by Benn, Tony
As an utterly convinced republican, I believe that a monarchical system of government is fundamentally undemocratic, and that the powers of the monarchy have got to be taken away. But republicanism frequently ignores the legal and constitutional powers of the monarchy and concentrates on attacking the royal family itself. Anyway, I’ve got my first reference to the monarchy in my book Arguments for Democracy.
Today the press were outside my door all day. They knocked on it once an hour from 9.30 to 4.30. I presume it was the Sun or the Daily Mail; a marvellous example of harassment.
Friday 25 September
The Times had a profile of the candidates in the deputy leader contest, and under me the caption included some absurd claims about my owning a farm in Essex and having a trust in the ‘tax haven’ of Bermuda.
Well, Julian Haviland rang me a couple of days ago and asked me about my financial position, and I told him I had inherited shares in Benn Brothers, the publishers, had bought a house in London which cost me £4,600 and had a house in Stansgate, Essex, bought by my father for £1,500 before the war. I also told him that I had never bought or sold a share in my life and I had some earnings from freelance work. He said, ‘Well, we’re doing a bit of financial background on each candidate.’ The Times never mentioned that Healey had earnings from the Daily Express or that John Silkin had declared that his average private income over the last ten years had been £15,900 per year.
I decided to write to The Times, drawing attention to the lie they had printed in August 1977 about my children receiving private medical treatment. I rang them later and was told my letter had been set up in type and was before the Editor, Harold Evans, for approval.
Saturday 26 September – Labour Party Conference, Brighton
Got up about 6.30, very tired. The Times printed my letter and apologised, so I’ve caught The Times out on two lies now, the 1977 story and now this.
Packed up for the Brighton Conference. What an incredible time! It is pouring with rain but I am really looking forward to it and enjoying it.
We packed up all our stuff in tons of bags – video recorder, Joshua’s VDU, etc – and we got to Brighton at 11.45 and found one of the London MEPs, Richard Balfe, and his wife Vivien and others had set up a marvellous office in the Grand Hotel with an electric typewriter, photocopier, radio, the lot!
Joshua was working on his computer and if the T&G and NUPE vote for me, then I’m home comfortably, even with forty abstentions and only 480 constituencies. If NUPE vote for Healey but the T&G vote for me, I could just win if I could scrabble together a few more MPs and a few more constituencies. If NUPE abstain, I could probably still win on forty abstentions and 480 constituencies, or it could be neck and neck. So there is clearly a sense of confidence about it which I have never had before.
Agreed to meet the campaign committee at 8.30 tomorrow morning. The word is going round now that we are going to win; I think confidence is the major factor, particularly with MPs, and that is what is going to decide the issue now. NUPE is in the balance. I don’t know.
Sunday 27 September
The day of the election for the Deputy Leader. I didn’t have time to read the papers. There was no word from Michael Foot, though I had expected there would be. The campaign committee had a meeting at 8.30 and we agreed on a last-minute leaflet.
There were photographers everywhere.
We went to the CLPD meeting in the Metropole Hotel at which Dennis Skinner made a brilliant speech. When we went in we heard that NUPE had decided to vote for Denis Healey – which most people thought was the finish of us, but we knew it wasn’t.
Caroline drafted with me a statement for release after the result.
We went over to the conference hall at 5 pm. The press were hysterical, people were cheering and shouting, and, as I got my papers for the first ballot, we heard a rumour that the T&G, who were voting for Silkin in the first ballot, had in fact decided to abstain in the second. Well, that was a body blow! Joshua immediately worked out some computer predictions on the basis of an abstention from the TGWU on the second.
Anyway, we went in, and I was prepared for a massive defeat and was feeling pretty gloomy, but I tried to look as cheerful as I could on the platform. The Conference began with the usual address by the Mayor, the Chairman’s address, the Conference Arrangements Committee report – during which some women made a terrific protest to get positive discrimination for women debated. Then the Chairman, Alex Kitson, took a show of hands on smoking, and that was banned from the conference hall.
