The Intrigues of Jennie Lee

by Alex Rosenberg

  The recall of parliament had thrown the entire political world into confusion. MacDonald had been trying to form a “National” ministry with the Tory leader, Baldwin; Samuel, the tame Liberal; and Snowden, his Chancellor of the Exchequer. The King had been about to return to Scotland. The Labour Party leaders, out of office only for a day, still in London and reeling from MacDonald’s betrayal, met at party headquarters. They seethed at their former leader but had no idea of how to proceed. Only Lloyd George knew what he was about. By the late afternoon of the day before parliament was to be recalled, he’d convened a closed-door meeting of the Liberal parliamentary party. Only one or two, hoping for seats in MacDonald’s National Government, had refused to attend.

  “Gentlemen, tomorrow in the House, I will propose a want of confidence in MacDonald’s new cabinet.” Voices were raised. “Yes, yes, I know we have no idea now who will be in it. But we know its policy well enough—retrenchment in government, cuts to the unemployment benefit, and preservation of the gold standard.” His caucus quieted down and Lloyd George continued. “When I make this motion, Labour will join us and we’ll defeat the MacDonald government even before it is fully formed.”

  Here a voice emerged from the men seated before Lloyd George.

  “If he’s defeated, he’ll just get a dissolution from the King. There’ll be an election…”

  Lloyd George raised both his hands and successfully quieted the group.

  “No. There won’t be a dissolution or an election.”

  He couldn’t tell them he had the Speaker in his pocket, but he knew FitzRoy would not ask the King to dissolve parliament, no matter MacDonald’s demands. He’d already burned his bridges recalling the House.

  “Gentlemen, parliament won’t be dissolved for two reasons. First, the crisis is too grave. The nation can’t afford six weeks of electioneering and indecision. Second, we will have a workable majority in the present House of Commons.”

  The chatter in the room had by now subsided. By what magic had Lloyd George contrived a governing majority out of fifty-nine seats?

  “We shall form a government with Labour, supported by upwards of 340 members. And it will carry out our policy, not a socialist one! But I need your complete assent. We hold the balance but only if we are united.”

  * * *

  Two hours later, the House of Commons convened. MacDonald was still sitting on the front bench, deserted by his former Labour ministers, flanked by Baldwin, Neville Chamberlain, and one Liberal, Herbert Samuel; rather what Lloyd George expected. Oddly enough, the Labour MPs were still ranged behind MacDonald in the seats they’d occupied for the better part of two years. The level of chatter rose as members filled the chamber, speaking to one another of their complete perplexity.

  At the appointed hour, the Speaker gavelled order and MacDonald rose, expecting to be recognised. Instead the Speaker nodded towards Lloyd George already standing.

  “Mr Speaker, I beg to move that this house has no confidence in any government led by the right honourable member for Seaham.”

  This, all knew, was MacDonald’s constituency near Manchester. The hush in the chamber ended in an explosion of shouting by Labour members from behind MacDonald, as order papers were thrown into the air and began to drift downwards over his front bench.

  Jennie was sitting on the rear most bank of benches, with Frank to her right and Ellen Wilkinson to her left. They had come along with only slightly more knowledge than most others of what might transpire. Now, they were to witness the rarest of events in the House of Commons—debate on a motion of no confidence. It was one they thought might last days, depending on the members’ urge to speak. In the event it was over in a day. By midnight the House had divided and Ramsay MacDonald’s betrayal had failed.

  Three speeches Jennie remembered afterwards, each significant in a different way. To begin with, there was MacDonald’s catastrophic attempt to save his new ministry. He stood and was recognised by the Speaker first. Realising the votes he needed were behind him on the Labour benches, he turned from the dispatch box, and pled his case, clothing an appeal for loyalty and trust in his personal history of fidelity to Labour. There was enough nostalgia in the parliamentary party at least to listen for a while in silence. And for once the Tories opposite were not interjecting with cruel japes at the stooped, weary and pathetic figure whose back was turned to them. But then, he began to explain that the bankers on Wall Street had given him no choice, that J.P. Morgan himself had been on a transatlantic radiotelephone to explain that without the cuts demanded by the May Commission the pound would collapse.

