The Benn Diaries: 1940-1990 (107 page)

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 equality, 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 wanted 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.

By 9.30 pm we had expelled two more members, and acquitted Harry Smith.

Monday 16 June

Went with Tom to Chesterfield Crematorium for Frank Cousins’s funeral. Many figures from the Labour Movement were there – Arthur Scargill, Peter Heathfield, Henry Richardson from the Nottinghamshire area NUM, Michael Foot, Geoffrey Goodman and his wife, Bill Howden from the GMB, Dennis Skinner, and Malcolm Gee from the AUEW.

But the chapel wasn’t full, and the vicar, who knew nothing about Frank Cousins, gave a totally inadequate tribute, another of these sausage-machine funerals that I have attended for so many members of the Labour Movement. Caroline has always wanted a book of socialist writings from
which you could quote – Keir Hardie, Tom Paine, and so on – and then you could sing socialist anthems and hymns.

Nance Cousins was absolutely magnificent.

Monday 7 July – Visit to Poland

At Warsaw I was met by two officials from the Scientific Secretariat of the Institute of International Affairs and an interpreter. They took me to a government hotel, in a batch of buildings where there are a lot of embassies.

Unpacked, and went down to dinner with members of the institute, a charming crowd. I asked what they thought the prospects of a Soviet invasion had been, and they said it was inconceivable that after the experience of Hungary and Czechoslovakia the Soviet Union would have invaded Poland – unless Poland had actually changed sides in the Cold War.