The Benn Diaries: 1940-1990 (44 page)

Harold is furious about it and has left a message for me to keep off the racial question.

I was interviewed on Harlech Television. I went to Weston-Super-Mare
to speak at the Tobacco Workers’ Conference and then for a short sleep at the Grand Hotel. I had two meetings in the evening. I rang Caroline, who was a bit worried about the race speech. She thinks I went too far and should have consulted people and got advice before I issued the text. But Peter Shore was very reassuring about it on the phone so I have decided just to hold my ground.

Friday 5 June

I gave a press conference at my headquarters in Bristol for the local press and all they wanted to ask about was the Enoch Powell speech. I said I had nothing to add about it. The papers are beginning to report that Harold is angry, so the press men think I have been disciplined by Harold, which in a sense I have. The truth is that Harold had hoped to keep race out of the Election. But an issue as important as this can’t be left out, because an election is a period when the public engages in a great debate about its future and as race is one of the most important questions in the future, it is quite wrong to try to keep it quiet. I am still a bit worried, however, and was encouraged that Doug Constable, whose judgement I very much respect, was in favour of the words I used on the grounds that if you were going to fight evil, you had to use fairly strong weapons. Indeed, he rather reflected on the speech and drew from it the conclusion that the Church was too quiet in its condemnation of evil.

Afterwards I drove to St Albans to take part in ‘Any Questions’ with Norman St John Stevas and Eric Lubbock. The first question was about the Powell speech. Norman St John Stevas who, in all fairness, is not at all a racialist, attacked me violently for it. I defended myself vigorously. Eric Lubbock supported me. I am very glad I did have the opportunity of speaking to a wider audience and giving the reasons why I made the speech.

Then I drove Eric back to London. He is an extremely agreeable man and could easily be in the Labour Party; I wish he were. We talked about the Liberals’ prospects in Orpington, which he is hopeful of retaining.

Sunday 7 June

I got home from a meeting in Basildon and discovered that Joshua was worried about the tremendous controversy raging round my head over the race speech. One has to remember that children do find arguments involving their parents very upsetting.

Today, Brazil beat England in the World Cup: the political effect of this can’t be altogether ignored.

Monday 8 June

Letters began pouring in on the Powell speech: 2:1 against me but some very sympathetic ones saying that my speech was overdue.

Saturday 13 June

Powell’s ‘enemies within’ speech has now come out, in which he says that he suspects that civil servants have been faking the immigration statistics. He draws a comparison with Burgess and Maclean’s unpatriotic behaviour, giving the impression that he really has gone entirely round the bend, and this has helped to blank out some of the criticism of me for having attacked him, because this is well beyond the pale as far as the British public is concerned. It is just not acceptable to say that sort of thing about civil servants. Enoch must be under heavy strain: he is calculating the Tories will lose the Election and people will then turn to him.

Sunday 14 June

At this moment I think we are going to win quite comfortably, though there are some anxieties in that the Tories
are
being extremely effective in their approach to women – their party political to women was a great success. They are hammering and hammering the economic theme and this is beginning to break the credibility of the Government’s claim to have solved the economic problems.

Tonight England was finally knocked out of the World Cup which, no doubt, will have another subtle effect on the public.

Monday 15 June

The poor trade figures were hit by Heath and he made a really big issue of them, saying there was an economic crisis and that we had misled the public, that the situation was much more serious than we had admitted and that was why we had called the Election when we had. This was the first real breakthrough by Heath. He has concentrated in effect simply on two things – prices and the economic situation – and although he has been bitterly attacked by the press for his failure and scorned by Harold Wilson and the rest of us, he has stuck, in exactly the way that Home stuck in 1964, to his two themes. In 1964, Home was saying, ‘Keep the deterrent’ and ‘Don’t let labour ruin the economy’. Now Heath is saying, ‘The economy is in a terrible state and only we can put it right’ and ‘We will tackle prices. The housewife should vote for herself’. These twin themes are the ones that are beginning to get through.

Anyway I did loudspeaker work in the evening in the pouring rain advertising meetings. I rang Harold up in Liverpool and said I thought the latest economic scare on the trade figures, and the fact that Heath had now talked openly about another devaluation, really was worth answering, but Harold was relaxed and said Roy was going to make a statement about it and there was nothing to worry about. He sounded as if he was just composing himself for another Election triumph. Having made my point, I left it.

Wednesday 17 June

My assessment is that we should win by a large majority, certainly with a working majority, and although I have some uneasiness, it is rather less than in previous Elections.

Thursday 18 June

Polling day. Caroline and I went round the polling stations. It is part of a ritual but it has to be done and it is very tiring. A journalist on
Time
magazine from New York looked in to see me for a short talk and wanted to know what our plans were for the future. I talked very confidently. This was for the
Time
cover story, I think. After we had completed the polling stations and committee rooms and loudspeaker work, we were pretty sure of victory by twenty or thirty.

Went back to the Grand Hotel, had a bath, tea and sandwiches and settled down to watch television before we had to go off to my own count. The first thing that came over the television that was slightly worrying was the result of a poll done by the BBC at Gravesend, in which they had interviewed people as they left the polling station. So this was the first poll, not of voting intentions, but of how people actually voted, and it showed a Conservative majority.

At 11.15 we got the first result and it showed an enormous swing to the Tories and, all of a sudden, there and then, we realised we had lost the Election. There was no question about it. There are regional variations and of course these came out But the result in this first constituency was so overwhelmingly Tory that it was quite clear that we were out and the Tories were in, possibly with a tremendous majority.

