The Benn Diaries: 1940-1990 (43 page)

To SEP where we discussed the flood risk to London. Over the next seven or eight years there is a one-in-five chance that the river will rise one inch over the walls for one hour, which would cause the most appalling death and destruction. I suggested that there should be an emergency dam, some inflatable structure which would keep the water back while we were waiting for the major barrage to be completed.

Monday 4 May

After lunch Otto and Charles Smith and other staff came in to present the problems with Concorde, which are formidable – escalation of cost, delays, refusal by the firms to have any incentive contracts on production or to bear any loss, anxieties with the French, a strike which has delayed flights of 002, and so on. It is very worrying. Ronnie Melville, my Aviation Permanent
Secretary, has been indicating his anxieties in little minutes to me which I have begun to suspect are for the record.

Then he broke in to say, ‘Well, Minister, I must tell you that my advice is that we cancel Concorde. I have come to the view we must cancel. It is not an economic aircraft’ (of course it never had been), ‘and unless there is some overwhelming national or prestige reason for us to keep it we should cancel.’ He said that I was not to believe the figures that were coming from his officials. They always went up, and so on and so on – he really lost control.

So I said, ‘Well, this is a very serious thing to state, and you will confirm, I hope, that this is the first time you have said it to me,’ and he replied, ‘Yes.’ Ivor Manley noted that. Then I adjourned the meeting.

Afterwards I had a talk with Otto and told him I was very uneasy about this because it looked as though Ronnie had been building up to a break and this was the most embarrassing moment to do it: I didn’t object that he had come to that conclusion, but he could have informed me in a different way.

Otto tried to defend him, saying that Ronnie was very upset and felt it was his duty to give me notice in advance of the report so that I didn’t wait for the report to come. But I think Otto himself was pretty worried about what had happened. I said I thought this would make it very difficult for Ronnie to become Comptroller and Auditor-General, which was the job that had been set aside for him, because he would be investigating a project which he had himself masterminded and on which he changed his mind at a late stage.

Tuesday 5 May

A Cabinet on Cambodia and Michael Stewart began by making the most rigid speech. The decision of the Americans to march into Cambodia has triggered off the most tremendous demonstrations in the United States and here we are on the eve of an Election with the possibility of a revolt in the PLP.

There was in fact something of a consensus at Cabinet. I spoke and I said that I thought a formal statement would not be enough, that it wouldn’t meet the public mood. We really couldn’t support the Americans this time. Dissociation would mean washing our hands. The US policy had really failed. But for Nixon to admit this would be almost impossible because it would be the first US defeat abroad and it would look as though it were a surrender to domestic pressure. It could trigger off a great lack of confidence at home and abroad and therefore we must speak candidly to the US as a friend.

Tuesday 12 May

Caroline is writing an article for the
Sunday Times
. She is now on the ILEA and is being nominated also for the chairmanship of the board of governors of Holland Park.

I went to the Campaign Committee and the papers this morning
described the new little plasticine figures of Tory politicians, called ‘Yesterday’s Men’, which were designed by Alan Aldridge and taken on by David Kingsley and Peter Davies, for use on posters. They really are fantastic publicity people working for us.

In the afternoon I had an impressive deputation of trade union officials and local MPs from Jarrow and Newcastle, pleading with me to try to save the yard. I couldn’t promise anything but said I would do my best.

Went to the House in the evening and the NOP today had a 7.5 per cent Labour lead, which has staggered everyone.

Sunday 17 May

Meeting of the Cabinet and NEC which had been planned some time ago. It was obvious as soon as we gathered at Number 10 that this was going to be the meeting for launching arrangements for the manifesto, and everyone there expected the Election would come on June 18. Harold opened by saying there would be an announcement soon.

Alice Bacon paid a tribute to Denis Lyons, Peter Davies and David Kingsley and described the ‘Life and Soul’ theme which began last September, and the ‘Yesterday’s Men’ figures, and this idea is to be followed soon by the posters of ‘Labour’s winning team’. She said the Election publicity was more or less ready.

