Edward Boyle
It is difficult to sum up Edward Boyle. But I think I would say that he was the most knowledgeable man I have ever met. His knowledge was not only encyclopaedic but covered the widest possible spectrum of interests: race relations; education; literature; music, and the arts generally. When one was locked in conversation with him, he flattered one by assuming one’s knowledge was as great as his.
My first recollection of him as a speaker was at the Oxford Union, when he was defending the Conservative government in a no-confidence debate. His protagonist was George Brown, who made a rip-roaring, swashbuckling speech. Edward followed and with his usual courtesy thanked George Brown for his thoughtful speech which he proposed to answer. With breathtaking coolness, Edward said that he had heard what George had had to say in regard to the government’s general economic strategy but was bound to say that he, George, would come to a very different view if he had read the latest work of Professor K. R. Popper. ‘Christ,’ said George, and that was the end of the matter.
I remember seeing Edward shortly after a new gramophone record release of some slightly esoteric conductor’s interpretation of a new work. Edward was not only aware of three previous recordings but pointed out that in this new recording the conductor had taken liberties with the tempo of the piece half a dozen bars before the end of the third movement, which had spoilt the lead into the fourth movement!
He was deeply shocked by the state of race relations in Birmingham, where he was the Member of Parliament for Perry Bar. Suez had been the reason for his resignation as a minister, and his deep unhappiness over the trend of racial intolerance within the Tory Party, as he saw it, accounted for his retirement from membership of the House of Commons. He was to become totally fulfilled in his job as Vice-Chancellor of Leeds University and could often be found seated in the cafeteria surrounded by a posse of undergraduates engaged in lively discussion. He was the humane face of Conservatism. His death from cancer prematurely removed from the scene one of the civilising influences in our society.
Chapter Four
National Politics
How I Joined the Liberal Party
When I was at school in America during the war, the presidential elections look place, when Franklin Roosevelt, uniquely, sought a third term of office. He was opposed by Wendell Wilkie on the basis of ‘no third term’. Roosevelt, who in my judgement was the outstanding President of this century, in the midst of a deep depression in the United States, used his presidential powers to commission large projects of public works to get America back to work. The Tennessee Valley Authority is but one example. He formed two public corporations to carry out the works – the WPA (Works Project Association) and the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps). This was partly the basis for the New Deal. Interestingly enough, his ideas were inspired by the British Liberal Party’s report on Britain’s Industrial Future, known as the ‘Yellow Book’. This formed the basis of the party’s 1929 election campaign slogan: ‘We can conquer unemployment’. A colleague told me that there is a copy of the Yellow Book in Roosevelt’s private library at Hyde Park, with annotations in the margin as to how the proposals contained in the report could be applied to America. The Republican opposition reacted very much as the Tory Party in Britain did after the war in opposing virtually all state intervention.
The post-war Liberal programme based on industrial partnership, profit sharing and worker representation on company boards, with a massive extension of the Lloyd George/Asquith welfare state and with an overall insistence on personal liberty, all added up to the philosophy and policies with which I wholeheartedly agreed. This was a practical expression of Roosevelt’s policies of the New Deal, which inspired me as a child.
I found the Britain of 1945 politically class conscious. The Parliamentary Conservative Party was dominated by the knights of the shires; although they could proudly produce two trade unionist MPs (the MPs for Bath and Totnes) as evidence of their classlessness. They were passionately opposed to all nationalisation, were frankly hostile towards Europe and insufficiently aware of the need to bring colonial territories towards their independence. The Labour Party was still predominantly under the influence of the trade union movement, both for its philosophy and sources of finance.
For me, the Liberal Party offered a chance of a more enlightened Britain. I decided I would join the University Liberal Club when I went up to Oxford, and called in at the Liberal Party Headquarters, then in Gayfere Street, to ascertain whom I should approach in the university. I felt that the best contribution I could make to the fortunes of the Liberal Party was a build-up of the membership of Oxford University Liberal Club. I hit the target of 1,000 members. To achieve this required the efforts of individual college secretaries, one of the most colourful of whom was John Turner, who was briefly to become Liberal Prime Minister of Canada.
I also organised undergraduate tours during vacation time, in which half a dozen undergraduates would visit a key seat to do a week’s canvassing and loud-speaking throughout the constituency. The effect was to galvanise local activity and also to show that the Liberal Party was rich In young talent. One of my early tours, and certainly the first in Devon and Cornwall, was in the Bodmin district in support of John Foot (now Lord Foot, brother of Dingle, Michael and Hugh). I am staggered to realise that this was fifty years ago. I also welcomed a tour in North Devon, during which the date of the 1959 election was announced. The team included a young Martin Bell, and some of them stayed on to help the campaign.
At an early stage in my membership, I was elected to the Liberal Party Council and the party executive, which met quarterly and monthly respectively. Although there were some stalwart members on both bodies, I felt too much time was devoted to debating lengthy resolutions, which were seldom if ever reported. An inordinate amount of time was devoted to amendments to the constitution of the party. I took the view that it would be far more valuable to leave the two bodies referred to and concentrate on the North Devon constituency, where I had agreed to become prospective parliamentary candidate in 1952. I was convinced that the seat could be won but that two attempts would be necessary.
