by Benn, Tony
Tuesday 4 December
At 12.10 I was taken to the Cartoonist pub in Shoe Lane to receive the Golden Joker Award. I was uneasy about going but the atmosphere was jolly – all the cartoonists were there. I mustn’t impute to everyone who works in the media the hostility that one gets from the proprietors and Editors. I was presented with a gold tie-pin and I made a speech about the important role of the cartoonist in society.
Appearing in a human guise from time to time is quite useful – Mrs Thatcher and Enoch Powell have both received the award. Vic Gibbons told me he was a socialist; his grandfather, John Burgess, was a founder of the ILP. He gave me two original cartoons. Mac, the Daily Mail cartoonist, presented me with a cartoon showing me walking along the street smoking my pipe and a lot of flies buzzing round my head, while round the corner Jim Callaghan, David Owen and Denis Healey were wielding great clubs, one of them saying, ‘Remember, if we’re asked, we were just swatting the greenfly!’
Friday 14 December
To Bristol for my surgery. Surgeries do bring MPs up against the harshest and saddest aspects of life. One woman who came to see me was a widow of about seventy living on a pension. A year ago she took into her house an elderly disabled man whom she had befriended, a bachelor. So the local DHSS had stopped her widow’s pension on the grounds that they were cohabiting and would have to be treated as a single unit and receive social security as a married couple. The man would otherwise have to go into a home (at a great cost to the ratepayers). She had appealed to the tribunal for the restoration of her pension and she said that the head of the tribunal had asked her whether they were having sexual intercourse – she broke down and wept because of the shame of it. Having met them together, I knew it was an absurd idea. They have separate rooms. But even if they were cohabiting what does that have to do with her entitlement to a widow’s pension? I promised to write to the DHSS and get the matter reviewed, but I know I won’t win.
Walked in the pouring rain to the hotel and got soaked to the skin. Had a hot bath, dried my trousers on the radiator and slept until the Party GMC at Unity House.
The GMC went on for three hours and was entirely dominated by Bryan Beckingham, Pete Hammond and others from the Militant Tendency. They moved endless resolutions. Their arguments are sensible and they make perfectly good radical points but they do go on interminably in their speeches.
Friday 21 December
To Bristol, and on the train were a lot of slightly drunk business executives in their late thirties singing in the buffet car. One was wearing a paper hat.
I queued up to get my tea and bacon and egg and they were saying, ‘There’s that f. . . . . g extremist, Mr Benn’, and they sang bits of ‘The Red Flag’, and kept up an absolute barrage of insulting remarks.
As I went by carrying my tray they opened the door with elaborate and false courtesy and bowed and said, ‘Happy Christmas to you, Sir’, and I said, ‘Thank you’ and went on.
I think that was the first experience of real whipping-up of feeling by the press against the Labour Party. After the victory of Mrs Thatcher, the old Establishment is now wildly self-confident – the Civil Service, the military, business, bankers and so on.
Monday 31 December
Stansgate. In the evening, after the meal, Mother sat and talked; she is fascinating. She is eighty-three next year, and first came to London in 1910 when Edward VII was on the throne. She knew Asquith, Lloyd George, Ramsay MacDonald, Arthur Henderson, and so on. She has a wide theological knowledge, and to hear her describing the various meanings of the immaculate conception, the physical ascension of Jesus and all that is so interesting. She reads the Old Testament in Hebrew and the New Testament in Greek and so she knows the nuances of translation.
Looking at the Thatcher Government, it has begun implementing its reactionary policies with great vigour. Of course, it is a unifying force for the Labour Movement at a time when our debates are inevitably internal and divisive.
Tuesday 5 February 1980
20,000 people, mainly young women, crammed into Central Hall for a rally against the Corrie Bill, which would restrict a woman’s right to an abortion. I spoke briefly to offer my support, and said there should be no restrictions of a woman’s right to decide within the provisions of the present law. This was one of many attacks on women’s rights – the Employment Bill, the sexist and racist immigration laws, child benefit cuts, the tax laws – and women must organise; it was the only way to win. In calling for the right to choose and the freedom to control their own bodies, these women are rediscovering what the whole trade union movement has been fighting for – the right to choose, the right to decide how our own bodies are going to be used.
