by Bruce Page
Every proprietor had a case against the London print unions. They were anarchic, irresponsible and hostile to efficient technology, and if it was true that they owed much of that to interaction with managers like Duke Hussey, it might explain but scarcely exculpated them. Certainly, therefore, Murdoch had a right to official support in the event of union resistance – inspired by bad faith – to his plans for an efficient new printing centre. But that is not quite the same thing as the right to a crushing victory, set up by his own pre-emptive bad faith and enforced by a blank cheque on the civil power.
The public face of the Wapping project was what Murdoch called ‘sensible and reasonable’ demands for industrial reform, such as legally binding production agreements. In the climate of 1986 Brenda Dean and her union colleagues got little but scepticism for their view that his real aim was ‘to provoke a conflict which he believed [he could] win due to his political standing with the government’. In lawsuits at the time, the unions could never produce proof that Murdoch was determined to avoid a settlement. The Wyatt diaries, however, make the position entirely plain:
13 January 1986 … He wants them to go on strike … He has a new problem in that the unions are scared and reluctant to strike. If they did he can sack everyone and print with five hundred and twelve people he has lined up who have already learned to work the presses at Tower Hamlets [Wapping]. That would be instead of the four or five thousand currently employed …
The high levels of staffing at the old Fleet Street plant indicate just how lately News International had acquired its active interest in new technology and efficient manning. Apart from the short-lived hope that Gerald Long would bring some Reuters magic to TNL (see Chapter 9 above) the News management had been entirely part of the old Fleet Street style – and much favoured consequently by union chieftains.
Now Murdoch wanted to shuck off his old workforce as cheaply as possible and get the maximum possible return from his new plant immediately. Every penny was needed for the outrageous Fox financing, and every moment of time needed for setting up the new American network. Patient and humane reorganisation of News International’s production system was a luxury not to be considered. Murdoch’s aim was to retreat into Fortress Wapping with retrained electricians in place of printers. There was much tactical craft in the plan. But it involved depriving 5,000 employees, mostly long-serving ones, of their living via a process of duplicity.
As Wyatt makes clear, it was recognised as a ‘high risk’ course which would depend on unquestioning and almost unlimited support from London’s Metropolitan Police – a force, uniquely in Britain, then directly under central government control.* Every employer in Britain is of course entitled to police protection if the actions of disgruntled workers endanger a business operation, but not automatically if a confrontation is brought about as part of a deliberate plan. If every firm in Britain were to treat its workers with the provocation Murdoch intended, there would be no cops available for any other duty.
There was no doubt in Wyatt’s or Murdoch’s mind that Thatcher would back them without asking questions about their tactics and motivation. She accepted Murdoch’s heroic character as thoroughly as his newspapers projected hers. She has since been a loud advocate of the story that News International’s aim at Wapping was an apocalyptic battle to free the British press from union dictatorship.
However, the Battle of Wapping’s heroic aims had been achieved before it began – that is, the industrial scene had already altered sufficiently for newspapers to employ advanced printing technologies. The Independent, a completely new title – manned in good part by editorial escapees from Murdoch’s Times – did not start publishing till later in the year. But its production arrangements, all in unionised plants, were already in place as part of its fund-raising operations at the end of 1985. Some of the credit was due to the government’s new labour-relations laws, some to extended negotiating by managements more patient than News International. The Independent story is taken further in Chapter 13 (‘Present Necessities’) along with details of Wapping’s aftermath. What we need to remember as background to Westland is that the battle as fought had little to do with reform of the British media system and much to do with the financial desperation of Newscorp.
Almost every day in January brought fresh twists, turns and crises in the Westland saga – and the staff of the Observer had the strange experience of running on a classic Sunday broadsheet story without a breath of competition from the Sunday Times. The Observer’s coverage was chiefly the work of David Leigh and Paul Lashmar, and without their energy little systematic knowledge of the affair would have emerged. But it was a story on which they might have expected the Sunday Times to field six or seven people against them.