  Jennie turned to Ellen. “He’s lost all touch if he thinks Labour MPs will want to please the House of Morgan.”

  As she said it, the first cry of “Shame!” rose from Labour, in a strong Welsh. Was it Nye Bevan? And then interruptions of “No surrender to the bankers!” interspersed with FitzRoy’s voice shouting “Order!” as he gavelled the arm of his chair that rose high up between the two sides of the chamber. But MacDonald had lost the House. There were shouts of “Miners first, Morgan later.” Even some Conservative backbenchers began to join in the jeering.

  Late in the afternoon, Frank rose to speak. No one who had spoken before him had his grasp on finance and economics. No one who spoke after him could refute his arguments or match his mastery of detail. In that single speech, Frank Wise made himself the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the government Lloyd George and Tom Mosley were to form. He began quietly and calmly, in a tone that suggested understanding and sympathy for the government’s predicament: the budget deficit, the level of unemployment, the deflation that was wrecking business and work. Then he came to the gold standard. Once or twice Frank looked towards the gallery above the House. Jennie followed his gaze till it reached Maynard Keynes, the Liberal economist, wearing a Cheshire cat’s grin. Having brought the whole house with him in his exposition of how the gold standard was supposed to work, Frank now reflected on the history of its failure since Churchill had brought it in, and then demonstrated the irrelevance of the 19th century economist’s theory of the gold standard to the economic reality of the 20th century. It was as if the whole House of Commons were a set of university students, held wrapped by a brilliant lecturer. Finally, Frank took the House through a tour of the policies offered over the last years by Lloyd George for the Liberals and by Mosley when he had been a Labour minister, showing how they responded to the realities the country actually faced. He sat down to cheering and shouts of “Hear him! Hear him!” from the Liberals and some Tories as well.

  The Labour members were largely silent, until one among them shouted the demand: “Answer, Snowden. Answer!” Twice Chancellor in Labour governments, still sitting beside MacDonald on the front bench, the man had no choice but to rise. He knew that the fate he shared with MacDonald was at stake. Everyone else in the House knew it too.

  Unused to contradiction of his expertise on so many different fronts, Snowden looked down at a scrap of paper on which he had made a few notes. Evidently, he couldn’t decide which of them to put first, or to put at all for that matter. All he could say in the end was that everything he had done was in accord with sound principles of public finance and orthodox economics, what was required to ensure confidence. The interruptions began: “Whose confidence, the House of Morgan’s?” and they did not cease until Snowden sat down, recognising his defeat.

  Late in the evening, with few members still rising to seek the notice of the chair, Mosley rose dramatically from his seat. He stood still and made no gesture, waiting as others became still, took their seats, and looked towards him. Only when he knew he had the attention of the whole house did he raise his hand to seek the notice of the Speaker. The speech he then gave hardly addressed the motion of no confidence. By that time of night, its passage was a foregone conclusion. Every Liberal who had spoken supported Lloyd George’s motion, no Labour member had spoken for MacDonald, and the handful of Tories who intervened mocked their leaders for se
eking shelter behind a broken leader of the party they had long opposed. Even if the whips could impose their discipline, every nose-counter came up with the same figures. The motion would carry by at least twenty votes, perhaps double that. It was no surprise then, that Mosley would use the last moments before the division to claim the leadership of a revolution that was sweeping away the old order.

