The Benn Diaries: 1940-1990 (69 page)

Tuesday 5 October

Had a brief talk to Frances about Enoch Powell’s speech yesterday on repatriation in which he suggested that £1 billion be spent to send home one million immigrants with £1,000 a piece in their pocket. It developed into a tremendous argument. Frances said, ‘Of course it would help unemployment.’ I said, ‘That is a Fascist argument.’ ‘You’re saying the working class are Fascist,’ she said. ‘I am not saying that. I am saying that is a Fascist argument which, if it were accepted, would divert from the real issue – how to get full employment, and so on – to the idea that the blacks are responsible for unemployment, and because workers are divided, one among another, the Tories would go in and clobber them.’

William Rees-Mogg came to lunch. I have known him since 1947. He was then a pompous young man with a gold watch and rather fancy waistcoat.

I asked what policies Mrs Thatcher would pursue. ‘She believes really, and so do I, in a monetary stabilisation. That is to say you would have a sudden attack on money supply and it would be like Schacht in Germany or Poincaré in France after the First World War or de Gaulle and Erhardt after the Second World War; this would lead to a temporary substantial increase in unemployment but then it would settle down, confidence would return, people would wake up and find they had a hard currency instead of a soft currency in their hands, though less of it of course. That, I think, is the right policy.’

Then we talked about the collapse of Keynesianism, the collapse of the Beveridge idea and when the consensus died: was it during the Wilson or the Heath Government? In fact we both agreed that the Centre had collapsed under us and that there was now a pretty basic choice to be made.

After lunch we sat in armchairs and he said, ‘Let me ask you one thing. I can never understand how the Left of the Labour Party, which is always talking about democracy, reconciles this with state centralisation.’ I said, ‘I agree with you. I’m part of the democratic Left. I believe in dispersing power and my answer is that you have got to get investment into industry somehow, which will require state planning, but then you have got to break down the great big state bureaucracies.’

Then he said, ‘Have you seen the figures we published in today’s
Times
showing the decline in the rate of profit?’ The profit at replacement cost had shrunk from 18 per cent in 1960 to 4 per cent in 1975. ‘Those figures are awful and maybe Marx was right in saying there will be a historic decline in the rate of return on capital,’ he said.

I asked him, ‘To what do you attribute that? To Keynesianism, to trade unions, to socialism, or to the ballot box?’

He said. ‘I don’t know.’

‘I wonder whether the capacity of poor people to buy hospitals and schools and pensions using the ballot paper when they haven’t got any money doesn’t put a spanner in the works,’ and I quoted Bagehot. ‘What I feel is that we have got to find a way of getting investment, preserving democracy and maintaining liberty and it is in this area that we are really discussing what the new consensus is to be because you can’t have a society without consensus.’

Thursday 7 October

At 5.30 I went over to Number 10 for the meeting with the miners. Afterwards Jim said, ‘Joe Gormley’s a very skilful negotiator, much better to appear to give him nothing at this stage.’ Jim’s a pretty dab hand at negotiation too! I had asked for five minutes with him, so we sat in the Cabinet Room for an hour and a quarter and had a lovely talk.

‘Well, what do you want to talk about?’ asked Jim.

‘First of all, I appreciate the very open discussion in Cabinet this morning. I want to make three concrete and helpful suggestions. One is that we might consider having a committee of Ministers responsible for the industrial strategy, that is to say Industry, Trade, Energy, Employment, to monitor the industrial strategy, checking how we are getting on, but it must be under non-Treasury chairmanship.’

‘Denis won’t like that,’ he interjected.

‘I am simply saying that industrial strategy ought not to be under the Treasury. Next, on the City side, I have been giving consideration as to whether we shouldn’t have the Governor of the Bank of England attending the Economic Strategy Committee, just like the Chiefs of Staff attend the Overseas and Defence Policy Committee.’

Jim replied, ‘Oh no, that’s the Chancellor’s job, to represent the Governor’s view, the Governor is just an instrument of government policy and it would weaken the Chancellor.’

I said, ‘I’m not so sure that is a bad thing because at the moment, we don’t consult the Governor. The Governor ought to be able to convey to us the reality as he sees it and hear our argument.’

