A Very British Coup

by Chris Mullin

  Perkins went round the table seeking the opinion of each minister. After each had spoken briefly he summed up, “So we steer clear of the IMF for the moment and talk to the Germans, the French and the Dutch about the possibility of a stand-by credit. If that fails, we’ll think again. Meantime interest rates will stay as they are.”

  The main item was the draft of the King’s Speech, which had been cobbled together by civil servants in the Cabinet Office. The law providing for the detention of suspected Trotskyists was to be repealed. A special department, headed by a minister, was to be set up to supervise the reconstruction of the riot-torn inner cities.

  All the main manifesto pledges were covered, although one or two had been watered down a little. On the American bases, the draft said simply that “negotiations would be opened with the United States government regarding the future of US military bases in Britain.” After some discussion, in which the only strong dissent came from Wainwright, ‘withdrawal’ was substituted for ‘future’.

  On British nuclear warheads the draft said simply that they would be phased out. ‘Dismantled’ was the word the Cabinet preferred.

  “Christ Almighty,” said Steeples as they filed out into Downing Street two hours later, “the King will have a heart attack when he reads that little lot.”

  When the details of the King’s Speech began to leak sterling went into a nosedive. By the time the markets in New York closed, the pound was a staggering six cents down against the dollar.

  6

  It was starting to rain when Marcus J. Morgan’s bullet-proof Cadillac swept into Downing Street. The Cadillac was preceded by two police motorcycle outriders and a carload of American secret service agents. Behind came a second Cadillac with aides and advisers. Officers of the Metropolitan Police Diplomatic Protection Unit brought up the rear in an unmarked car.

  The waiting cameramen scarcely glimpsed the Secretary of State’s portly frame as he was propelled through the door of Number Ten surrounded by the secret service men. After him came the American ambassador and a man from the US Treasury.

  There was a minor scene in the lobby when Inspector Page told the secret service men that they would not be allowed to accompany their charge to the door of the Prime Minister’s study. “If this were America …” one of them was heard to say before the inspector cut him short by stating sharply, “This is not America, this is Great Britain and I’d thank you to remember that.”

  Morgan, happily unaware of the contretemps, was taken to see Perkins. His bodyguards were left pacing up and down in the hallway, chewing gum and muttering curses.

  Perkins was waiting on the landing when Morgan, slightly out of breath, reached the top of the stairs.

  “Mr Prime Minister,” said Morgan without smiling as he extended his hand.

  “Mr Secretary of State.”

  Perkins was nervous. A nerve in the left side of his face twitched uncontrollably and he wondered whether Morgan had noticed. He knew this was going to be an important meeting and he also wondered whether he would manage to conceal his dislike for fat American lawyers. Morgan had a reputation for crudeness and dealing with him might require more tact than Perkins could muster.

  Inside the study, Morgan introduced the ambassador and the man from the US Treasury. Perkins in turn introduced his team, Newsome the Foreign Secretary, and Wainwright, the Chancellor.

  Morgan seated himself in one of the two armchairs. Perkins took the other. Newsome, Wainwright and the rest arranged themselves in a semi-circle of hard chairs between the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State. An aide of Morgan’s placed a small voice-activating tape recorder between the two men. Tweed, the private secretary, did likewise. He then busied himself serving drinks from a cocktail cabinet at the far end of the study. Morgan had a neat whisky, Perkins an orange juice.

  Morgan did not stand on ceremony. “Mr Prime Minister, I’m here because the President is very concerned that your government’s programme constitutes a threat to the security of the West.”

  A pained expression appeared on the face of the American ambassador. In the car on the way to Downing Street he had spent ten minutes advising Morgan to warm up slowly.

  “According to your programme,” the Secretary of State continued, “you are intending to remove all foreign bases from British soil, scrap nuclear weapons and go neutral.” Morgan spat out ‘neutral’ as though he were referring to a contagious disease which, in a manner of speaking, he was.

