The Benn Diaries: 1940-1990

by Benn, Tony

  Tuesday 1 October – Labour Party Conference, Bournemouth

  I dropped from first to third place in the NEC elections, which is almost inevitable. Blunkett came first. The only people whose vote went up were Dennis Skinner and Jo Richardson. No one took much interest really, and nor did I, because as the day progressed it became more and more apparent what a misery it is to be in the Labour Party.

  We had the health service debate, and Margaret Vallins spoke. She stood for the women’s section of the NEC and got 59,000 votes – about 10 per cent of the whole – which was amazing.

  Kinnock’s Conference speech, and I sat through an hour and a quarter of it. The first part was very clever – hard, harsh Kinnock mocking the Government, stressing the importance of winning. But he ended with a violent attack upon Militant in Liverpool saying, ‘Implausible promises don’t win victories . . . you end in the grotesque chaos of a Labour council hiring taxis to scuttle around a city handing out redundancy notices to its own workers. You can’t play politics with people’s jobs . . . or their homes.’ He spoke as if the Liverpool councillors wanted to fire people, when actually they are themselves victims of government policy. It was all part of his strategy, going back to 1983, to kill off any left-wing challenge by appealing for unity and on that basis to get a right-wing NEC and accuse the Left of being divisive. As a result of this strategy, power over policy-making has been passed to the Shadow Cabinet, a lot of charters (which have no policy status) have been issued, and the policy and the work of the International Department have been wound up.

  Kinnock’s speech led to a walkout by Eric Heffer and shouting from Derek Hatton and Tony Mulhearn. Kinnock has released the hatred of the Tory press against his own people in the middle of a struggle, in the hope that he can pick up the ex-Labour voters who supported Owen, knowing that real socialists and the rump of the working class have no alternative but to vote for him. He is pioneering a presidential style of government which is quite foreign to our own traditions.

  I left because I couldn’t bring myself to stay after that. I saw a woman delegate crying, and I put my hand on her shoulder and she said, ‘I can’t understand what they’ve done to our Party.’ I told her not to worry, and I began to cry – not at what was happening, which I’ve seen before, but at this woman’s distress. It absolutely shattered her.

  It has been a historic day in the Party. What Gaitskell attempted in 1960 has been done again – an attempt to destroy the Left, the Conference and the unions. Some people will want a candidature against Kinnock next year, but he would smash his critics and crush the Left, probably even expel it. On the other hand, we don’t have any obligation any more to go along with what is said, and I think it is perhaps the restoration of the freedom to speak out that is more important.

  Wednesday 2 October

  Debate on the miners’ amnesty resolution. Arthur Scargill made an exceptionally good speech to the Conference.

  Alan Hadden, who was chairing the Conference, managed to dredge up two delegates who were against the miners, and he also called Basnett, Gavin Laird and Eric Hammond against. He didn’t call a single pro-NUM union leader such as Ray Buckton, Jimmy Knapp or Ron Todd.

  It was an extraordinary debate – memorable for the fact that Eric Hammond described the striking miners as ‘lions led by donkeys’. It caused an uproar in the hall, and just before Kinnock was due to wind up the debate, delegates were so angry that they stood up and just pointed at Ron Todd – like iron filings aligning themselves around a magnet – shouting. ‘Todd! Ron Todd! Todd! Ron Todd!’ so Hadden had to call him.

  Ron made a very powerful speech. He was extremely angry. In response to Hammond he said, ‘I am an animal lover. I prefer donkeys to jackals.’ A good response, but it might have been better to have left it without reciprocal abuse.

  Kinnock ended the debate. He spoke much more softly than yesterday, but his speech was really a denunciation of the whole strike, not just the resolution. He attacked the miners’ leaders for the whole way in which they had conducted the campaign. A horrible speech.

  I was told later that miners in the gallery were crying. However, the resolution was carried by 3,542,000 to 2,930,000, but it did not get a two-thirds majority, and that is the comfort Kinnock will cling on to.