‘Before the First World War, of course,’ said Jim, ‘the Chiefs of Staff were members of the Cabinet, the First Lord of the Admiralty sat with the First Sea Lord, and so on. You probably know that as you are a historian. That’s why they still come to the Overseas and Defence Policy Committee.’

He didn’t like the idea.

Then we came on to Conference and he said, ‘I thought it was awful, sour, bitter and I had a lot of letters about your behaviour, which was seen on television, sitting there grimly during my speech. I’ve had the letters set aside and I’m going to read them later.’

I said, ‘Well, Jim, it would be very nice if every morning I woke up and
found that everything I did was sweet and reasonable and sensible like Shirley Williams but it isn’t like that. It is pretty rough, you know, when even the
Financial Times
prints a picture of Michael and me side by side looking glum with the caption “Two unenthusiastic members of the Cabinet during the PM’s speech”, when we weren’t even sitting together during your speech.’ He hadn’t seen it and I told him there was an apology in today’s
FT
. ‘Now look, Jim, you know that in every article about you that has appeared since you became Leader I have stressed how well I get on with you. And there’s not a morning I don’t wake up and thank God that you are Leader and Harold Wilson is gone.’

Then he said, ‘There is another thing about the Conference. What about all these Trotskyites – and I get my information from a source I can’t disclose.’

I said, ‘I presume it’s the intelligence services.’

He said, ‘Fifty-seven thousand votes were cast for Trotskyite candidates for the NEC. That must be a substantial number of constituencies under Trotskyite influence.’

‘Jim, I hope the intelligence services understand all this. I read all the left press. Trotskyites are youngsters and if we get them into the Party, we’ll win them over.’

‘You’re too optimistic about it. I think Conference has lost us the Election. When do you think they will wish to have an Election?’

‘I haven’t thought about it very much but I presume that you want to leave it a bit. We must win the next Election, and I think we can.’

‘As to you,’ he said, ‘I can see you as Leader of the Party in Opposition and ten years in Opposition you will be.’

‘I will never be Leader of the Party.’

‘Yes, you might and I’m trying to give you a fair do.’

I said, ‘I know that the PLP as it is presently constituted will go for somebody else. I am not going to wreck my life by ambition.’

‘Now, about this alternative strategy of yours, you were very honest this morning in saying it would involve sacrifices, but could we sell it to people?’

I said, ‘Yes Jim, I’m sure we could.’

He replied, ‘I think more public-expenditure cuts are coming. Denis hasn’t told me but I think it is going to happen.’

‘I should think there are because that is the policy and we’ll just have to stay glued together. That’s all.’

Then he said, ‘You know I mentioned that Helmut Schmidt was coming to Chequers this weekend.’

I said, ‘Yes, I heard it from my office.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I heard it from my driver, who heard from the car pool that there was a meeting at Chequers and he wondered if I was going. The car pool is the source of all information.’ I told him how Ron Vaughan had heard that
Harold had introduced the rule that all former Prime Ministers should have a car and that was how we knew Harold was going. Jim laughed.

We had got down to gossiping by this stage and he said, ‘I’ll tell you a thing about Harold. When we were at a summit just before Harold retired, Aldo Moro (the Italian Prime Minister) was delivering a seventeen-page written speech on the international monetary system, and Harold took one earphone off and I took the one off my good ear, and Harold leaned over and said, “When I go, Jim, shall I take the Garter, the OM, or go to the Lords?” So I said what I always say in those circumstances – “What would you like for yourself?” – and Harold said, “I think I’ll take the Garter”, which he did.’

I said, ‘Well, old Clem took all three – a Garter, the OM, and the earldom.’

‘Yes, I remember in 1955 when Clem went to the Shadow Cabinet and said, “Just to let you know, I’m resigning and shall I take an earldom?” Edith Summerskill said, “Of course you must take it, Clem”, and he took it.’

I came home scribbling all the time in my notebook so that I didn’t forget a word.

Monday 11 October

I went to hear Thatcher in the Commons. Her speeches are solidly argued, like an
FT
article, but don’t carry conviction, have no depth, don’t look into the roots of the problem. Jim made a bold and human speech which went down well and had more substance to it.

