The Benn Diaries: 1940-1990 (20 page)

Thursday 13 June

I had to go to Leeds to speak for Merlyn Rees, who is fighting Hugh Gaitskell’s old seat. The political situation is fantastic at the moment with the Cabinet deadlock and rumours rife that there are more scandals to come, and that Enoch Powell will resign.
The Times
is now leading a campaign to get rid of Macmillan and there is a real possibility of so many abstentions on Monday that the Government might fall.

The PM himself is almost bound to have to go. If I were a Tory I should insist on this just out of an instinct for survival. But they are such sheep that I do not expect a revolt and if Mac can go on I think he will be massacred in the Election. This cannot be buried, as Dr Stephen Ward will be on trial in October and there is bound to be a tribunal or inquiry. It is all terribly bad for politics and Parliament and is an indication of the decay of the old British Establishment. But in the long run it may do good by forcing us to re-examine some things we have ignored and creating the sort of crisis atmosphere which will make it easier for the Labour Party to reform.

Friday 14 June

We had a party this evening. Among those who came were Robin Day, Val and Mark Arnold-Forster, Liz and Peter Shore, Michael and Claudie Flanders, Simon Watson-Taylor with Carmen Manley and another girl, David Hockney, Shirley Fisher and a host of others.

Obviously the main topic of conversation was the Profumo business, which produces new sensations every few hours. Mark assured me that the Tories had decided that Macmillan must go but he would be given a majority in the House on the understanding that he would resign in August. Apparently the two main contenders now for the succession are Butler and Hailsham – with Hailsham edging ahead since his television broadcast last night when he slashed out at the decline in public morals and attacked
The Times
, the Bishop of Woolwich, the Labour Party and the Welfare State, which encouraged people to believe they could get something for nothing. This sort of maniacal outburst is exactly what the Tory rank and file want and no one can give it to them better than Hailsham.

By an extraordinary coincidence Hailsham is able to be considered for the premiership only because of my campaign which has led to the Peerage Bill at exactly the critical moment for him. All the Government have to do is to amend it so that it comes into operation immediately and Hailsham can then renounce next month. Mark Arnold-Forster has suggested to the Tories that Hailsham should then stand as Quintin Hogg for Profumo’s old seat at Stratford-on-Avon. This is a master stroke that will provide exactly
the sort of opportunity the Tories are looking for to obliterate the traces of the scandal. Quintin is then elected an MP during August and immediately succeeds Macmillan so that when the House meets in October, Mr Hogg is the Prime Minister of a new administration with twelve months to try to persuade the country that this is a new, forward-looking, vigorous, proud administration that will make Britain great again. Hogg is to be our de Gaulle. Of course, it may not happen but it is true that the only circumstances under which Quintin has any chance of success are exactly these.

Tuesday 18 June

Rang Dick Crossman and we agreed that we should try to plan a terrific thrust now to get rid of the Government. The important thing is to prevent them from having time to regroup under a new leader and present themselves as being ‘under new management – no connection with the old firm’. All the papers this morning said that Macmillan was on the way out and so I wrote a paper for Harold, intended to suggest ways in which we could keep the pressure up and thus retain Macmillan or bring down the whole Government. Dick Crossman independently wrote a paper saying the same thing and we exchanged them.

Friday 12 July

If I dare confide an ambition to paper, the job I desperately want in the Labour Government is to be a member of the Cabinet as our permanent representative in New York at the United Nations; it would mean flying the Atlantic every week for Cabinet meetings. I believe it is the single most important job there is to do.

Monday 15 July

Wrote to the American Ambassador about the refusal of the American Government to grant a visa to Willie Gallacher on the grounds that he is a Communist. The old man is eighty-one and his sister is sick in Chicago. It really is heartless.

Lunch with Tommy Balogh at St Stephen’s Restaurant to discuss his various projects. He is rather a nuisance in that he is always wanting to see me and it does take up such a hell of a lot of time. However, I am interested in what he is working on. He is jealous of the others who advise Harold and I think regards me as a useful link. He feels that his economic advice is negatived by the right-wing economists who advise Jim Callaghan. I can’t help with that and I suspect that Harold deliberately keeps all his advisers, including me and Dick and Peter, at arm’s length so that he is always in complete command. If I were him I should probably do the same, not wishing to be ‘taken over’ by anyone.