  We came later to the local-government debate, and David Blunkett was to move the NEC statement calling for reimbursement of councillors who had suffered financially through rate-capping legislation. There he was, this Christ-like bearded blind man, standing on the rostrum appealing to Derek Hatton to withdraw his Liverpool resolution asking for industrial action in support of councillors ‘not prepared to carry out Tory cuts’.

  ‘Will you do that? Will you do that, Derek?’ He stood there waving his hands into the darkness.

  So Hatton, who is a bit of a smart alec, ran towards the rostrum in his neat suit, got up on to the rostrum and said, ‘Yes, in the interests of unity, Liverpool will withdraw its resolution.’

  There was an explosion of applause. I believe the right wing were angry with Blunkett for having done that.

  Thursday 9 January 1986

  Michael Heseltine resigned from the Cabinet today over the Westland affair, giving as his reasons that the Prime Minister had refused to allow the matter to be discussed and had told Ministers to clear any statements with the Cabinet Secretary, Robert Armstrong. No doubt Armstrong himself suggested that in order to protect the PM from this continuing public row.

  I remember that in 1974 I wanted to bring Westland Helicopters into British Aerospace, but Westland were making a lot of profits and didn’t want to have anything to do with it. Then when Westland got into difficulties the Government wouldn’t help them, and they were forced to look to the Sikorsky company in America, with whom they had links, and who put in a rescue package. This frightened the Europeans, and Heseltine, who is very pro-Common Market, supported the Europeans.

  That disturbed Mrs Thatcher, who is pro-American, so she said that it should be left to the shareholders to decide, but it seemed she and Leon Brittan, the Trade and Industry Secretary, were indicating to Westland that it would be against the national interest for them to accept the European bid.

  It has come at an interesting time, because there is this intense US domination of Britain, intense European hostility to America and a growing feeling that Mrs Thatcher is too overbearing. Heseltine, with his he-man image, has also spoken up for men against a woman’s dictatorship in Cabinet.

  Tuesday 14 January

  Went into Prime Minister’s Questions to see how she did on the Westland affair, and she was in complete control. Kinnock was quite ineffective.

  Friday 17 January

  The Westland shareholders are meeting at the Albert Hall – rich and powerful people deciding the future of the whole company and its workers. It is disgraceful.

  Monday 27 January

  The Westland debate, and it was one of those ‘great parliamentary occasions’. It was opened by Kinnock, who waffled, talked for too long and didn’t put the crucial questions. Thatcher brazened it out and didn’t look at all worried. The only people whose faces were like thunder were the two law officers – Sir Patrick Mayhew, the Solicitor-General, and Sir Michael Havers, the Attorney-General – who appear to have been used by Thatcher to try to destroy Heseltine. When Heseltine spoke he attempted to recover his role as a Tory leader. Leon Brittan, who had resigned last week, made a cringing little speech. Michael Foot made a good one.

  My speech was listened to in silence by the Labour Members. The Tories didn’t like it and there were a lot of interruptions. I said that Mrs Thatcher had asked, ‘Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?’, and that her civil servants had done the rest and got Heseltine out. I also attacked the lobby briefing system.

  Sunday 9 February

  Watched Neil Kinnock on the Brian Walden interview on television. He is now advocating a Franklin D. Roosevelt approach. He declared that individual freedom must come above equa
lity, that production must come above redistribution, and that taxes would not be raised except on the very rich, ie the top 3 or 4 per cent of earners. These statements, combined with his praise of the Japanese industrial system, put Kinnock and Hattersley squarely in the SDP camp.

  I thought once again we must put up a candidate against Kinnock to challenge this consensus, but, as Caroline said, ‘Nobody would understand what it would be about if you did it. You sacrificed yourself in 1981, when I advised you not to do it. You used up your goodwill at that moment and it isn’t available to you now.’

  Friday 14 February

  The Turkish authorities have banned my proposed trip to Istanbul. Turgut Ozal, the Prime Minister, is coming to Britain on Monday.