  He began by announcing that the New Party would vote for the motion of no confidence and would then dissolve. He would seek readmission to Labour and urge all his followers to do likewise. He went on to reiterate the programme of public works spending, job creation, and economic planning that he had advocated, first in MacDonald’s cabinet, again in his resignation speech, and for a third time at the party conference of 1930. Mosley went on to generously credit the same policy to Lloyd George and to offer his personal support for any government in which the wartime prime minister might now be persuaded to join. It was, Jennie thought, a clever way to signal to those who feared socialism. Lloyd George was no socialist, alas. But then Mosley launched into a peroration that people would quote for a year:

  Better the great adventure, better the great attempt for Britain’s sake, better a great experiment in strong leadership than strutting and posturing on the stage of little England, amid the scenery of decadence, until history, in turning over a heroic page of the human story, writes the contemptuous postscript: ‘These were the men to whom was entrusted the Empire of Great Britain, and whose selfishness, ignorance and cowardice left it a Spain.’ We shall win or we shall return upon our shields.

  Lloyd George rose, and with evident confidence demanded the vote: “I beg leave to move the previous question.”

  The Speaker called upon the House to divide, yeas to his left, nays to his right, assigned the tellers and left the chair. It was soon obvious that the motion would carry.

  Sitting there, high up in the chamber, back against the wall, as distant from the front bench as one could be, Jennie Lee looked to her right and her left. No one had turned in her direction. No one in the maelstrom of a parliamentary division was paying Jennie the slightest attention. But she had been the Scottish Valkyrie, had chosen her victim and killed him off. That he was your father, well, that didn’t matter...or rather, it did. It turned vindication into revenge. Jennie rose from her seat, and moved down the steps to the lobbies where she would add her vote to end MacDonald’s political life. You can revel in it all, but you can’t reveal any of it. It didn’t matter. It was enough.

  * * *

  Jennie, Nye Bevan, Ellen, and a dozen other ILP members, including Frank, were seated on chesterfields and wingchairs pulled together round a low table in the Smoking Room of the House. They were speculating on the shape of the next government, waiting for the Speaker to recall the members and announce the vote. Then, a commissionaire approached and whispered in Frank’s ear. He rose and excused himself.

  “I’m called to a meeting with Lloyd George, Mosley, Henderson and the Speaker.”

  Arthur Henderson had been foreign secretary in MacDonald’s government and had led opposition to the cuts in the cabinet. He was as old as Lloyd George and had been interim Labour Party leader twice before, in a period that went back to before the Great War. All assumed he would again become interim leader.

  Forty minutes later, Frank returned, looking a bit dazed. He sat and all fell silent, waiting for his news.

  “The Speaker’s told MacDonald he’ll advise the King to deny any request for a dissolution.”

  “Didn’t realise he’d be on our side.” It was Nye Bevan who spoke words others were thinking. No one noticed Jennie’s smile.

  Frank continued. “Says he’ll tell the King there’s a working majority and it should be given a chance to form a government. Pretty confident he’ll get the King to agree.”

  “With Henderson as prime minister?” The natural assumption was voiced by Ellen Wilkinson. Everyone knew Labour had almost five times the number of seats Liberals held.

  “Don’t think so. Lloyd George said unless he gets the premiership, he won’t let his people support the government.”

  They spoke at once. “The old devil! Rank opportunism.” “He expects to govern?” “How many seats in the cabinet does he want?”

  Frank answered the last question to everyone’s surprise. “He wants only one seat in the cabinet for his party.”

  “One seat, at the head of the table, eh? Clever.”

  Frank added, “And Mosley agreed to it, at least until he’s elected leader of the Labour Party.”

  “We can probably sit still for Lloyd George that long.” It was Jennie who gave voice to the reasonable view. “Why did they ask you to meet with them, Frank?”

  He drew a breath, smiled sheepishly and spoke in a quiet voice. “They want me to be Chancellor.” The others rose to clap him on the shoulder, but not before each emitted an audible expression of joy.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Once he was appointed, it was almost a month before Jennie and Frank could spend a night together. Their first weekend alone in Jennie’s flat was a languorous passage of mornings and afternoons in bed, punctuated only by forays out for the morning and evening papers. Repeatedly, at moments of passion, some thought would remind one or the other of an event or an exchange, a conversation, a development in Whitehall or Westminster. And then they would both be deliciously distracted from their passions, recalling reactions, opinions, speculations, assessments pent up over a month of enforced separation.