Wednesday 6 February
I had an incredible message from the BBC asking if I would join in a discussion on monetarism and government intervention, following the showing of a series of six half-hour talks by Milton Friedman, the American monetarist economist, called ‘The Right to Choose’. I would be in discussion with the Deputy Governor of the Bank of England and Roy Jenkins, under the chairmanship of Peter Jay.
I rang up the producer and said that six programmes of Milton Friedman was more than all the party politicals put together during an Election. I had never known the BBC give so much time to this particular religion. The woman I spoke to said, ‘Well, we are going to balance the discussion.’
I told her I was prepared to do half an hour with Friedman, but I would not be a token left-winger with three monetarists. She went off saying they would rethink it.
Thursday 7 February
The PLP was interesting. Mik asked, ‘Could I please have a clear account of the Front Bench attitude towards repeal of the Tories’ Employment Bill and Education Bill.’
Eric Varley made a short statement saying we would repeal the former, but might reintroduce passages about ballots. He was a bit evasive.
Then Neil Kinnock got up to speak. ‘Well, I can’t give an assurance we will repeal the Education Bill. We are committed to ending the assisted places scheme, but we cannot pledge reinstatement of school meals and milk because of the economic situation we shall inherit.’ He sounded just like a Minister, indeed like the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, and it went down very badly.
Reg Race, the MP for Wood Green, and Kevin McNamara, the MP for Hull Central, were alarmed at Neil’s statement Other Members spoke, and it was clear from the shouting that Neil had dropped a clanger.
Up jumped Neil again and made it worse. ‘It could cost many millions to restore cheap school meals and school transport.’ People were aghast at his second attempt.
Someone brought up the defence vote, but then Jack Ashley got to his feet – being deaf he had only just been informed in writing of Neil’s comments – and said it was the most staggering statement that he had heard at a PLP meeting.
Afterwards the Right was laughing itself sick that a left-wing Front Bench spokesman should have made such a statement and the Left was saying, ‘That is what happens when you become a Shadow Minister.’ Poor old Neil has taken a knocking.
Friday 29 February
Leap Year. Went into the House early for the Corrie Bill debate.
Jo Richardson and Joyce Gould, the National Women’s Officer, who was sitting under the Gallery, are really masterminding the campaign in the House. Joyce had written to every Labour MP who had voted against Corrie last time to thank them and to guide them through the next stage of the debate. For the first time I thought the PLP was doing its proper job. Why don’t we have Labour Party officials sitting under the Gallery in the civil servants’ boxes when the Labour Government is in power?
It looks as if we have defeated the Bill by talking it out.
Tuesday 25 March
Joan Lestor told me that Neil Kinnock is now canvassing for Michael Foot as Leader. I am terribly torn because I don’t actually know whether my prospects are at all good.
The position on the leadership at the moment is like this. Healey is ob
viously the front runner, and he has Barryjones of East Flint, John Smith and Dick Mabon all competing for the privilege of being campaign managers, with Joel Barnett really doing the work.
Then to the right of Denis you have Roy Hattersley. I suppose he is a serious candidate of a kind – he does lots of meetings around the country and projects an impressive image and has a group working for him in the PLP.
Then other possible candidates on the right are David Owen, Eric Varley and maybe Merlyn Rees.
Then there is Peter Shore, a right-wing, anti-European figure; and John Silkin, who allegedly has received £10,000 from the TGWU to run his leadership campaign.
Eric Heffer I know has been going round seeking support.
Finally Michael Foot, on whom there is heavy pressure to keep Denis out.