During this period my guru was Megan Lloyd George, who was the Liberal MP for Anglesey, one-time Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party and, in a family connection, had been one of my mother’s bridesmaids. To my deep distress, she later defected to the Labour Party. She had all the sparkle and vitality of her father and inherited his radical views. I would go into the Central Lobby of the House of Commons and, whilst waiting for her, would survey the scene and identify Members who passed through. On one of these occasions in St Stephens Hall, I saw Megan’s brother, Gwilym Lloyd George, by then a Tory MP, talking to Harold Macmillan, whom I had as yet not met. Harold Macmillan was somewhat surprised when he heard a cry of ‘Uncle Gwilym!’ Gwilym asked whether it was true that I intended to stand for Parliament. ‘Yes’, I replied, ‘but as a Liberal’. ‘But’, said Gwilym, ‘there is no need, since all the best policies of the old Liberal Party have been taken over by the Tory Party’. I replied: ‘I never thought that I, as a son and grandson of Conservative MPs, would tell the son of a Liberal Prime Minister in the Palace of Westminster how profoundly wrong he was’.
The Oxford Union
I have always maintained that the ideal way of learning to handle hecklers is to debate at the Oxford Union. I certainly found it a wonderful experience in preparing for a political career. Two debates in particular come to mind. The first was during the Suez crisis in 1956. Aneurin Bevan and David Maxwell-Fyfe had both accepted invitations to speak on the Suez debate at the Union. Both had to cancel because of a three-line whip in the House of Commons. It was therefore decided to invite four dogsbodies, who had just gone down from Oxford, of whom I was one, to fill their place. William Rees-Mogg and Peter Tapsell were to lead for the government and the two speakers in opposition were Bryan Magee and myself. The house was packed. It was barely a week since Sir Edward Boyle had successfully fought of
f a no confidence motion tabled against the government in the Union. Clearly the government was not going to have an easy run in the Suez debate and they were ill prepared for the body blow that was to hit them. In the course of my speech I said: ‘Mr Anthony Nutting has resigned from the government and there will be others whose consciences will prick then, to the point of resignation’. This was greeted by jeers from the government side and cries of: ‘Name them, name them’. I replied: ‘We shall not have to wait long before we see who will be next. They will have an honoured place’. The time was 9.05 p.m. and at that moment a piece of paper was handed to the secretary of the Union, Brian Walden. He handed me the piece of paper, on the strength of which I said: ‘I have news for the House. News relating to an old friend of mine, who is the youngest minister to have attended a Cabinet meeting since William Pitt; a man who was elected to the presidency of the Oxford Union with one of the largest majorities of the century. And the news that I have for the house is that on the issue of Suez, Sir Edward Boyle has resigned from the government.’ The effect was electric; and since the news had been first broadcast on the 9 p.m. news, nobody in the hall had been forewarned. There were wild scenes of enthusiasm on the opposition benches and during the uproar I pointed a finger at the main heckler and waited for complete silence before turning to him and saying: ‘I hope that goes some way to answering the Honourable gentleman’s question’. Poor Rees-Mogg had to follow immediately afterwards and since Edward was a personal friend of his as well as being a political colleague, William couldn’t have asked for a more unhelpful lead into his speech.
The second debate which comes to mind was on the European Community on 3 June 1975, in the middle of the referendum campaign. The debate was carried live on television: Ted Heath and I spoke for the ‘yes’ lobby and Barbara Castle and Peter Shore for the ‘no’ lobby. Barbara Castle was not very much at home in the Union and during her speech I asked her if she would give way, which she was graciously pleased to do. I asked: ‘Since the Rt Hon. Lady’s opposition to the Common Market is sincere, deep, and some might think pathological, and since the referendum seems likely to produce a ‘yes’ majority, what will she do? Stay on in government implementing policies to which she is diametrically opposed, or will she surrender the seals of office?’ She retorted: ‘If the vote goes “yes”, my country will need me’. It was a gallant comeback but didn’t carry the house, which passed by a large majority the motion ‘That this House says “Yes” to Europe’.
Each term a group photograph was taken of the Standing Committee and the officers. One term the photographers were late in delivering prints and were very coy about providing the reason. Ultimately the truth came out: the senior treasurer and Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History, Canon Claud Jenkins, had been wearing copper fly buttons on his trousers, but had omitted to do them up. Under the influence of the flashbulb they made a glistening appearance on the prints and had to be individually etched out of the picture! Although they did a superb job, one can still just make out the offending buttons! However, I am not going to say under whose presidency this occurred!