  * * *

  It had been weeks of frenetic activity in government, in politics and the economy. There was a lot in the papers, but Jennie learned most of it from brief encounters with Frank. She knew the King had, with great reluctance, given in to admonitions, bordering on blackmail, that he accede to the Speaker’s advice. He didn’t much like Lloyd George, but the prospect of a brief premiership and the chance to appoint Mosley as his successor was, as he said to Wigram, his secretary, “not unattractive.”

  Lloyd George had been received, kissed hands, and formed a cabinet composed mostly of members of MacDonald’s Labour cabinet, save for Snowden and Thompson, who had both abjured the party along with MacDonald. Lloyd George’s Liberal colleagues were pleased not to have to risk their political lives in the experiment that was now to be conducted. The Labour cabinet ministers were glad enough of places in government both to fall in with Lloyd George’s policies and to demand the loyalty of their Labour Party colleagues.

  The parliamentary Labour Party had met on the morning after the vote of no confidence, and, by acclamation, elected Sir Oswald Mosley its leader. Lloyd George had immediately made him leader of the House and Lord President of the Council, a seat in the cabinet with no department reporting to him. But Lloyd George had also invented a new position—deputy prime minister—to which he appointed Mosley, giving him space in the Cabinet Office round the corner from Downing Street. The symbolism was clear to all. Mosley was to be as close to prime minster as one could get.

  Much of the press’s attention had fallen on the previously little known MP, Frank Wise, who had shown such mastery of the economy in the want-of-confidence debate that destroyed MacDonald’s hopes. Now, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Frank’s first act had been to take the country off the gold standard. And the sky had not fallen. In fact, after falling enough to make British coal suddenly competitive again, the pound had stabilised at a level that required no intervention by the Bank of England. Economists couldn’t understand it, but they couldn’t deny it. Badgered by the press about the May Report, he had wisely said nothing, leaving parliamentary sketch writers to speculate about the new government’s policies.

  Ministries continued to tick over, but almost everything that went on at Number 10 involved planning a vast programme of public works, especially road maintenance and widening, targeted to cities, towns and regions with the highest levels of unemployment. The Tory press complained that these were regions in which better roads were not needed as
nothing was moving on the current roads. But the Prime Minister told planners to ignore such complaints. “We’ll bring traffic back to those places by paying the road builders.” Lloyd George’s pet economist, Keynes, was now spending so much time at Number 10 that Frank offered him a guest room next door, in the Chancellor’s flat at Number 11. Frank had no wish to live there at all, for reasons that were clear to Jennie and no one else. He could never be with her at all if he had to live at Number 11. Keynes’ main function was to advise the Treasury on how to fund its radical departure from economic orthodoxy. Taxation and inflation were the order of the day. It would be months before anyone could tell whether the plan was working, but with no better place to keep their money, the rich had not yet deserted. Meanwhile cuts in the dole, unemployment insurance and pay for teachers, sailors and the police were off the table.

  For all his visibility in government, Mosley was not to be found in cabinet meetings, on the floor of the Commons, or even in the smoking rooms of the House. He had presented Frank with copies of the previous Spring’s Mosley Manifesto and said he’d support anything consistent with it. Then he left London. All that first month in office, Mosley swept up and down the country, giving fiery addresses to large meetings, promising swift action, taking hold of the Labour Party and putting his stamp upon it, making fun of Tory resistance and Liberal qualms.

  The large public meetings were marred only by clashes between Mosley’s supporters and Communists, of whom the slump had created large numbers. Now, their numbers falling and in fear of a government that might rob them of the discontent fuelling their movement, the party needed to provoke a quarrel.