In a fraction of a second, one went from a pretty confident belief in victory to absolute certainty of defeat It was quite a remarkable experience. By midnight it was clear that they had won and we left in the most appalling fog to find Carlton Park School, where my count was being held.

At 2.30 in the morning my result was declared. My majority had been halved. I was able to keep abreast of what was happening elsewhere by listening to the results as they came out on my transistor radio.

Harold was not conceding the result but biding his time and I spared a thought for the poor man believing himself due to continue as Prime Minister and discovering he had been defeated. After the declaration I made a short speech and had a short interview with Jonathan Dimbleby, who tried to blame the Election result on my speech against Enoch Powell. At the Walter Baker Hall the Party workers were absolutely desolate. I told them not to worry – that we had been defeated but not routed.

I decided I would go straight back to London and clear right out of the office.

Friday 19 June 1970

WE LEFT BRISTOL
at 5 am with all our junk packed up: I began dozing off a third of the way home so Caroline took over the wheel. We got home at about 7.30, I unpacked the car and drove straight to the office. I just cleared everything out of my room, putting some personal things in my bag to take with me and leaving the rest in the waiting room next door, so that by 8.35 there was no sign that anybody had worked in my office. I thought this was the right thing to do and I couldn’t have coped with any of my officials when I had been drained of authority in this way. It was a very emotional experience, a sort of bereavement. It wasn’t that I particularly wanted to be
a Minister, although the salary is useful, the car is nice and the authority is pleasant: it was this sense of being suddenly and absolutely cut off from work.

I went round and said goodbye to everyone and I must say I almost broke down. Jack, one of my messengers, said, ‘I have never shaken the hand of a better man,’ and that was really more than I could bear. I walked out and left the Millbank Tower never to return. Then straight to the House of Commons and I completely cleared my room there as well. On to Transport House and thanked all the people who had helped. They, too, were very upset and emotional.

When I got home I was told that a meeting of the Inner Cabinet had been called for 4 o’clock. I thought it was a bit much of Harold to have a meeting at Number 10 when we were so obviously defeated. But the Queen was at Ascot or somewhere and was coming back at 6, so Harold planned to resign then. I went in by the Cabinet Office door and we had a brief discussion about the arrangements. Harold said he was going to resign and thanked people. I said we were an ungenerous lot and nobody ever did say thank you in politics and I would like to say what a privilege it was to have served with him in his administration – which was a bit pompous but somebody had to say it. We agreed that we would have to think about the Parliamentary Labour Party and how we organised the Opposition, and that there should be no recriminations or personal attacks – all of which was kind of obvious. There was a shellshocked feeling to the meeting.

At the end I got my camera out and as Harold left it for the last time, I shot the only movie picture ever taken in the Cabinet Room. To Transport House again, where Harold appeared, having just been to the Palace to resign. We stood outside and cheered him – all except for Tom Driberg. He said, ‘That man misled us all and picked the wrong date. Why should I cheer for him?’ A very sour comment.

Meanwhile Heath had been leaving the Albany and going to Buckingham Palace to become Prime Minister – very exciting – and was seen entering Number 10. At the same time Harold’s stuff was going out of the back door and into a furniture van. This was the beginning of Opposition. The thought that the Tories had won was very depressing; not just the thought of Tory Ministers in office but that their whole philosophy had conquered and that this would strengthen all the reactionary forces in society. I shall work very hard in Opposition and concentrate entirely on my political work.

Saturday 20 June

Heath’s Cabinet was announced. Geoffrey Rippon has gone to the Ministry of Technology: he is a very right-wing figure, a member of the Monday Club, and a former Minister of Public Building and Works. I must say that depressed me a bit. I wrote to him but then I tore up the letter because it isn’t normally done to write to one’s successor.

For the first time in six years, I don’t have a series of red boxes; I must admit that it is rather pleasant to be free.

Monday 22 June

I got up at 4.40 to get Stephen off to Keele University.

Lucille was very tearful at the result of the Election. When I dictated my goodbye letters, she wept over the typewriter and I must say I was sad myself. People came and collected the various keys that had to be returned to the office.

In the afternoon I went to Buckingham Palace for the audience with the Queen and I drove in my own car unlike some ex-Ministers who were still using their official cars, which I thought was slightly odd since we were clearly out. The courtiers could scarcely conceal their delight – Sir Michael Adeane, the equerries, the ladies-in-waiting – and were obviously thrilled at what had happened and were being polite to the ‘little Labour men’.

I said to the Queen I had enjoyed office and she said, ‘You will be seeing more of your family.’ I talked about the stamps and thanked her for her help with them. Then she mentioned Concorde, so I said, ‘Well, there are a lot of problems and I sometimes wonder whether it shouldn’t just be kept to fly up The Mall on the royal birthday.’ She laughed at that, and thanked me very much, as if I had somehow done it all for her. It was very courteous of her but I am sure that the idea that the Queen’s Ministers are simply advisers, and that she is really the Government, in a position to thank them before they go, is deeply entrenched at the Palace.

Thursday 25 June

We had the last office Pink Shirt Club party at Holland Park Avenue. I bought blue and white striped tea mugs for everybody and put a pink handkerchief, pink tie, or a pink rose in each of them. They gave me a pink tie with the Mintech symbol on it. We had a lovely evening with all the old gang, and Kate Chaplin, Monty and Derek Moon from the Press Office were also there. We sat in the garden and played records. They left me a record of the theme song from
Dr Zhivago
which I had whistled up and down the Millbank corridors for years. This was effectively the end of my links with the Private Office after some very happy years.