At the end of that, the first ballot result was announced, and it showed precisely what Joshua had predicted – Healey 44.536 per cent (Joshua’s figure, 45), me 36.639 per cent (Joshua’s, 37.5), Silkin, with the T&G, 18 per cent. Rumours then began circulating on the platform that the T&G had decided to vote for me on the second ballot – which they did – and Joshua’s prediction then was that Healey would get 51.3 and I would get 48.7 per cent.
The second ballot was called immediately, and while it was being counted there was a debate on South Africa. I got three separate messages that I had won, and finally, after the address by the Secretary of the Socialist International, the result was announced: Denis Healey got 50.426 and I got 49.547 per cent, which was an absolute whisker’s difference.
I came off the platform, and all the press were there and I had a job saying anything. Then I picked up Caroline and we walked with a barrage of press and masses of cheering and pushing back to the hotel, where people cheered in the lobby and all the way up the stairs.
We had sandwiches and then decided to go out to the London Labour Briefing meeting at the Queen’s Hotel, and it was packed out. I spoke briefly. Came out, and I declined to comment any further. Then Caroline and I walked to the fish and chip shop and the media followed us in there. We came back to the hotel and slowly we briefed ourselves on what had actually happened.
It has been a staggering result with all the media against us, the most violent attacks by the Shadow Cabinet, the full intervention of Michael, the abstention of a group of Tribune Group MPs who, in the end, turned out to be the people who carried the day – Stan Orme, Martin O’Neill, Neil Kinnock, Jeff Rooker, Joe Ashton, Tom Pendry. We got within 0.8 per cent of victory, and it was the best possible result, because if I had won by 0.8 per cent people would have shouted ‘cheat’. It only requires four or six Labour MPs to join the SDP for Healey’s majority to disappear, and then he will hold the post but not have the authority.
So sitting on the bathroom floor of the hotel, so as not to disturb Caroline, I bring to an end the report on the first electoral college ever held to allow the members of the Party to vote for the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, and it has been far more successful than I could possibly have dreamed at the beginning.
Wednesday 7 October
Sally went in to University College Hospital and at 3.42 gave birth to a boy, Michael Graham Clark Benn – my first grandson. Hilary was there, and Caroline visited the baby in the afternoon.
Went to see Mother, who is now a great-grandmother. Came home and there was Hilary and ‘Uncle’ Joshua, and we were all very excited.
11
1981–83
Sunday 11 October
I READ THE typescript of Chris Mullin’s new novel, A Very British Coup, the story of how a Labour government elected in 1989 is brought down by the security services.
Harry Perkins, the Prime Minister, is a steelworker who drinks tea from a mug with a tea bag and was a former Secretary of State for Energy who had rows with his civil servants about nuclear reactors. To cut a long story short, he is brought down by a scandal. It’s very well done. I gave Chris a couple of hints and he’s going to change a few details.
Caroline and I went for a walk.
Thursday 15 October
I went to the hospital to see Dr Clifford Rose, who told me that the electrical tests in July did show that there had been serious damage to my sensory nerves and it would be up
to two years before they would know the extent of the recovery. I am beginning to realise that I may be handicapped for life. I would like to be able to run and jump about before I die but I’ve got to face the possibility that I never will. It was a bit of a shock, though I had guessed it.
In the evening Caroline and I went to Hilary’s to visit little Michael. Hilary put him in my arms and I just looked at him for about half an hour. I am so thrilled with him.
Tuesday 3 November
Went to the Shadow Cabinet in the evening, and I must say I do find it an absolute nightmare. Sixty members of the Manifesto Group, the group of right-wing Labour MPs, have said that unless the Militant Tendency are expelled they will leave the Party. Well, candidly, if I had to trade the YS for some of them, I wouldn’t be sorry to see them go.
Saturday 7 November
To Birmingham for a meeting and came back in the train with Fenner Brockway and Joan Lestor, who were also speaking there.