  He was heard in silence interrupted only by the clink of glasses as Tweed served drinks. “Mr Prime Minister,” growled Morgan, “I am authorised to warn you that any attempt to detach Britain from the Western alliance would be regarded by my government as a hostile act and one which would have grave consequences for the United Kingdom.”

  Morgan was not a man of many words and when he had made his point he stopped. Perkins’ face remained expressionless. When it was his turn to speak he did so quietly and slowly. “First, I would like to thank the Secretary of State for stating his government’s position so frankly. I will now try to state our position with equal clarity.”

  Perkins’ opening remarks were heard in silence. “For a long time the British Labour Party has been of the view that the presence of American nuclear weapons on our soil, far from offering us protection, actually makes Britain into a target for Russian missiles. The pledge to remove nuclear weapons was a prominent part of our election manifesto and it was on the basis of that manifesto that we recently won an overwhelming popular mandate.”

  At this Morgan’s lips moved almost imperceptibly. What he said was only audible to those closest to him, but one of the stenographers said afterwards that it sounded suspiciously like “Popular mandate, my ass.” The ambassador’s face was white.

  If Perkins had seen Morgan’s lips move, he gave no clue. He went on speaking quietly, “I therefore take the opportunity to inform you that we will shortly be making a formal request to your government to begin the withdrawal of troops and weapons from British soil.” He paused to sip his orange juice. “Obviously the details are a matter for negotiation, but we are thinking in terms of a phased withdrawal over two or three years.”

  Morgan’s cheeks flushed. His eyes dilated. “Prime Minister,” his voice had acquired a harder edge, “this is grossly irresponsible.” He paused to think of something to add. “It’s like telling the Soviets, ‘We’re coming out with our hands up.’”

  Perkins could not suppress a smile. “Nonsense,” he said firmly, “we are just telling the Russians and anyone else who cares to listen that we don’t wish to be annihilated, and inviting them to follow our example.”

  “And the West Germans,” said Morgan, “what about the West Germans? Are you going to abandon them to the Soviets?”

  Perkins was feeling confident now. The nerve in his left cheek had stopped twitching. “The West Germans,” he said quietly, “have no more interest in being annihilated than we do. If they want to defend themselves against a possible Russian invasion, they would be wise to develop local militia capable of fighting guerrilla warfare. That is what the Swiss and the Yugoslavs have done and that is how British defence policy will develop in future.”

  Tweed appeared with the whisky bottle and refilled Morgan’s glass. Perkins took another sip of orange juice. Since Morgan had not responded, Perkins added unkindly, “Look at Vietnam. All the nuclear bombs in the world didn’t help you there.”

  At the mention of Vietnam, Morgan’s chins began to quiver. He had not come here to have salt rubbed in America’s wounds by the leader of some third-rate, clapped-out colonial power. “Prime Minister,” he sneered, “I don’t think we understand each other very well. Let me spell out our position in words of one syllable.”

  Tweed lingered in the background, whisky bottle in hand, his ears flapping. The ambassador wished that the ground would open up.

  “Let me tell you plain,” snarled Morgan. There was a meanness in his voice which had not been apparent unti
l now. “If you kick out our bases, you can kiss goodbye to any help from the United States in putting this ramshackle economy of yours back together again.”

  Perkins said nothing. Wainwright and Newsome looked blankly at each other. The US Treasury man looked at the floor. The ambassador fidgeted. No one seemed to know what should happen next. Morgan solved the problem. Heaving himself to his feet, he towered over Perkins for a few seconds, then he turned and lumbered towards the door. The man from the US Treasury followed. The aide with the cassette recorder paused only long enough to scoop up his machine. The ambassador, without speaking, stayed to shake hands with Perkins and then scurried after the Secretary of State.

  Surrounded by secret service men Marcus J. Morgan climbed back into his bullet-proof Cadillac and was swept away to the ambassador’s mansion in Regent’s Park. In place of a press conference, scheduled for noon at the American embassy, a statement was put out saying simply that the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister had a frank exchange of views.