Downing Street’s first damage-limitation success was persuading the AttorneyGeneral to accept a leak inquiry by the Secretary to the Cabinet instead of the police. Leon Brittan was assigned the task of stonewalling Parliament meanwhile, but Wyatt and Murdoch (like other observers) were unimpressed by his performance and by Downing Street’s denial of any connection with the ‘LIAR’ headline.
14 January 1986 … Rupert says ‘We’ve got to get her out of this jam somehow. It’s looking very bad.’
While Murdoch’s desire to rescue the Prime Minister is well recorded, the diaries do not show him reflecting on the Sun’s contribution to her distress. Nor is he heard extolling – in the manner of the epigraph to Chapter 6the right of citizens to be told what the rulers of the land have been up to.
There was better news from the unions. Frustrated by Murdoch’s rigid negotiating stance, they were balloting their members on strike action. Less good was the Westland front: on 17 January the shareholders voted to hold out for improved offers.
18 January 1986. Rupert … rang about 9.00 a.m. to say he’d been up till 2.45 a.m. supervising the printing of the extra section of the Sunday Times at [Wapping]. A great new plant with maximum security. He said the police were ready in case there were pickets and they had riot shields stored in the warehouse nearby and every now and then a police helicopter came over to see that there was no trouble. ‘I really felt secure.’
Fortress Wapping, at least, was garrisoned and ready. Murdoch advised Wyatt’s wife Verushka to buy Newscorp shares.
On 19 January Wyatt, Verushka Wyatt and Murdoch arrived at Chequers for Sunday lunch with the Thatchers, reflecting as they rolled up the drive on the security arrangements of the Prime Minister’s country seat – modest in comparison with Wapping’s. They found blazing logs, champagne – and an uneasy Prime Minister. ‘It’s been a bad week,’ she said, though Woodrow’s denunciations of Heseltine in The Times and the New of the World had ‘cheered her up’.
I tell Margaret that Cuckney thinks it could be six weeks before they get the new Sikorsky-Fiat scheme through. ‘Oh dear.’
Wyatt’s diary entries are supportive of Thatcher throughout, but also realistic – without giving the lie direct he assumes (and reports Murdoch as assuming) that her claim to be unconnected with the leak is not credible. The question which exercises them is whether it can survive investigation until the Westland issue is neutralised. Even discussing the affair, clearly, makes the Prime Minister nervous:
‘Are there precedents for the internal inquiry report not being published?’ Margaret said, ‘Yes’ … She looks worried but I think is reluctant to say much more …
Knowing Murdoch less well than he did, Wyatt thought, she might be constrained by fear of old professional loyalties and think ‘erroneously he might put something in his newspapers’. The suspicion was of course unjust, or at least misplaced. Later the same day Murdoch rang Wyatt:
‘I’ve had an idea. I think I shall try to get United Technology to buy fifteen per cent in Westland. That should fix the vote permanently in favour of the SikorskyFiat deal’ …
As poor Margaret was saying, how on earth can we have been wasting so much time and effort on this tiny little company which is of no account in
our affairs.
Rupert’s idea contained the essential solution, as we shall see, but it did not work immediately.
Mrs Thatcher’s next week was worse, while Murdoch’s plans fell smoothly into place. On Wednesday 22 January the unions announced that their membership ballot had authorised strike action at the old News International premises if no settlement could be reached on operation of the new Wapping plant.
Leon Brittan was now suffering irredeemable damage. Additional to leakage he was accused of improperly pressing the consortium to withdraw. In retrospect his behaviour looks very like that of an honourable man failing in dishonourable tasks. At the time, the Commons distrusted his every word. On Thursday the 23rd the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Robert Armstrong, submitted his report. Nothing of it was published except his recommendation that the Prime Minister herself should interview Brittan. Sir Robert had found two potential culprits, but did not fancy deciding their share of responsibility. The story was now close to the heat at which governments can melt.