  Sunday 23 February

  There was a small piece in the Guardian yesterday saying that Peter Mandelson had rung up the BBC to try to get me taken off the panel for ‘Question Time’, which I am doing on Thursday. This is a reaction to the fact that yesterday the NEC voted to start proceedings against Militant supporters in Liverpool District Labour Party. So I decided to write to Larry Whitty. To be banned from Turkey and ‘Question Time’ is quite something!

  Saturday 22 March

  I decided to go to Wapping for the printworkers’ march on Murdoch’s empire. The police are behaving in an appalling way.

  Last Sunday the pickets did succeed in delaying the distribution of the papers by five hours, and late newspapers are just waste paper, so it’s worth going.

  It was an incredible night. A few years ago you would never have believed it could happen in the middle of London. Passing the Tower of London, grey-stoned and illuminated, you just felt as if you were back in the Middle Ages and it was only one step between the police charging you and hauling you away for execution in the Tower. We saw one of the huge lorries loaded with papers, coming out of the plant. But the spirit was good, just as good as during the miners’ strike. I haven’t as yet had to face a police horse or been struck by a truncheon, but tonight was a night to remember.

  Monday 24 March

  At 5 I went to the Party’s Campaign Strategy Committee, where four men and a woman from something called the Shadow Agency made a presentation entitled ‘Society and Self’. They said it was a qualitative survey in which thirty groups of eight people, 240 people in all, had been interviewed for an hour and a half. We were told that the purpose was to understand the nature of the target vote. Primarily, they were non-committed Labour voters.

  They flashed up on to a screen quotes which were supposed to be typical of Labour voters, for example: ‘IT’S NICE TO HAVE A SOCIAL CONSCIENCE BUT IT’S YOUR FAMILY THAT COUNTS.’

  What we were being told, quite frankly, was what you can read every day in the Sun, the Mail, the Daily Express, the Telegraph, and so on. It was an absolute waste of money.

  They went on to talk about images and how the Party image was made up of current issues, leadership and historical ideas. They said the public were more interested in people than ideas, and figures like Livingstone and Hatton did us great damage.

  Why should we pay them to tell us that our own people are damaging?

  Labour was associated with the poor, the unemployed, the old, the sick, the disabled, pacifists, immigrants, minorities and the unions, and this was deeply worrying. The Tories were seen to have the interests of everyone at heart including the rich. Labour was seen as yesterday’s party. The SDP gave hope but had no ideology or history.

  The Labour Party was seen as disunited, squabbling, with Militants or infiltrators, and lacking in government experience. ‘The party of my father’ was one of the quotes; ‘If I had a brick, I would throw it into Arthur Scargill’s face’ was another.

  What was required in the Party leadership was decisiveness, toughness and direction: people wanted a tough person at the helm. Leadership was what it was about. Who was the Leader and what did he look like?

  It was a Thatcherite argument presented to us: ‘You had better be more like Thatcher if you want to win.’

  I came out feeling physically sick; I’m not kidding, I really felt unwell, because if this is what the Labour Party is about I’ve got nothing whatever in common with it.

  Sunday 4 May

  To Chesterfield. Went over to the Labour Club, and there were six women who had been at Wapping, and all had the same horrific accounts of the night.

  Monday 19 May

  Went over to the House of Commons for the Campaign Strategy Committee in Neil Kinnock’s office. This is the holy of holies.

  For the second half of the meeting we had another presentation from this Shadow Agency, which is made up of people from different advertising agencies who have offered to help the Party prepare for the Election.

  It was a real management presentation with words and phrases being flashed up on a screen, like ‘qualitative research’, ‘hypothetical solution’, ‘targeted’. This went on for ages, and Blunkett asked, ‘What about democracy?’

  ‘We haven’t got round to that.’ They continued, ‘We must be credible, our promises must be backed by machinery. We must have sympathetic values. We must be able to answer the question “Where will we get the money from?”’

  After the presentation was over, Robin Cook reflected my view. He said it didn’t excite him because it wasn’t rooted in experience.

  Thursday 22 May

  The NEC met all morning to consider the Militant Tendency members.