Wednesday 2 April
During the evening Caroline came into the basement office and said the news bulletins were full of rioting going on in the St Paul’s area of Bristol. Apparently the police had decided to make a major drugs raid on the Black and White Café in Grosvenor Road and had arrived in force, with dogs. A tremendous confrontation developed between police and young blacks and young whites, many of them unemployed. To cut a long story short, the police were not there in sufficient force, so they withdrew from the area for four hours, during which looting and burning occurred. By about midnight it was over.
Friday 11 April
Chris Mullin came to see me; he had just come back from Vietnam and Cambodia. He described how the Chinese had invaded Vietnam on a punitive mission, dynamiting all the schools, hospitals and factories in the towns they occupied. They removed all the equipment from factories and sent it to China, leaving the Vietnamese nothing. An astonishing story of brutality.
Sunday 4 May
President Tito died today. He had been in intensive care for such a long time that his death had in a sense been forgotten about, but it was a great event, and a man of his magnitude in world history will not easily be replaced. He is the last of the great war leaders, the only one left being Hirohito, the Emperor of Japan.
Monday 12 May
Home Policy Committee at 5.30, with lots of resolutions. The most serious one was an attack upon the Government for contemplating the break-up of the ILEA. We agreed to propose its reinstatement if that happened, but Neil Kinnock as Shadow Education Spokesman didn’t want to commit himself. He really is behaving like a Minister already, without ever having held ministerial office. Eric Heffer attacked him and said, ‘You really worry me, Neil.’ But Neil believes this demonstrates that he is responsible.
We went over the draft rolling manifesto, and Neil again opposed our commitment to restore the school meals, school milk and school transport services. It is a gross misjudgement of the mood of the Party at the moment. Neil’s argument is that if you pledge to do something in an immediate response to a situation, and then you fail to keep that pledge, people are disappointed.
Wednesday 28 May
Willy Brandt was giving a lecture at Chatham House, and had asked if while he was in London he could visit me. I must say I was very honoured. He came to see me at home, after he had seen Jim, accompanied by Jenny Little and his own Private Secretary, and stayed for an hour and a half. I have known him since 1957, though I don’t suppose he remembers that I met him when he was Deputy Mayor of Berlin. Then I met him again in Bonn in 1975. When he is thoughtful and relaxed, as he was today, he couldn’t be nicer.
He thought Schmidt would win the elections in Germany, and that the SPD should open up to absorb the Green Movement in Germany. He talked about his famous North–South report and said Olaf Palme was initiating a disarmament report similar to his.
The thing he really wanted to discuss was the Common Market. He wondered if an initiative by the German SPD would help the Labour Party.
I said, ‘For many years our socialist friends in the Community thought that Roy Jenkins spoke for the Labour Party – which he didn’t – and we have had to fight to get across our view that there has to be some constitutional change. But we are not behind Mrs Thatcher with her nationalism and the Budget and the CAP. Our concern is a broader one, and I think the way to deal with it is to recognise that the Treaty of Rome has caused a log-jam, and that we have to get round it by initiatives on East-West relations, on disarmament, on the Third World and on energy.’
Then we talked about East-West relations. He thinks the Russians are not planning an advance into Western Europe but a strong military directorate is growing up in the Soviet Union. He said that low-level détente in Germany means that families who couldn’t meet when the Berlin Wall was put up can meet now.
I said I welcomed the fact that Giscard had gone to see Brezhnev.
‘Yes, so did we, but Giscard did insult Schmidt.’
I asked, ‘What do you mean?’
He said, ‘Well, he advised Schmidt not to go, and then he went himself!’
We laughed; that was typically French.
I told him he mustn’t think that the Labour Party was inward-looking about Europe; we were struggling to fight off the most right-wing Government we have had, and it will take us a decade to put it right. I think he understood that.
Altogether, Brandt is a wise man, and what I like about him is that he is past the management stage and is now the father of his tribe, in a way.
Friday 30 May
Frances Morrell rang to tell me about the Rank and File Mobilising Committee, which is working to get together the CLPD, Labour Coordinating Committee, Institute for Workers’ Control, the Independent Labour Publications and the Socialist Campaign for a Labour Victory, to agree on a programme of Party democracy.