  When they heard the King’s Speech the executive of the Confederation of British Industry went into special session at its tenth floor offices in Centre Point. Two hours later a statement was issued saying that government plans to force the pension and insurance funds to invest in manufacturing industry would lead to a final collapse of confidence in the currency. They begged the government to think again.

  The newspapers next day were rather more forthright. “Recipe for Ruin”, screamed the front page headline on the Daily Mail. “Downright looney,” said the Sun. The Guardian agonised for ten column inches before concluding that, although Labour’s plans made sense, “Now was not the time.” Perkins’ honeymoon with the press was over. It had lasted just six days.

  The weekly meeting of permanent secretaries takes place in the boardroom of the Cabinet Office overlooking Horse-guards’ Parade. As the senior civil servants in charge of each of the main Whitehall departments, they meet, in theory, to co-ordinate government policy. In practice they also sometimes co-ordinate resistance to government policy.

  The Cabinet secretary, Sir Richard Hildrew, was a Balliol man. He had a first in classics and had spent most of his career at the Treasury before taking charge of the Cabinet Office three years previously. “Obviously,” Sir Richard was saying, “they can’t carry on like this. It’s only a matter of time before we get a U-turn. Our job, meanwhile, is to minimise the damage.”

  “Peter,” he turned to a man in a double-breasted, chalk-stripe suit seated on his right. “Peter, any news of the stand-by credit yet.”

  “Nothing final.” This was Sir Peter Kennedy, permanent secretary at the Treasury responsible for overseas financial relations. “My chaps have been on to Bonn and Paris and they seem most unlikely to stump up the funds. The Americans have been putting the screws on and urging them not to co-operate.”

  “Hardly surprising after yesterday’s débâcle.” The newcomer to the discussion was Sir Michael Spencer, who was in charge of Defence. Although none of the permanent secretaries had been present at the meeting between Perkins and the American Secretary of State, every one of them knew exactly what had taken place. News travels fast on the Whitehall network.

  Spencer paused from doodling logarithms on his blotter: “As I see it we have at least six months before we have to start giving the American bases the heave-ho. By that time the government will have had a taste of the real world and may be in a mood to think again.”

  “The IMF loan is going to be the key.” It was Kennedy of the Treasury again. “With any luck the terms will be so stiff that the foreign bankers will do our job for us.”

  Outside, the rain had stopped for the first time in two days. Shafts of sun streamed through the Regency windows to form puddles of light on the floor in front of each window.

  Sir Richard gathered his papers into a neat pile. “So we’re agreed, then, gentlemen.” He glanced around the table. “No one does anything precipitate until we see which way the wind blows. Delay is our strategy.”

  In the distance the chimes of Big Ben could be heard striking eleven o’clock. From nearby came the clip-clop of horses’ hooves at the Changing of the Guard.

  “Three Communists, one Trotskyite and a queer.” Fiennes was almost licking his lips as he placed the last beige file on the desk in front of Sir Peregrine. The other files, about twenty in all, were arranged in three piles. “Not to mention that His Majesty’s Foreign Secretary seems to be screwing some ripe little twenty-one year old from Hampstead Labour party.”

  Sir Peregrine leaned back in his chair. “Not the sort of stuff that brings down governments,” he sighed.

  “Surely, sir, three Communists?”

  “But that was thirty years ago, Fiennes. People do all sorts of silly things at university.” He picked up one of the files and flicked through the pages of computer print-out. “In any case we can’t make too much of the Communist angle. One of them was Wainwright and he’s ours now.”

  “How about the Trot?” Fiennes passed another file.

  Sir Peregrine opened it and read aloud: “‘Ted Curran, aged sixty-two, Minister for Overseas Development, until 1962 a member of the Socialist Review Group, a forerunner of the Socialist Workers’ Party.’” He looked up at Fiennes. There was the merest hint of a smile on his lips. “Nineteen sixty-two; that’s leaving it a bit late to go respectable. What have we got in the way of pictures?”