  At 4.30 in the afternoon, Councillor Harry Smith from Liverpool Council was brought in – a short, round-faced man with curly hair and twinkling eyes – and with him was a sallow-faced man with dark hair who kept whispering in his ear.

  Smith said, ‘I should introduce the man I have brought with me. His name is George Nibbs – of course, that’s only his pen-name.’ Everybody burst out laughing, he was a very amusing man, though deadly earnest in what he said. He was only being charged with membership of the Militant Tendency, not with malpractice.

  They asked for a deferment and withdrew, and Kinnock moved that we did not let him consult with his solicitor. Blunkett said he thought we should wait. Hattersley moved that we proceed, and that was carried 12 to 7. When they came back in, Harry Smith protested. ‘What would happen if I walked out? I am very nervous. Ian Lowes has been done in and I’m afraid you are going to do me in too. It’s like two murderers before a court. The judge says, “We’ve hanged one now, we’d better hang the other.” I’m going.’

  So he left, but at 5.30 he returned and said, ‘I want to make a political statement. You don’t know who I am, and I want to tell you who I am.’ Then he gave the most riveting account of his life.

  ‘My mum and dad were married, and I was born six months later, so it doesn’t take a very clever man to realise what they were up to. They were High Church. I was racist as a young man, and I lived in the Edge Hill constituency. At fifteen I joined the electricians’ union, which was when my political education started. My family are still Tories, and I come from a reactionary, working-class Protestant family. I worked all my life on building sites and in maintenance jobs, and I got married at eighteen. My son was born when we had been married six months, so you can see at least my son has got something in common with me.’ Everybody laughed.

  He continued, ‘I joined the Labour Party in Wavertree Ward, which only had one or two working-class members. I helped in the ward, canvassed for new members and converted it into a political ward. I got appointed eleven months later as the election agent. I later became treasurer for Wavertree, and I ran the tote––’

  Syd Tierney interrupted, ‘I am not trying to stop you, but can you please come to the point?’

  I said, ‘Half a minute. This man is giving the reasons why he holds the views he does, and I want to know at what stage he may have heard about the ideas of Militant.’

  Harry Smith went on, ‘I stood as a council candidate, and gave an undertaking that I would carry out the policies. I was very nervous about speaking, but I wa
nted better services in the city. I had never been in any other political organisation – only the Church, boy scouts and youth clubs. I have never joined any other political organisation, I have never been a member of Militant. I read the paper. I’ve been thrown into a high prominence by my activity for a minimum wage and a 35-hour week, but I can’t say I won’t do it again because I haven’t “done it” in the first place.’

  I just note that at this stage it was clear that Sam McCluskie and Alex Kitson were going to vote in support of Harry Smith because he was creating such a good impression.

  Smith carried on, ‘All I can really do is speak. I did get invited to two meetings in Coventry and Llandudno’ (which Hattersley had raised) ‘but they were given to me to represent the Party.’

  Frances Curran asked, ‘Who booked you for these meetings? Wasn’t it the City Council?’

  ‘Yes, and all the speeches I did were through the Campaign Unit. I have never spoken other than for the council or for the Education Committee, or on the 35-hour week or the minimum wage.’

  Kinnock asked him, ‘When you discovered that Militant had taken you for granted, were you angry?’

  ‘I’m easygoing. My wife says people take advantage of me, and perhaps they do. My school report says that if I had given more attention to my work I might have been a brain surgeon.’ He was hilarious.

  At 6.42, by which time he had completely charmed the meeting, we had the final statement. He said, ‘I apologise for leaving when I did. It has been a comradely meeting. I hope you believe me. I hope I have satisfied you, and I would like to thank you for the comradely treatment I have received.’

  It was quite clear that, with McCluskie, Kitson, Blunkett and Meacher voting in favour, Kinnock would lose. So Kinnock said, ‘We’ve heard the explanation, a very candid reply. Not being disingenuous, I think we should withdraw the charges to prove that we listened carefully.’ This was the point – he was anxious to let one person off so he could argue that he had been fair. He knew he would lose, and I think he was quite happy to let Smith off to ensure there was no vote.