Tuesday 12 October

It is 2 am and today is Caroline’s birthday. We have had such a marvellous life together and her radicalism and support and determination have really kept me going. I couldn’t have managed without her.

Tuesday 26 October

Sat and talked to Frances. I am utterly depressed and dejected. I have absolutely failed to persuade the Government not to do what it is about to do. It would be better if we were defeated now, I am persuaded of that, but I mustn’t bring the Government down because if I do the responsibility will be put upon the Left, rather than on the Right where it really belongs. Somehow the whole world is whirling and it is having a physical effect on me. I actually feel physically ill.

Wednesday 27 October

Had David Owen to lunch in the office. I don’t really know him well: he worked with Barbara when she was at Social Services and she had great admiration for him, and he for her, and he is trying to be friendly. I asked him about his family and one of his grandfathers had been a clergyman, the
other a miner. His clergyman grandfather had originally been a Methodist but as he was blind he couldn’t go round the circuit so he transferred to the Church of Wales and David had been brought up in that tradition. He felt it was getting weaker in the Labour Movement.

He was tremendously critical of the Treasury which he feels is determined to encourage the IMF to demand cuts from the economy. They are just out for our blood, and were furious with Jim for trying to negotiate with Helmut Schmidt for a Common Market loan to fund our sterling balances over a long term to avoid the rigours of the cuts.

David Owen was one hundred per cent in support of planning agreements and particularly of the NEB and industrial democracy.

I said, ‘Of course, it has all now been dropped really.’

He said, ‘I am sure industrial democracy is right.’

Then, indicating his personal support, he said, ‘You have more influence in the Labour Movement than any other man at this moment and we have got to fight for these things.’

We got on to a curious discussion about élites. He said, ‘I believe in élites, that élites have to lead and that you have got to have men of intellect and ability.’

‘I agree you have got to have ability,’ I said, ‘but I believe that it is
will
that really matters, a power of concentration and determination.’ That more or less wound up the discussion.

Friday 29 October

Up at 6.30, and Caroline and I flew to a little airport and were driven to Selby for the opening of the new coal mine. There was the Lord Lieutenant, the Duchess of Kent and the High Sheriff of the County, who was a landowner owning 10,000 acres on the Selby coalfield. Derek Ezra and Joe Gormley and others represented the Yorkshire mining establishment.

Joe was called to speak and he had a few notes and he began in a measured way and then somehow he forgot that he wasn’t at a pithead meeting and started to talk about productivity and the role of the miners – he appeared to be rebuking the Duchess for implying the miners were barbarians being brought into these villages. It was a marvellous speech, absolutely political, and might have been made at a miners’ rally. As Caroline said afterwards, the two establishments were there, the old feudal Establishment – the Duchess, the Bishop and the Coal Board – and Joe, me and the miners representing the new Establishment, with so much more confidence than the old. Amazing that the old feudalism still survives.

Lunch was hilarious. The Duchess sat next to me and Joe leaned across and said, ‘What’s your name, love?’

She said, ‘Katharine.’

He said, ‘I’m Joe.’ Then he held up his glass and said, ‘If you can’t be good, be careful.’

Then Arthur Scargill came up and had a word with Caroline and I took him over and introduced him to the Duchess. It must have been an extraordinary experience for her, meeting this guy who is regarded as the most revolutionary miners’ leader in Britain.

Tuesday 2 November

Went off to Carlisle feeling pretty unwell. Dale Campbell-Savours is the Labour candidate for the by-election here, a tall, rather elegant mixture, I thought, between Bob Maxwell and John Lindsay, the Mayor of New York. Afterwards I had a cup of tea in a little hotel, then went to the Labour Club. It might have been from that programme ‘Days of Hope’, and a real 1930s working-class club. The warmth, friendship and loyalty were there but it made you realise how little the post-war capitalist recovery in Britain had reached beyond the South and the Midlands.

Tuesday 9 November

Brian Sedgemore agreed today to be my PPS. I went to Jim’s room to tell him and he was having a sandwich with his PPS Roger Stott so I put my head round the door and said, ‘Only thirty seconds. You took away my PPS and I’d like to appoint a new one, Brian Sedgemore.’