The Benn Diaries: 1940-1990 (45 page)

Saturday 27 June

Slogged away, wrote sixty or seventy cards by hand. After just over a week I find myself slowly adjusting to the fact that nobody really wants to know you when you are an ex-Minister. It must be absolute hell if you retire or are fired and you are out while all your colleagues are still in. The truth is that it is almost rather comforting that everyone else is out as well.

Monday 29 June

Todayjeremy Thorpe’s wife Caroline was tragically killed in a motor crash.

Thursday 2 July

Today was the Debate on the Address with Heath and Wilson speaking. Harold is incredible, just like an India-rubber man, bouncing up again after his defeat, completely unphased by the fact that he lost, and with the Party just sort of accepting him again. I wouldn’t have the strength to accept a defeat of that kind. I think I would be very bad at coming to terms with it.

Wednesday 8 July

We went to the Home Policy Committee meeting of the Executive, where Jim Callaghan got himself dug in as Chairman: he is building his power base absolutely everywhere at the moment. Once in the chair he was very reasonable, asking everybody to comment and complimenting us all on what we said. Jim is a skilful politician, there is no question about it; very skilful.

Thursday 10 September

In the evening I went and had dinner with Peter and Liz Shore and Tommy Balogh, and his new wife-to-be Katherine Storr, who is a distinguished surgeon. Tommy Balogh is leaving his current wife, Pen, to marry her. It is really rather sad. I liked Pen Balogh very much indeed. Katherine Storr is about the same age and looked rather similar.

Caroline loyally went to hear Stan Newens, who lost his seat at Epping, speaking to the North Kensington Labour Party. She is about to be made Chairman of the Holland Park School governors.

Thursday 15 October

Six years ago today, the Labour Government won the 1964 Election.

This afternoon Heath announced the abolition of the Ministry of Technology. It is being merged with the Department of Trade and Industry, with Aviation Supply going off separately.

Tuesday 3 November

Worked at the Commons. I circulated my draft letter to my constituents on the Common Market referendum idea to Harold, Roy, Jim, Denis, Harold Lever, Gwyn Morgan and Tom McNally. Shirley Williams drove me home and I talked to her about it. I am hoping to get the support of one or two people who are in favour of entry because it would greatly stengthen my case.

Thursday 5 November

Harold Wilson came up to me and said, ‘I understand you are suggesting a referendum on the Common Market. You can’t do that.’ I said, ‘Well, I sent
you the draft letter, Harold. Have you seen it yet?’ He said, ‘No. You had better bring it to the Shadow Cabinet.’

I discovered that it had not been drawn to his attention because he was too busy. I don’t blame him for that but this is the moment when I am going to strike out on my own.

Sunday 8 November

This afternoon Mick Farren, a woman called Ingrid and a man called John Hopkins came for a talk. Mick is the author of the article ‘Rock – Energy for Revolution’ in the
Melody Maker
. What I didn’t know was that last night these people, who are part of the YIPPIES (the Youth International Party) had been on the David Frost programme and had broken it up.

In the evening we watched Jean-Paul Sartre’s ‘Roads to Freedom’ on television – a series that has been gripping us all autumn.

Wednesday 11 November

My letter to my constituents, ‘Britain and the Common Market – The Case for a Referendum’, was to come before the Shadow Cabinet today. But as Harold was in Paris for de Gaulle’s funeral it was just noted and there was no comment. The only person who understood its real significance was Jim Callaghan, who said, ‘Tony may be launching a little rubber liferaft which we will all be glad of in a year’s time.’ That is one way of looking at it. I am in favour of a referendum on constitutional grounds but even if there isn’t going to be much support for those grounds clearly this is one way in which the Labour Party can avoid dividing itself into bits. So that is just about the best result I could have got from the Shadow Cabinet.

Saturday 5 December

I had a talk to Harold, who told me that had we won the Election he would only have continued as Prime Minister for three years. I have often suspected this but he has never said it specifically before. It is an interesting piece of information, because if we win the next Election he wouldn’t continue the full term as Prime Minister as he is determined that he will never be defeated again. That means that the next Leader of the Labour Party will be elected within the next few years – that’s my view. If I am going to make any sort of bid for the leadership at any stage, I shall have to begin preparing for it soon.