Tuesday 16 July

Drove to Northampton with Reggie Paget to speak at his Labour Women’s Supper Club. As I entered the Mayor’s Parlour, the Mayor handed me a card on which was written: ‘House of Lords defeated Government by 125 to 25 in favour of amendment that the Peerage Bill should come into force as soon as Royal Assent is received.’

What a message to get from the Mayor of Northampton in Bradlaugh’s own constituency! It represents a total breakthrough. The Government cannot resist this and their retreat has turned into a rout. I shall be back in the Commons before Christmas and maybe even sooner.

Thursday 18 July

To Bristol for a public meeting which was crowded. Felt rather funny during my speech but finished it and answered a couple of questions. Then decided to withdraw while they looked for a doctor. None was available so Herbert Rogers drove me to Cossham Hospital, where I was admitted to casualty ward. Various doctors examined me and decided to keep me in for a series of tests. I felt lousy and was very glad when they put me to bed and knocked me out. Decided to tell Caroline in case she heard from other sources. It must have scared her to get a phone call from the night sister and a Ghanaian doctor to say that I was in hospital.

Saturday 20 July

Caroline had cancelled most of my engagements for the next couple of weeks. It’s so nice to have an excuse like this. She came down to Bristol yesterday and today stayed all day at the hospital and there were masses more visitors.

Dr Poku, at my request, took a hypodermic full of blood and put it in a test tube for me, as a reminder of the ‘noble blood’ which I shall lose in a few days. He mixed it up with some anti-coagulant so that it wouldn’t dot and it turned blue most appropriately. He said he quite understood as his father was an Ashanti chief who had given it all up.

Monday 29 July

At 2.45 Mr Yavar Abbas of BBC Television News arrived to film us leaving for the Commons, and he then drove us to the Commons and filmed us greeting the coach party from Bristol (seventy strong) as it got to St Stephen’s entrance.

It was a perfectly glorious, cloudless day and we stood and chatted outside St Stephen’s and then poured in in a solid phalanx, led by Charlie Pannell, up through the central lobby to the Members’ Dining Room. The Bristolians settled themselves down in the chairs all round the room and watched the other guests arrive.

Caroline and I stood at the door and greeted them all as they came in. We
don’t know exactly how many came but it was well over 300. Among those who were there were Clem Attlee (who had a talk to Stephen), Dora Gaitskell, Harold and Mary Wilson, Gerald Nabarro, Lady Violet Bonham Carter, Lynn and Dorothy Ungoed-Thomas, the Bishop of Woolwich, Arthur Lourie (the Israeli Ambassador), Messaoud Kellou, the Algerian Ambassador and two members of the Soviet embassy staff who had come to represent Mr Romanov. Also there were Canon Collins, Lady Jowitt, Cassandra, John and Patsy Altrincham, A.V. Alexander and a host of Labour MPs.

At 4.50, Charlie banged on the table and I jumped on a chair and made a speech that lasted about ten minutes. I summarised the history of the case and how long it had taken, and thanked the Party and especially Charlie Pannell. Also the Young Liberals like Lady Violet and Young Tories like Churchill. I also thanked the lobby and the lawyers, especially Michael Zander, and those who had given to the Bristol Fund, especially Lynn. I reserved the main bouquets for Bristol and for Herbert Rogers.

Finally, I thanked the family and said I wished Father had been there. Then I made a few jokes about the Peerage Bill and produced the test tube of blood taken in the hospital. I finished by saying that the time had come to put pomp and pageantry back in the museum and that this fight was the beginning of a much bigger fight which I was sure we would win too.

I walked back to the North Court Restaurant with the Bristol party, where Mother had arranged a sit-down high tea for them all before they drove back to Bristol in their coach. At the restaurant there was another round of speeches and bouquets were presented to Mother and Caroline. Those people radiated warmth and affection and it was quite an experience for us all.

To bed a very happy man.