  A pile of full plate black and white pictures lay on the desk beside the files. Fiennes picked them up and quickly leafed through them. “This one’s not bad. Taken at a CND demonstration in the late Fifties.” He passed the picture to Sir Peregrine. “Curran’s in the donkey jacket on the left, the fellow next to Jim Thomas. Today he’s National Secretary of the SWP.”

  Sir Peregrine held the picture close to his face while he studied it carefully. “Hmm, promising. Even shows the SWP banner in the background.” He laid the photo on the desk. “Any evidence that Curran is still in touch with Thomas?”

  “Not as far as we know.”

  “Pity. Still, we can’t have everything.”

  Fiennes stood up and gathered an armful of files. “Shall I pass this on to Fison?”

  Sir Peregrine thought for a moment. “No, I wouldn’t do that. A cheap rag like his is a bit too obvious for this sort of thing. How about The Times? We’ve got a man on The Times, haven’t we?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And while you’re about it,” Fiennes was almost at the door when Sir Peregrine spoke again, “why don’t you check out that girl Newsome’s sleeping with?” He smiled thinly. “Quite a turn-up for the books, if we found the Foreign Secretary sleeping with a Trot.”

  By the end of his first week in Downing Street, Fred Thompson was only halfway through the backlog of mail. It was mostly letters of congratulation. Requests for interviews he passed on to the press secretary who had an office off the main hallway. Invitations to speak at Labour Party or trade union functions were passed to Perkins’ personal secretary, Mrs Kendall, a plump, greying lady in her late fifties who had worked for Perkins since he entered Parliament. She took the invitations through to the Prime Minister and he would simply write ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ in the top right-hand corner. Mrs Kendall would return them to Thompson and he would reply accordingly. Abusive letters he filed without replying. Threatening letters were passed to the Special Branch.

  If a letter was received from a trade union general secretary, a Labour Member of Parliament or a personal friend of Perkins, Thompson would draft a reply and take it to the Prime Minister for signature. Usually Thompson would take the letters for signing to the Prime Minister’s study in the early evening, after Perkins had returned from the House of Commons. Before setting out Thompson would buzz Mrs Kendall and she would tell him if the Prime Minister was free. Sometimes Perkins would make them both a cup of Nescafé, using the kettle behind his desk, and then they would sit and gossip for ten minutes.

  During the day Thompson saw litt
le of Perkins. Once, after he had been in Downing Street three days, Perkins had put his head round the door and enquired how he was getting on. The Prime Minister’s flat was on the same floor, but since he was still living in Kennington he only used it as a changing room.

  The attitude of Tweed and the other private secretaries towards Thompson can best be described as ‘correct’. They were never rude, but never went out of their way to be helpful. The men from the Church of England in the office next door gave Thompson little more than the time of day. He assumed they were sulking over their impending eviction and after the first day he gave up trying to make friends with them.

  To Thompson’s surprise the garden girls were on the whole friendly. Since they had worked for the previous régime they knew their way about and Thompson went to them when he needed help.

  Mrs Kendall was a dear. She was always neatly turned out and with long grey hair tied in a bun at the back of her head. She had strong political views of her own and was, if anything, to the left of Perkins. She did not hesitate to tick him off if she thought he was pulling his punches. Thompson got on well with her and since she was on better terms with the private office he channelled requests for such things as filing cabinets through Mrs Kendall.

  On his first morning Thompson was given a long form to complete and return to a box number in the Ministry of Defence. He was asked to list every address he had lived at over the last ten years, the names of any Communists, Trotskyites or Fascists with whom he had ever had dealings, and to give two referees.

  Two days later a Special Branch man with a rolled umbrella and a navy blue Marks and Spencer mackintosh came to see him. An ex-CID sergeant in his fifties who had been pushed sideways, he was bitter at never being made inspector. “My job is to make sure there are no subversives in Whitehall,” he said without a trace of humour.

  “According to the newspapers the place is crawling with subversives,” replied Thompson mischievously. “Only problem is they’re all elected.”