A closing note about our venerable Canon, Claud Jenkins. Mr Dubber, the steward at the Oxford Union, had completed fifty years’ service. Viscount Simon, the senior ex-president, had been asked to present him with a clock, and had been invited to take the presidential choir. The Canon, as senior librarian, was also asked to say a few words. None of us knew what – if any – were the Canon’s political beliefs. We were soon to learn that he had been embittered by Lord Simon’s defection from the Liberal Party and his founding of the National Liberal Party. He began by welcoming Lord Simon and remarked that he was one of the most distinguished lawyers of the century. As to Lord Simon’s politics, he was originally a Liberal – at least, he believed in ‘Liberalism’ as he chose to interpret it. In 1931, he broke away from the Liberal Party to form the National Liberals, who became, in due course, indistinguishable from the Conservatives. He was present at what he regarded as the last obsequies paid to the Liberal Party. The Canon continued to say that he could only hope that with the foresight which the noble Lord had shown in directing his own political career, he took care to see that there were holes in the coffin, as it appeared that the burial was somewhat premature. These withering remarks must have brought back to Lord Simon memories of Lloyd George’s attack in the House of Commons: ‘Many Honourable and Right Honourable gentle men have crossed the floor of the House, and done so out of conviction, but never has an Hon. or Rt Hon. gentleman crossed the floor and left behind him such a slimy trail of hypocrisy’. And again: ‘The Rt Hon. gentleman has sat for so long on the fence that the iron has entered into his soul’.
The North Devon constituency
Following the near rout of the Liberal Party in the 1950 general election, when out of 475 Liberal candidates fielded, 319 lost their deposits, the 1951 election which followed was an exercise in survival. To give one example, the Devon & Cornwall federation consisted of fifteen parliamentary seats. In the 1951 general election six of these were not fought by the Liberals – including Torrington and Truro, both of which were subsequently to return Liberal MPs. Of the remaining nine constituencies, three Liberal candidates were in second place, thousands away from winning, whilst six others were in third place – including North Devon. It would take a great act of faith in the ’50s to prophesy that in the ’90s there would be seven Liberal Democrat MPs in the area. It was against that background that the Liberal headquarters in London launched a project known as ‘Operation Basic’ to assess the position of the party throughout the country and plan for a recovery.
When the team came to Devon and Cornwall, the North Devon representatives asked if they could see the team privately after the public discussions were completed. It transpired that their reason for asking for this procedure was that they were disappointed in their Liberal candidate in the last election, when they had sunk to third place. However, the candidate’s brother was an officer of the Devon & Cornwall Federation and would have found it rather embarrassing if the North Devonians had made their complaints public. A private meeting took place and for some unknown reason the agent for North Cornwall, Frank Tyrell, attended it. North Devon indicated that if they could find a young candidate who was prepared to work, he would have every chance of winning the seat back. Frank Tyrell chipped in to say that he had just the man for North Devon – a young graduate who had campaigned with Dingle Foot in the North Cornwall constituency in the 1950 and 1951 elections.
After this, things moved fast. I received a telephone call from the chairman of the North Devon Liberals, Tom Friend, who asked whether I could come up from Cornwall, where I was ostensibly studying for my Bar finals, to meet the four divisional officers. I had only just heard from Frank Tyrell that he had recommended me as Liberal candidate for North Devon. I told Frank, as I was to tell the North Devon officers, that I was not interested in taking on a constituency until such time as I had built up a practice at the Bar. However, I agreed to meet them and said that although I was not planning to become a candidate, I would gladly give them a hand in building up the organisation. At the end of the meeting the president, Tom Dunn, who was widely loved and deeply respected, asked me whether I would give them a promise that if I changed my mind about becoming a candidate I would give North Devon the first option. I had known and loved the area as a child on holiday and gladly gave such an undertaking. I remember the old boy looking at me and saying: ‘May we treat that as a firm promise?’
When I got back to North Cornwall I rang Dingle Foot at his London number to tell him the news. He seemed horrified, and went on to explain his reaction: I had campaigned in his support throughout his constituency of North Cornwall; he had now regretfully decided to stand down as candidate, owing to pressure of work; he had refrained from doing so until such time as he could contact me and obtain my agreement to become his successor. He had not as yet discussed this with Frank Tyrell or the constituency. I told Dingl
e that I had given a firm promise to North Devon and could not give them the chop. ‘They are bound to understand and release you from your undertaking.’ I replied that I could not let them down. Had I not given my word I would have given very serious consideration to taking on the candidature of North Cornwall: the Liberals had a full-time agent; we were in second place, and I believe I could have won the seat in the 1955 election.
The following week I received a letter from the Torrington Liberal Association asking me whether I would consider being their candidate.
The smell of battle became too strong and I decided that if I was going to win any Liberal seat in the West Country, I would probably need to fight two elections and put in five or six years’ hard work. I relented and agreed to be prospective parliamentary candidate for North Devon in April 1952, thereby establishing a partnership which continues to this day.
During that period I have come to rely on the loyalty and affection of my supporters in the constituency. This was put to the test in 1979. My trial was due to start at the Old Bailey on 8 May and polling day was on 3 May.
I was exposed to the full glare of publicity. Nevertheless I was reselected by the North Devon Liberal Association to fight the seat. Although we did not hold it, 23,000 people voted for me – a wonderful assertion of solidarity. I have no bitterness about the result. My great regret was that I would no longer be able to look after my constituents’ interests. I can now derive immense satisfaction from the vigorous representation which the constituency enjoys in Nick Harvey, our Liberal Democrat MP. I am privileged to serve him as president of the North Devon Liberal Democrats.
In My Own Time Page 10