‘As I get older I get philosophical,’ Fenner said. ‘There only ever was a tiny percentage of the Parliamentary Party who were socialists – thirty before the First World War, fifty in the days of the ILP and now probably fifty in the PLP. So we have to see ourselves as being a permanent minority in the sense that you never get a majority of people who convert to socialism. But the minority can offer leadership to the rest because the characteristic of the Right is that they are bankrupt. Their main concern is to fight off socialism, but the middle ground will swing with the victors. So if we did get a proper left leadership, which is not inconceivable with the electoral college, then we would go from being a quarter of the PLP to more than 50 per cent.’
I found that comforting. Fenner is a shrewd old man and I can’t overemphasise my affection for him.
Monday 9 November
To the Organisation Committee, and we had a long discussion on the Croydon by-election defeat.
John Golding said that, wherever he went, the reason for the defeat was given as Benn and Livingstone.
Ron Hayward remarked, ‘PLP morale is at a low level and the bitter attacks make it worse. The SDP are traitors, but, on the other side, when I went to a Cardiff rally and read a three-sentence message from Tony Benn who was lying ill in hospital, everyone on the platform cut me dead for doing so.’
Denis Healey said, ‘Morale is very bad, the NEC has caused it, and London Labour Briefing calls for “no pity” on reselection.’
Neil Kinnock complained, ‘Labour’s internal war blanks out our policy. The next Election is lost and I will have wasted all my time on education. We are in big trouble. Unity is the only basis. Some people want us to lose the next Election, but fifty years of Callaghan is better than one year of Thatcher.’ (That is really an indication that Neil Kinnock, in certain circumstances, would favour an alliance with the SDP rather than have a Thatcher government next time round.) He said, ‘I am a unilateralist. We have got alternatives but people are deaf to them because of what has happened. I abstained in the deputy leadership election to give me a platform from which to say what I want.’
Tuesday 10 November
Went into the debate on North Sea oil at 3.30, and Merlyn Rees opened. I was in the debate most of the time, and Mother and Stephen came to listen. Towards the end, at 9,1 wound up. I had determined that I would clearly get into Hansard the full range of Party policy: that we would renationalise without compensation; that we would take BP into 100 per cent ownership; that we would move towards 100 per cent ownership of oil; that we would use the revenues and other money for the alternative economic strategy, industry and the public services; that we would have planned trade and public ownership; that we would withdraw from the Common Market, and so on. When I made my speech the House was packed, and it went down like a bomb. When I came to renationalisation without compensation Lawson got up and asked me to clarify it, which I did. But when I sat down Michael Foot was absolutely fuming and Peter Shore was boiling like a kettle. I said, ‘Well, it’s all Party policy.’ Actually my side gave me quite a cheer when I sat down, but that is clearly going to be a big issue.
Wednesday 11 November
Shadow Cabinet at 5 was a long and painful meeting. Michael Foot said he wished to make a statement and he had it all typed out, exactly as on 3 June this year. He said he wanted to make further reference to the question of unity. He then read out from the statement that dissent had distracted the Party from its real work and that the Social Democratic Party was ‘our own creation’. He went on, ‘After Brighton, I made an appeal that Denis Healey and Tony would serve in the Shadow Cabinet. I supported Tony on the NEC chairmanships. Tony was a party to the document agreed by the Shadow Cabinet on the renationalisation of North Sea oil and gas. The NEC on 28 October used the same wording, so there is unanimity in the light of Conference decisions. This is a dear illustration of the need for collective Shadow Cabinet responsibility which is not a fuddy-duddy old rule but necessary to guard against conflict. With his speech yesterday Tony has brilliantly succeeded in throwing the Party into a fresh internal crisis and the whole responsibility rests with him. If Tony goes on in this way, his presence in this Shadow Cabinet will make it unworkable and our conduct will be a shambles. I would not and could not vote for him for Shadow Cabinet in these circumstances though I still hope he will stand on the terms I have set out. But I must make it clear that the main responsibility rests on Tony.’
I replied to Michael that there was no reason why I shouldn’t have quoted in Parliament a Conference resolution and, as to the Shadow Cabinet elections, I intended to stand and the only way we could get unity was round Party policy.