On the same day the unions and Murdoch met for the final time. Brenda Dean says that almost any concession was on offer, but News did not want to deal. Wyatt wrote that Murdoch found the meeting ‘highly satisfactory. They’ve refused to negotiate on lower numbers at the old centres and he refused to discuss any of them going to Wapping. So the strike looks almost certain …
On Friday afternoon Leon Brittan told the House of Commons with great brevity that he had made regrettable errors and was resigning from the government. Equally briefly, Mrs Thatcher said the errors had been made without her knowledge. Amid rampant scepticism, an emergency debate was set for Monday 27 January.
By 7.30 p.m. the printers at News International’s old centres were on strike, and production of The Times and the Sun was lost. But Wapping was ready to produce the weekend’s papers, the London Post camouflage being thrown aside. There was an editorial glitch because several distinguished Sunday Times journalists refused to transfer, notably Don Berry, the senior production executive. Berry may have endured more print-union hassle than anyone alive, but it did not reconcile him to active deception of an existing workforce.
And two other things happened without making traces at the time, one at the Stock Exchange and the other in Whitehall. Just prior to Brittan’s statement there was an afternoon negotiating session in the private secretary’s room at 10 Downing Street. It involved the Deputy Prime Minister (William Whitelaw), the Tory Chief Whip (John Wakeham), Mrs Thatcher’s main Civil Service aide (Charles Powell) and Bernard Ingham. The Foreign Secretary, Geoffrey Howe, was there on behalf of his friend Leon Brittan, and from time to time Mrs Thatcher herself. A remarkable description of this meeting is given in Lord Howe’s memoirs, Conflict of Loyalty (1994), in which he records Mrs Thatcher’s remark that her period as Prime Minister might be over by ‘six o’clock this evening’. She was recognising that the House of Commons suspected it was being deceived about the Cabinet’s operations, and was at the limit of its tolerance.
Brittan was about to confess. He refused to deny outright that others had been involved; the question was whether his statement would be so drafted as to let ambiguity persist. Howe, present to do his best for a friend who was being hung out to dry, makes clear his assumption that the leak had been agreed with Number 10. He obtained a promise that at some point reasonably soon his friend would be reconsidered for ‘high office’. This, he says, was sufficient to avert an outbreak of ‘candour’. It was an extremely fragile story, but enough for Mrs Thatcher to survive past six o’clock.
Somewhat earlier in the day David Mortimer, finance director of the Australian freight company TNT, rang from Sydney to buy 2.6 million Westland shares, the most which could be bought without public announcement. A sudden passion for helicopters hardly explains the investment, but a connection with Wapping does – TNT was the contractor secretly engaged to move the Murdoch newspapers out of the new plant. The connection was close indeed: Sir Peter Abeles, Murdoch’s close poker-school companion, was boss not only of TNT but also of Ansett Airlines, through which Murdoch had tried to capture Channel 10 Melbourne. The plan to wrap up the Westland controversy via United Technologies couldn’t have worked: its subsidiary Sikorsky was already buying as fast as the rules allowed. Sir Peter, it seems fair to assume, was persuaded to assist a Prime Minister in a jam.
Meanwhile, from their new home, ringed by policemen and union picket-lines, the Murdoch newspapers spread encouragement.
26 January 1986. He says The Times will be friendly tomorrow, probably, and the Sun will be very friendly saying ‘Well, what do you want, someone like Galtieri [the Argentine ex-dictator] to run the country?’
That was the Sun doing its best thing. But the Sunday Times helped more by entirely failing to do its best thing. Attempts to penetrate the implausible remarks of Mrs Thatcher and her ex-minister it was leaving to its old rival, the Observer.
In the emergency debate on the 27th Mrs Thatcher made a long, cloudy address, revealing nothing about Cabinet leakage but doing it with unaccustomed humility. Wyatt, listening anxiously, was relieved that questioning in Parliament and press was not immediately pressing. Inquiries were referred to three select committees of the House (Defence, Civil Service and Trade and Industry).