Monday 7 December

There was a power cut at 7.45 this morning because of the go-slow or work-to-rule by the power workers in pursuit of their claim. It lasted for two hours. Went to talk to Harold about the possibility of getting some proper meetings of Party officers every now and again to consider the running of the Party, giving the Party a higher sense of direction, which it entirely lacks. Harry
Nicholas is useless and doesn’t see Harold often and the Executive is too big to do anything. The officers don’t meet, and the Shadow Cabinet is just concerned with parliamentary tactics. And Harold is desperately busy writing his memoirs, or what he insists on calling his record of his administration.

We also discussed the question of the Common Market.

He doesn’t understand that if he does come out against the Common Market it will absolutely wreck his credibility: the Tories will simply put up posters showing what he said about industrial relations when Prime Minister and then what he said when in Opposition under trade union pressure; what he said about the Common Market when Prime Minister and then when in Opposition, again under trade union pressure. And they will put on the bottom of the poster, ‘Can you ever trust him again?’ It is going to be much more difficult than he thinks.

Wednesday 16 December

Executive this morning and we came to my resolution advocating a special conference to be held before the Parliamentary Party had voted on the Common Market question. I moved this briefly. Denis said there wouldn’t be time to organise a special conference and in any case we couldn’t get a hall. Fred Mulley said that if the Tories hurried the legislation, the Labour Party in the House would simply abstain, as if somehow on the greatest issue of the century for Britain, Labour MPs could abstain on the grounds that they hadn’t had time to consider it. Roy said something, and then I blew my top. I said this was a grave matter and I was not prepared to explain to my grandchildren that we hadn’t voted on the question of British entry into the Common Market because we couldn’t get a hall; I was not prepared to abstain and that those who were in favour of entry into Europe had better begin making the case for it instead of hoping to slip it through, which is what they are trying to do.

I carried my resolution on a special conference overwhelmingly, about 14 to 1, I think. Afterwards Roy, with his nostrils distended with rage, said to me, ‘There are some of us who will never vote against entry into Europe.’ I said, ‘I am never going to urge you to do so. If there is a referendum you can vote for it then, but up till then we will argue that it should be put to the public.’ Then Denis said, ‘Your “support” for Europe is much distrusted. Why don’t you make some speeches in favour?’ Well,
he
doesn’t make any speeches in favour. So my relations with those two are very poor at the moment. But this is a huge issue and it has got to be dealt with seriously.

Wednesday 13 January 1971

I invited Roy back home for a while. I explained the strategy for a referendum, which he was opposed to. But I think he is anxious to maintain some links with me. I asked him how he saw the future because, I said, I
could see a possibility of the Labour Party actually splitting on this, resulting in a broad centre party which was European, flanked by a Powellite right and a Michael Foot–
Tribune
left. He said, ‘I hope it doesn’t come to that,’ but he didn’t rule it out. It was the first time he had been in our house for six or seven years or maybe longer.

Monday 25 January

Neil Kinnock told me today that he and about thirty others were organising a demonstration tonight against the guillotine on the Industrial Relations Bill and they were planning either to stand up in their places or to stand in front of the Speaker and try to get themselves or the House suspended. I argued with him for a long time, as sympathetically as I could, saying this would be a big step and it would annoy other members of the Party. I thought it worthwhile to go and see Bob Mellish, who was talking to Stan Orme and Callaghan about the same thing, and I did persuade Bob to call a meeting of the Shadow Cabinet in the evening to consider what to do. Michael Foot very sensibly said it would be stupid to make a big thing of this.

But it was agreed that some members of this group should come and meet Roy, Michael Foot, Bob Mellish, Douglas Houghton and Jim Callaghan. So we all dispersed but they failed to persuade the group not to demonstrate. So at about 9.45, they all got up, about thirty of them, including Eric Heffer and Reg Freeson, who are both Front Bench spokesmen, and stood in front of the table and shouted. The Speaker suspended the sitting, having said that this was all extremely boring, as boring as a standing ovation, which was quite a funny remark.

