their advice. I rang Caroline but she was at a governors’ meeting at Holland Park School so Melissa, bless her heart, went all the way to the school and pulled Caroline out. Caroline’s first thought was that I had been assassinated, which in a way I had.

  She came to the House and the evening was spent in endless discussions with a succession of colleagues, with Joe bringing up trayloads of grub from the Dining Room (which I really must pay him for).

  The general opinion is that I should take Energy, because there is no principle involved in being offered another job in Cabinet.

  Ten o’clock came and went, and I heard Harold had called Michael in again before 10 and said he’d decided to postpone the whole matter. That was a good sign.

  But after the division, Eric Varley rang and I went down and had a word with him. He
is very close to Harold and he told me what had happened. ‘I think Harold entered into some commitments with the City or somebody, and he has to get rid of you.’

  Tuesday 10 June

  To the House of Commons at 11. Judith Hart told me that although she had been reinstated as Minister for Overseas Development by Harold, her office had been told that she would not be allowed to go abroad.

  Michael Foot came in, having just spent forty minutes with Harold. He told Harold that he thought I wouldn’t take Energy. Harold was very cross and said he was sick of personality politics and all that went with it. Michael said that Roy Jenkins had withdrawn his threat of resignation, which had only been made to protect Reg Prentice.

  Harold had told Michael that Fred Mulley would be going to the Department of Education and that Judith had been offered Transport, outside the Cabinet. Reg Prentice was to have Overseas Development, in place of Judith, under the aegis of the Foreign Office.

  At 6.10 I was summoned to see Harold in his room in the House of Commons. I had to run the gauntlet of Bernard Donoughue and Joe Haines outside his room. Harold looked at me intently with his piggy little eyes.

  ‘What is your answer?’

  ‘Well, Harold, I have been thinking very hard about it. I am concerned about two things. One, the possible humiliation or downgrading of dissenting Ministers, and two, the implementation of the manifesto.’

  ‘On the manifesto,’ said Harold, ‘as far as industrial policy is concerned, you know I am as keen on it as you are.’

  ‘Well, I don’t accept that, but if you say so the manifesto will go ahead.’

  I continued, ‘The third thing I’m concerned about is the Party. We’ve had two General Elections and a referendum which has been a great strain. You yourself said we should all buckle down and you have now created this terrible uncertainty and alienated everybody. The Industry Bill is in chaos because you’ve taken me off it. With Eric Heffer and myself gone there is nobody to run it. What you are doing is simply capitulating to the CBI, to the Tory press and to the Tories themselves, all of whom have demanded my sacking.’

  He said, ‘Well, I am not taking Jenkins’s advice.’

  ‘I don’t give a damn what Jenkins says, you are capitulating and if you think this is going to save you, you’ve made a great mistake because they’ll be pleased for twenty-four hours and then they’ll turn on you.’

  ‘They’ll turn on me anyway,’ Harold said. ‘I am just a captain of a cricket team wishing to make changes, and it has got nothing whatever to do with the referendum. I am entitled to make changes.’

  I said it was difficult to know when to go, and he had never understood me, always thinking that I was after his job when all I wanted was to see the policy implemented. ‘Of course,’ I went on, ‘this now has to be seen against a much wider background. Michael Young is calling for a statutory pay policy and we are heading for a coalition.’

  Harold insisted that that had nothing to do with him. I pointed out that the Movement would interpret it that way.

  ‘You don’t speak for the Movement,’ he said. ‘I know as much about the Movement as you do.’

  He pushed me for my decision about the job. Looking back on it, it is possible that if I had refused Energy, he might have kept me in Industry. But as he was going to see the Queen at 6.30, and I am sure she would have had to have advance notice, perhaps he wouldn’t have. Indeed, later tonight, I heard that he had said that if I had refused to go to Energy, he would have taken over the Department of Industry himself as he did the Department of Economic Affairs in the 1964–70 Government.

  Anyway, I accepted the job. I think he was quite surprised. I walked out and banged the door.

  At 7.30 I went over to the Overseas Development Ministry, where Judith was giving a party for her staff. She was almost in tears. I gave her all the arguments for not resigning and told her that we’d both been humiliated, but one couldn’t resign because of personal pride. She refused to accept it, saying how close she had been to Harold, how she had helped him in the campaign to become Leader. Now she believed he hated her. I suddenly felt that we had to save her. I decided to ring Number 10 and ask Harold if Michael and I could see him. We went over to Harold’s. Michael began, ‘Now look Harold, we have come to see you because we want to be constructive. We are very concerned about Judith. It is quite reasonable to offer her Transport, it is a very important department and Tony and I have urged her to take it. But it must be in the Cabinet.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Harold, ‘we can’t do that. We would have to introduce a Bill to increase the size of the Cabinet.’