In the evening we had a party, a sort of new left gathering, with Frances, Ken Livingstone of the GLC, Victor Schonfield, Audrey Wise, Tom Litterick, Chris Mullin, James Curran, a lecturer, his wife Margaret, George Osgerby, one of James’s students, Dick Clements and Biddy, Geoff Bish, Dawn Primarolo, Jon Lansman of CLPD, Peter Hain and others. These are the people who have formed this Rank and File Mobilising Committee and, when the time comes, they will be the people who organise the Benn election campaign.
Friday 6 June
Had a cup of tea at the House with Joan Lestor and Neil Carmichael, and Joan asked, ‘How are we going to get you as Leader of the Party when the press hates you so much? People think you would lose us the next Election if you were Leader.’
I said, ‘I think the real issue is this: that if the press is to choose our leader it will also choose our policy, and, once you accept that, then you are saying there can’t be a Labour Party.’
Caught the shuttle to Edinburgh for the Scottish Miners’ Gala tomorrow. At dinner I sat next to Mick McGahey, the President of the Scottish miners, who is exactly my age, a very principled guy.
Mick’s father was a miner and founder member of the Communist Party and had not worked from the General Strike of 1926 to the Second World War: a tremendously scholarly man who when he retired read Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and Churchill’s history of the Second World War. Mick is also highly knowledgeable. He had read E.P. Thompson’s biography of William Morris. He said he had read Arguments for Socialism and, though he didn’t agree with everything I had said, at least I was getting back to fundamentals. He couldn’t have been nicer.
Friday 13 June
Set off with Caroline and Hilary for Whitehall College, the ASTMS country club, for the Commission of Inquiry weekend. It is a most beautiful place, built at the turn of the century for the Gilbey gin firm. It has now got a swimming pool and sauna, and beautiful lawns. Hilary told me that Clive had actually bought some goldfish for the water garden especially for this weekend. In each room there were drinks, and in our room a kettle and two ASTMS mugs – and two penknives with ASTMS inscriptions!
The whole of the Labour Party’s Commission of Inquiry was gathered for its final discussions: David Basnett, Eric Heffer, Michael Foot, Jim Callaghan, Terry Duffy, Moss Evans, Bil
l Keys, Norman Atkinson, Frank Allaun, Joan Lestor, Jo Richardson and myself.
Saturday 14 June
I had a troubled night; I worried that we were going to waste all our time on the preliminaries and never get to the main decisions. I woke at 6.30 and got up and went through all my papers again looking out of the window on a tremendously rainy day, unlike yesterday’s beautiful sunshine. Four policemen were walking in the gardens, and I must say the whole thing is rather absurd.
After the afternoon session we were summoned up to Jim Callaghan’s room for a party to which Clive had contributed some bottles of champagne. It was very jolly. I had a quiet word with Moss, Clive and Bill Keys. I think they have tried to get a compromise which they think will get them through, but they are not prepared to say what it is.
Back into the Commission at 8, and reselection of MPs was the key question. Eric Heffer moved, straightaway, that the Commission adopt last year’s Conference decision on mandatory reselection; Frank Allaun seconded Eric, David Basnett in the chair accepted it, and the debate began.
Michael Foot was opposed to it. Clive Jenkins said, ‘Reselection should be mandatory unless 60 per cent don’t want it.’ This was very complicated, and Jim argued that if you went for mandatory reselection it would encourage factions such as the anti-abortion lobby, and it would work against the unions in that those who got seats would be slick media people.
I said I had been a Member for thirty years and, if my local Party wanted to get rid of me, they could just nominate somebody else and choose them. ‘I don’t believe for a moment that the trade unions will be disadvantaged. Indeed, I think they would benefit, because it is the media men that they want to get rid of and replace with good, solid local people. It will affect very few people, but it will mean that MPs listen to their GMCs.’ Jim Callaghan got angry at this.