After the first suspension we had agreed to talk to the demonstrators in the Tea Room, but they were determined to go on and when the suspension ended, there they were standing in the middle again. The Tory Chief Whip, Francis Pym, got up and moved that the question be put, and it was put, and there was a vote and the Speaker declined to hear points of order. So that brought it to an end. It was rather surprising and there was a great deal of excitement.

Monday 1 February

I rang Clive Dunn, one of the television stars of ‘Dad’s Army’, who has just had a tremendous hit record, ‘Grandad’, and he agreed when he was in Bristol next month to come and meet some old-age pensioners at Memory Hall.

Saturday 6 March

Went up by train to Newcastle and talked to the Northumberland Mechanics’ Association and then to the dinner at which Vic Feather and Joe Gormley spoke. There were songs and bawdy speeches. As a result of the Tories’ Industrial Relations Bill, the trade union movement, and the British
working class, have become proud of being the working class. Tory legislation has succeeded in shutting off the idea that somehow you can escape from your class and come up in a Davis Escape Apparatus, one by one, to join the ruling class, because the ruling class has let you down and is trying to suppress you. There is a tremendous self-confidence in being yourself and what you are. It is ‘black is beautiful’ applied to the working class, which is marvellous. It oozed out of everything Vic Feather said.

Just sitting and listening I noticed how much everybody made a reference to where they came from – ‘He’s from this part of Northumberland, or from Durham, of course, I’m from Yorkshire, you’re from Lancashire.’ I wonder whether we have given anything like enough importance politically to regionalism. I am sure we haven’t. We have only looked at it technically and in terms of blueprints.

Wednesday 21 April

To the Education Sub-Committee of the NEC and got Joan Lestor into the chair. I thought she was preferable to Eirene White or Shirley Williams. While we were sitting there, Joan Lestor was opening her mail and she had a big fat envelope and she tore it open; inside was another envelope which fitted very tightly into the outer one, and as she began pulling the inner envelope out smoke began pouring out of the envelope. So she dropped it on the ground, and I poured water on it, dropped it in a wastepaper basket and called the police, who took it away. It was a homemade bomb of some kind and the man who had sent it had fixed some matches on the inner envelope and sandpaper on the outer one. If she had pulled it out quickly it would have burst into flames and blown up, and burned her face.

Thursday 20 May

Came back on the train from Southampton with Jeremy Thorpe, who really is a very nice, agreeable and kind person but has no weight as a party leader – just thinks of the House of Commons as if it were the Oxford Union Debating Society. Absolutely out of touch with modern trends and movements.

Sunday 30 May

The Party is heading for an extremely difficult summer. There is a small group of highly dedicated Marketeers led by Royjenkins, with Bill Rodgers as campaign manager, and including the old Campaign for Democratic Socialism types. They are genuinely pro-Europe (I give them credit for that), but they also see a last opportunity to do to the Labour Party what they failed to do over disarmament and Clause 4, namely to purge it of its trade union wing and of its Left. This group, working with the conservative Europeans, really represents a new political party under the surface in Britain. They
think a free vote would get them off the hook because they would be able to vote with Heath on the grounds that the question was above politics.

Of course the real crunch will come when specific legislation has to go through and any serious European would have to vote with the Government to bring British law into line with Community law. It is inconceivable that such a group, consistently voting with the Government, could do this without severing their links with the Labour Party, and to this extent it is impossible that the Party will do anything other than come out against Europe. But what the pro-Marketeers don’t realise yet, though they soon will, is that if this situation becomes impossible for them, much better that they should be coming out against entering Europe without some consultation. This is what my referendum offers them, but a referendum is a difficult concept for them to consider and is a relatively novel idea, though Philip Goodhart, the Tory MP, has written a book on referenda which he sent me and in which he argues that it is a perfectly established constitutional principle.