27 January 1986 … Rupert rings from his car at nearly midnight. ‘I’m just going through the picket lines …’ He thinks Mrs Thatcher has done well and says that The Times is favourable for tomorrow.
Mrs Thatcher remained in peril – she would ‘fight them all the way’, she told Wyatt – but it was intense only while Westland’s fate stood in play.
The issue was whether constitutional rules against arbitrary power had been breached – with consequential impact on a stock market decision. This was not easily disposed of with three select committees engaged, but a responsible government – responsible for government jobs, of course – has ample stonewalling facilities within Parliament’s own domain. The difficulty was to optimise them while the Westland contestants continued hostilities outside – possibly inflaming backbenchers and news-editors.
In this situation the London Stock Exchange and the press constituted what separated power there was. And in the market amazing things were happening: Westland’s shares, recently trash, were at 100p, and heading for 140 in furious trading. The likelihood of this having political motivation was a matter to which the Observer devoted much attention in the editions of 3 and 10 February – but of course did not know what Wyatt knew about plans for saving the Prime Minister. It was ignored in equivalent issues of the Sunday Times, whose proprietor had instigated at least some of this business, specifically to aid the government.
The Exchange suspected a ‘concert party’ – not of course musicians, but investors with a common undeclared purpose – and on 4 February instituted an inquiry. Michael Heseltine was a witness, and during his evidence on the 11th the Exchange revealed that 20.33 per cent of Westland had fallen to nominees registered overseas. ‘I don’t know who they are’, Heseltine told the investigators. ‘You don’t. It’s a scandal.’ No comparable nation, he wrote later, would permit the sale of a defence contractor in such clandestine fashion.
But when Cuckney called his next meeting a day later, he had support enough to consummate the takeover. Wyatt recorded the consortium’s anger ‘at the irregularities under which shares had been bought by [Sikorsky’s] supporters’, and his own relief that ‘the matter … seems finally settled’: the wench at last was dead. Parliament’s committees lost interest in Thatcher’s escape – without events to sustain pressure, backbench valour fades fast – and the crucial fix in the private secretary’s room stayed secret.
When a media business needs government support some would expect its newspapers to aid the government by all possible action or inaction – thinking principles of newsgathering independence can’t prevail over commercial nature. But British law has stated that they must, and Eugene Meyer said (see Chapter 3) that if not democracy will
fail.
More is involved than friendly editorialising: here the newspaper controller calculates tactics to avert disclosure. We can’t say the Sunday Times in its preMurdoch state would surely have exposed the horse-trading over Brittan’s resignation, or spurred some competitor to do so: the accidental qualities of journalism can always explain failure to crack the hottest story in town. They don’t justify failure to notice it – or justify the boss’s own contribution to the heat involved. Any time after the ‘LIAR’ headline, evidence of the Westland vote being fixed to save the government would have altered Britain’s political narrative.
Here is the core of the Murdoch issue. A truly hands-off proprietor might decently lend private aid to an admired minister. But Murdoch’s essence is intervention: he is editor of all his papers whenever it serves his interest, and all Newscorp output is subject to that rule.
For the Sunday Times to judge an episode like Westland tedious would have been equivalent once to Drake passing-up a galleon, but there is no need to suppose any specific instruction. Andrew Neil, then editing the paper, was quoted earlier on the need for followers ‘at the court of King Rupert’ to be adept in ‘anticipating their master’s wishes’. Readiness is all – but readiness to a purpose quite distinct from that of the Scotts and the Meyers. Murdoch himself identified quite clearly a political crisis sufficient to bring down his patron (A NASTY SMELL AT NO. 10, in the Observer’s words). His Sunday Times did concede that the government might be hiding things, but it called this a matter for the ‘so what files’: a feverish episode which might have been treated in more balanced political times by ‘dispatching the Cabinet for a cure in Baden Baden’. This is the pseudonewspaper coming close to ideal form.