Roy Jenkins opened the afternoon session, saying he had had an easier job than he expected because he had been wanting to urge that we shouldn’t put specific tax proposals in the manifesto. On the broad public-expenditure theme he said the Tories had lost credibility by their proposals. ‘Don’t let’s rival them. Some of the proposals put forward in the course of the morning would cost a great deal of money. If we put in proposals we would have to cost them and that would put us in difficulty.’ He said the position had changed because the economic picture had changed; only a year ago, in May 1969, the picture had been very grave.

There was a general assent to this and Frank Allaun said, ‘If we don’t make reference to a wealth tax, will it be ruled out?’ Roy said, ‘No, not at all.’

Then we had George Brown, and when he’s good he’s marvellous. He talked about the manifesto, and said it was a record, it described our aims, attitudes and intentions, and our intentions had to be spelt out. We must have some commitments. The activists must have meat and we had to get the themes right. The themes were social equality, the attack on poverty, quality of life and participation. The manifesto, when written into a record by the next Government, becomes the basis by which we are judged.

Harold agreed with George. He said we mustn’t be guided by public-opinion polls (I must say that was a bit of a laugh because Harold lives by them), and we didn’t have to prove ourselves this time. Prices were the biggest single issue and he thought we might deal with that by referring to the fact that the Tories have opposed us all along the line on our ways of
controlling prices, that the Tories’ present policies would lead to far higher prices, VAT and the end of council house subsidies. It was very important, he said, that the Tories shouldn’t be allowed to forget Selsdon Park. Our manifesto must not be achievements plus promises: what we want is the idea of a developing government illustrated by what we have done, by what the Tories did, and by what we aim to do.

Mikardo, an excellent chairman, wound up, saying there would be no vote of gratitude, people wanted a sense of urgency and we would have to convey it.

Then we came to foreign policy. Michael Stewart began with a long speech in which he said we had to adjust to the real world; the Tory illusion of a world role for Britain was unrealistic; our approach to Europe was very important Britain must neither be an aggressor nor a runaway; we wanted to conciliate and relax tension and defence was the key to relaxation of tension. We had played a large part in that relaxation, in disarmament and the NATO conference.

He said that race relations affected our relations with the developing world, and that aid was important. On the United Nations we had a good story to tell. Finally he said, ‘If I may turn from foreign policy to the Party generally, our rock is the decent working man and he believes in less for the rich and more for the poor.’ Then he produced a phrase which was pure Clem Attlee. He said, ‘The decent British working man says to us, “We’ll look after the underdog if you’ll look after the dirty dog.”’ By that he meant the criminals, and we must stand up for Britain and its fundamental decencies of democracy and freedom.

This was greeted with some applause because it was very straight and direct and it was Michael at his very best.

Denis Healey said, very crudely, that the manifesto didn’t matter, we couldn’t inject new ideas at this stage because it would have to be a book we were writing. We can’t tax people for overseas aid. He had saved £3,000 million already on defence and £2,000 million on expenditure. Real cuts had occurred, people cared about security, the army was the most efficient and had the highest morale in the world, and the purpose of defence was to stop war and to stop people killing each other. He believed Britain was a country to be proud of.

Harold said he just wanted to let us know officially that he was going to see the Queen tomorrow and at 6 o’clock would announce the dissolution of Parliament. He gave us the timetable for the Election, with Parliament meeting the week after next and being dissolved on 29 May, polling day on 18 June. There would be no full Cabinet during the coming week. Jim Callaghan warned us that there was too much euphoria and we would have quite a battle ahead of us and it would start on prices and rents. Jim has this terrible problem of the South African cricket tour, where the Cricket Council have so far absolutely declined to change their attitude.

I went to see Mother after the meeting and came home to begin working on Election plans.