Michael then said, ‘On the oil compensation issue, there has been a change of attitude now. Why didn’t you support Merlyn Rees in the debate? The Tory press had a field day. Common sense and comradeship would have pointed to the need not to do what you did. The Shadow Cabinet can’t be run on a system of having debates in Parliament about what the policy of the PLP should be.’
Merlyn Rees spoke next. ‘All right, the policy on compensation was decided at Conference, but Sam McCluskie changed it last year. The Shadow Cabinet will have to take collective decisions. At the Shadow Cabinet, Tony said nothing against a statement we issued on oil. I did not know what Tory was going to say in the debate but he made me look very foolish. The morale of the PLP and the constituencies is very low.’
Stan Orme commented, ‘I heard both Merlyn and Tony yesterday and Tony was excellent until the last five minutes of his speech. The Shadow Cabinet must stick together. Labour MPs are shattered, and it shows the danger we are in.’
Neil Kinnock said he was a unilateralist, so he had been in the minority for years. He then delivered a lecture on Party unity and said, ‘Our electoral standing is not due to ourselves. Tony, you are essential’, and something like ‘I address your conscience. You are being used by others. You are the most important single member of the Party.’
It was agreed we would come back to it next week.
The mood of the meeting was horrible, the atmosphere icy, and Michael was angry. I am used to it now. The things they said were extreme, but of course they are frantic. After that, it was quite dear that that was the end of me.
Wednesday 23 November
At 2 I went to Room W4, off Westminster Hall, for the first meeting of the Campaign Group, which has been constituted from the old deputy leadership campaign committee. Last night I had drafted a note saying: ‘The Campaign Group, open to any member of the PLP, meets on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday at 2 pm, and at 5 pm on Thursday with the following agenda each day: (1) Today’s news; (2) Today’s Commons business; (3) Liaison with the Labour Movement; (4) Business for the PLP; (5) Future work; (6) Media.’
We are in fact a different type of group from the Tribune Group, which is strictly parliamentary and doesn’t have links outside, is dosed to anyone who isn’t a Member and only meets once a week.
Friday 4 December
Papers full of Foot’s att
ack on Peter Tatchell, the Labour candidate for Bermondsey, and ‘extremism’ in the Party. The whole machinery of vilification is being set in motion again. Michael has made a tragic mistake and constituency Parties just won’t go along with it. He now has to lie on the bed that he has made. I know he’s trying to clean up the Party so that the SDP will rejoin, and that is the strategy of disaster. We’ll have to go through a difficult time but at the end we shall come out much stronger.
At 6 I watched the news, and Peter Tatchell was interviewed. The reporter was completely unable to fault his arguments. He wouldn’t criticise Michael Foot and he said he looked forward to meeting him.
Sunday 6 December
Caroline has persuaded me that not only should Party unity take precedence at the moment but that I am so damaged by my singlehanded combat against Denis Healey and Michael Foot that I’m a bit of an embarrassment to the Left. So I shall pull out a bit and see how things develop.
Monday 7 December
I went to the Organisation Committee of the NEC at 2.30 and the room was absolutely packed to discuss Peter Tatchell, the candidate in Bermondsey, who has condoned ‘extra-parliamentary activity’.
Neil Kinnock said it was all a matter of political judgement. ‘We were all extra-parliamentary – Michael was too – but the question is: are we talking of extra-parliamentary or anti-parliamentary behaviour?’ It was so pompous, and I completely lost track of his argument. He went on interminably, as he always does, and got warmly cheered by Russell Tuck and Shirley Summerskill. You can’t say more than that.
Eric agreed to amend his motion from ‘investigate the Bermondsey Party’ to ‘report on the situation’ and to shift it to the NEC. That suited me fine.
Kinnock droned on. He said we were really deciding the direction of the Labour Party, and we had to draw a line when candidates weakened the Party – Tatchell did weaken the Party and he did not have the welfare of the Party at heart. Russell agreed with Neil. We should endorse Michael, not Peter Tatchell. Then someone added that the fact that Tatchell was a homosexual made him less inclined to support him.