  ‘You’ve done it before, you can do it again,’ said Michael.

  ‘I can’t have people arguing, we don’t change the Cabinet to fit people.’

  Michael was warning Harold of the unsettling effect all this was having on the Party, when I came in. ‘Now look, Harold, let us be quite plain about this. It is victimisation, either because of the referendum –’

  ‘It is nothing to do with the referendum –’ Harold interrupted.

  ‘You now offer her a Minister of State’s job, number three in the Department of Environment, with the first two – Crosland and Silkin – in the Cabinet.’

  Harold said he couldn’t discuss it but I added that he appeared to be making a clean sweep of everyone who had ever had anything to do with industrial policy. Judith had gone, Eric had been sacked, I had been moved, Michael is being moved –’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘That’s what Barbara told me,’ I said, realising I shouldn’t have.

  Harold insisted that Judith’s had been a sideways move, and that, in fact, I had accepted a bigger demotion than her because of my attachment to the Industry Bill.

  ‘Don’t reopen that, I’ve said what I have to say.’

  ‘Judith would not take the job, unlike you Tony. You very bravely did.’

  ‘Look Harold, you say it is suicide but there is no doubt that you gave her the knife.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘she shouldn’t have taken that attitude. We can’t have prima donnas.’

  Then Barbara turned up. I do admire her for that, it was nearing midnight and she had got dressed again after a heavy day, jumped in a taxi and come all the way to the House to save Judith. She fought her corner and even said she would accept being replaced by Judith at the DHSS.

  By now it must have been becoming dear to Harold that we were not prepared to serve if Judith was not put in the Cabinet. He said that he had made his position clear. ‘I’ve got to do this,’ and looking directly at me he said, ‘when you have my job, you’ll have to do it.’ That was intended to annoy Michael and Barbara.

  Barbara described Judith’s contributions with great affection, and Michael was very courteous. But it was left to me to say time and again, ‘It is a basic trade union principle that you do not victimise people after a strike; we will not have it.’

  At this point, he began to realise how serious it was and looked a bit shaken. We left saying that we’d be back tomorrow morning to give Harold some time to reconsider.

  We went to Room 18 in the House, which was crowded with people – Barbara and Ted, Tony Banks, Frances Morrell, Norman Buchan, Neil Carmichael, Judith and Tony Hart, Margaret Jackson, and John Grant whom I don’t trust. I described what had happened and said that Barbara was great and Michael was courteous.

  Later Joe said, ‘Tony, if you are going to become Leader of the Party, and you now stand well above anyone facing Harold, you have to fight that man, get into the ring like Cassius Clay and knock him out or be knocked out. The Party and the Tribune Group think that you should have held out longer on Energy.’

  I took his point. I will have to fight but it will be at a moment of my own choosing, on the cuts or the statutory pay policy, or the reactionary economic policy.

  If Harold goes, I should think Denis Healey would take over as the strong man in a crisis, or perhaps Jim. Roy would not get it and I certainly would
not because the PLP would be too nervous that I would lose them the Election. I suppose I have a vague interest in Wilson going on, but what we have seen today is a completely new procedure for dealing with reshuffles. The Left must organise and advise those people offered a job or pressured to move out of a job as to what they should do. Wilson has made a fatal error and he will not be Leader of the Labour Party by the end of the year.

  8

  1975–76

  Wednesday 11 June 1975

  THE PRESS WERE outside our house again by 7, three cars filled with reporters, poised with telescopic lenses. Ron Vaughan turned up at 7.30 with all the morning papers. The Guardian had it right ‘Wilson gives Benn’s head to the City’. By the time Josh left for school, there were about fifty journalists, two television units and three or four radio interviewers with microphones standing outside. We had decided not to say anything at all to the press, so when they confronted Josh, he ignored them. One of them shouted, ‘You fucking well answer my questions.’ Josh took no notice so they said, ‘You push off, you little shit.’

  Now Josh, at sixteen, is perfectly capable of exchanging harsh words with anybody of his own age, but when two or three grown men who, in a sense, are symbols of authority, swore at him like that, it really worried him.

  Ron walked ahead of me with my bag and Caroline, Stephen and Hilary watched me as I left. I walked out slowly and as I opened the front gate, the television cameras turned, the flashbulbs popped and the mikes were pushed menacingly at me. ‘Do you regard your job as a promotion or demotion?’ ‘What do you think of Mrs Hart?’ and so on.

  I just walked through them as if they weren’t there and that made them wild. They had dehumanised me in the press, now I was dehumanising them by not acknowledging their existence.

  Monday 30 June

  I found in my red box a farewell letter from Sir Antony Part. It read:

  Personal, 29 June