Monday 18 May

The Chairman of the CEGB, Sir Stanley Brown, came in to see me with the Chief Nuclear Inspector, Trevor Griffiths, for a very serious interview. The Hartlepool power station is to go nuclear and one of the consortia produced designs for an advanced gas-cooled reactor which Mr Griffiths, an engineer, thought were unsatisfactory; he thought the apertures were too great and if there was a serious failure the disaster would be calamitous. The metal doors covering the metal apertures were not sufficiently strong and he was in favour of a concrete pressure-vessel-type construction.

He had tried to get the consortium to change the design, but they had declined to do so, as had the CEGB, and he advised me not to authorise and approve the continuation of the work. Stanley Brown is a big, tough, straightforward engineer and I had to say to him, ‘Look, you will appreciate that I have got a Chief Nuclear Inspector and I can’t possibly disregard his advice.’

Stanley Brown said, ‘Will you let us go on with the work and I’ll review the problem later?’

‘No, I won’t,’ I replied. ‘If you go on now, the pressure to accept less than adequate safety standards will be very strong, because you will have got that much further with the project.’

So he asked, ‘Will you get a second opinion?’

I said, ‘No, I can’t. If my Chief Nuclear Inspector had said he
thought
something was safe and
I
was uneasy I might get advice to cross-check what he says, but if he says it is not safe, I can’t conceivably get somebody else in and then override his view.’

He then tried to get Griffiths to say what he would accept and Griffiths said, ‘No, I am saying I won’t accept this. You will have to put in other plans.’

So he left and then I did a run-round with Jack Rampton, my Deputy Secretary, and Griffiths. These are the nuclear problems in a nutshell: first of all, the corrosion problem of the Magnox stations hasn’t been solved and it is not impossible that they may have to be closed down early; second, it now appears that there is corrosion in advanced gas-cooled reactors and we haven’t got anywhere near a solution for that; third, there is the dissatisfaction with plans for the Hartlepool power station; and fourth, Dungeness B, being built by a consortium made up of Fairey Engineering and International Combustion, which has just fallen down on the job, is going to be three years late. All this constitutes a major nuclear policy problem. After the Election we shall have to re-examine the whole thing and see where we stand.

In the afternoon I drove to Bristol with all my Election gear. There was a
local Party meeting, at which Herbert was appointed agent, and I was reselected.

Thursday 28 May

To Bristol, where the major political problem at the moment is that the envelopes for the Election addresses, which Herbert Rogers ordered a week ago from the regional organiser, have got lost on their way down from Newcastle.

Wednesday 3 June

Got to Transport House at 7.45 this morning and was there most of the morning for the usual meetings with the research people, the publicity people, Harry Nicholas and the Prime Minister.

In view of Enoch Powell’s Election address which had raised the racial issue again, I decided that I would put out a press release on race relations for my speech at Central Hall Westminster tonight. So after the PM left for his press conference at 9.50, I went up to Gwyn Morgan’s office and dictated a very violent attack upon racialism and I linked it with Heath’s silence on Enoch Powell’s position. I said that the flag that was being raised in Wolverhampton was getting to look more and more like the flag that futtered over Belsen. I showed it to Gwyn Morgan and I said, ‘This is very strong stuff.’ He replied, saying, ‘Well, it has to be said.’

In the evening Caroline came with me to the meeting in Central Hall, where I was speaking with Jack Jones and others.

I spoke first. I delivered my speech on racialism – copies of it had been made available to the press and BBC television covered it very fully. The audience was quiet and, frankly, it was not a very good meeting. But, at any rate, I delivered my speech. It created tremendous press interest because of the strength of the language used.

Caroline and I came back home and I was immediately summoned to do a BBC television interview in the Election studio with Robin Day, who violently attacked me for my speech. He quoted statements that Heath had made condemning Enoch Powell and I said that if this was the case why did Heath recommend people in Wolverhampton to vote for Powell.

The NOP today showed a 5 per cent lead by Labour.

Thursday 4 June

Bristol. The Belsen speech has exploded across the Election. There is a tremendous row about it. Every paper is leading on it. Heath demands that Harold repudiates it and indeed demands my dismissal from the government on the same basis that Heath dismissed Enoch Powell.