Wednesday 31 July

The phone rang so incessantly that I couldn’t even shave so we took if off the hook. CBS Television sent a unit to film the family and Hilary (aged nine) gave a sensational interview in which he said, ‘The hereditary system is ridiculous and Britain ought to have a President who was elected instead of a Queen who was not.’ The interviewer asked him if he had studied the American system of government and Hilary replied, ‘Not in any detail, but I know what it adds up to.’ We had no idea what he was going to say, but after they told him they were going to ask him some questions. Caroline found him in the bathroom washing his face, and saying, ‘I am really nervous.’

I went to the Commons for the weekly meeting in Harold Wilson’s office and then to Transport House for a broadcasting meeting. From there I picked up Mother and we met Caroline at 4.45 pm outside St Stephen’s entrance. There were two film cameramen and about thirty photographers. It was another lovely day and I took off my coat while we were
photographed with the Instrument of Renunciation. We went to have tea in the Strangers’ Cafeteria, and then at about 5.50 we took our seats in the second row of the Lower West Gallery of the House of Lords. It annoyed me very much that the attendant kept calling me ‘My Lord’.

There were fifty-seven Acts requiring the Royal Assent and the Peerage Act was somewhere in the middle. The ceremonial seemed awfully silly especially when the Clerk read out the names of some Bills like the ‘Public Lavatories (Turnstiles)’ Bill and the other Clerk said ‘
La Reyne la veult
.’ As soon as the words of assent were given to the Peerage Act, we got up and walked out and Caroline accidentally banged the door of the Gallery which rang like a shot through the Chamber.
The Times
said we left ‘as if a starting pistol had been fired’.

Downstairs a Badge messenger escorted us straight to the Clerk of the Crown’s office, where one of his officials was waiting for us. Two
Daily Express
men were standing outside and asked if they could go with us. We said firmly ‘No’, and closed the door. By then it was 6.12 pm and just after 6.15 we were ushered into the office of the Clerk of the Crown, Sir George Coldstream. Sir George himself came in in his full-bottomed wig, took it off and put it on the table. I had a bag full of documents in case any of them were needed but none was asked for.

Sir George was absolutely charming and his face was wreathed in smiles. He said that he was glad I was the first to renounce and he showed me the Register of Renunciation which had been specially prepared pursuant to the Act, in which the names of those who had renounced would be written. My name will go as No. 1. Sir George then said to Mother how much everyone missed Father and what a popular Member of the House he had been.

At our request he let us out of the side door and we slipped down the stairs into the Chancellor’s Courtyard and through the arches in the open towards the Strangers’ Cafeteria, where the lobby were waiting. As we passed one of the Badge messengers of the House of Lords he said, ‘Goodnight, Sir!’ It was all over.

Caroline and I went over to Kenneth Rose’s flat. Among his other guests were John and Patsy Grigg. John had renounced eight minutes after me and the Clerk of the Crown had said, ‘I hope you don’t regret it!’ As he left, one of the secretaries in the office said, ‘We have been dreading this day, but it hasn’t been too bad.’ I suppose this was a reference to my appearance. I must seem an ogre and monster to that department. Also there at dinner were Lord and Lady Freyberg. He is a major in the Guards, with special responsibility for ceremonial. We felt so ‘one up’ on him. If status symbols mean anything, far and away the best is to have had it and given it up.

Thursday 29 August

After lunch I went to the Commons – the first time for nearly three years as an MP. I wandered into the Chamber which was absolutely deserted – no
crowds, no messengers, no police, nobody. I just sat in my old seat on the back benches and looked around and thought. It was an extraordinary experience, incredible and exciting and vaguely unreal, like a man coming back from the dead. I stayed for about ten minutes there, then wandered around for a while and came home.

Monday 9 September

The Post Office telephone engineer came to the house this morning to discuss our new telephone system and I think there is one which will exactly meet our needs. Just after that, a man came and demonstrated the Ansafone. This is a tape recorder that answers the phone, repeats a recorded message, records an answer and signs off. Not only would it mean that the house was manned telephonically while I was out or away, but would also mean that I can monitor incoming calls to decide whether it’s necessary to phone them back.

Saturday 21 September