‘To deafening applause,’ the Daily Mirror enthused, ‘Jenkins triumphantly turned the tables on the Tory leaders . . . It was a Commons victory unequalled by a minister since Labour returned to power.’66 The Times was equally admiring:
With imperious contempt and a flow of invective rarely heard in the House of Commons these days, Mr Roy Jenkins . . . tonight swept aside an Opposition censure motion on his refusal to set up a specific enquiry into the escape of George Blake.
The voting figures were 331 to 230, a Government majority of 101. But the figures scarcely mattered. The cruel slashes of Mr Jenkins’ verbal sabre, lacerating the Opposition Front Bench while his cohorts roared him on to greater bloodshed, told the whole story.
Mr Heath, castigated as a procedural incompetent, so obsessed by personal pique that he failed to read the terms of reference of the Mountbatten enquiry before framing the motion, never stood a chance. His shoulders seemed to shake with laughter at the end, but he might well have been sobbing.67
‘That half-hour,’ Jenkins wrote in a magazine article thirty years later, ‘was the nearest I have ever got to experiencing the thrill which I imagine big game hunters felt when they shot a tiger, or matadors when they inserted the blade in the right spot of the bullfn8 . . . It was all slightly farcical, for it neither helped to recapture Blake nor to make me a better (or worse) Home Secretary.’69 Nevertheless it was ‘by far the greatest parliamentary triumph that I ever achieved’;70 and it had serious political consequences, as Bill Rodgers recalled:
Your Blake speech moved you immediately into the next-leader stakes in the eyes of many who had not previously seen it that way. I remember Bob Brown [MP for Newcastle West] walking through Westminster Hall with glazed eyes and stopping me to say, ‘He’ll be our next leader.’71
The next day the Tories tried to hit back. Brooke issued a statement contesting Jenkins’ account, on the basis of which Hogg alleged that the Home Secretary had misled the House: a serious charge, if he could have made it stick. But Jenkins, after consulting Dowler, Harris, Sir Philip Allen and his chief information officer Tom McCaffrey,fn9 flattened Hogg again by securing Brooke’s permission to publish a minute of August 1964, which effectively supported his slightly flip paraphrase of it. ‘I do not know where Blake is now,’ Brooke had written – a fairly extraordinary admission – ‘but if he were to escape or be rescued it would be as disastrous as if another of the train robbers were to get out.’ Despite this professed concern, Jenkins insisted that ‘there was no tightening in 1964 and no slackening afterwards . . . The departmental records show that Lord Brooke took no action following this minute, and no new precautions were taken.’ Second collapse of Tory opposition. Nevertheless Dowler took Hogg’s charge seriously enough to make a special ‘note for the record’ of how they refuted it.72
Meanwhile the serious business of prison security was devolved to Lord Mountbatten, assisted by (among others) Jenkins’ favourite policeman, Robert Mark. (He tried to get another good friend, Solly Zuckerman, to serve as well; but the government’s Chief Scientific Adviser was, unsurprisingly, too busy.) Mountbatten reported quickly, within two months. His recommendations included electronic alarms, closed-circuit television and the use of dogs; classifying prisoners by security risk; and various suggestions for improving prison officers’ morale and reducing overcrowding, which the Criminal Justice Bill was already addressing. But his most controversial proposal was that the most dangerous prisoners should all be held together in a single maximum-security prison to be sited on the Isle of Wight. Most other advice was against this and Jenkins referred it to another inquiry; his successor, Jim Callaghan, eventually decided on a policy of dispersal instead. Nevertheless Jenkins was condemned by prison reformers for giving way to demands for a tougher prison regime; he himself subsequently felt that he had tipped the balance too far towards security at the expense of rehabilitation. But it was a difficult time. Just before Christmas he faced another press and parliamentary storm when a gangster named Frank Mitchell, known as ‘the mad axeman’, was sprung from Dartmoor by his friends the Krays while on a loosely supervised outdoor working party; and there were several more well-publicised escapes over the holiday. ‘My nerve was a bit shaken,’ Jenkins admitted. ‘I ought to have been steadier under fire, but it is easier to say this in retrospect than it was to sustain it during the barrage of daily bombardment.’73 In fact he did quite a lot in 1966–7 to try to humanise the prison system – though, like every other Home Secretary for the next thirty years, he failed to end the primitive practice of ‘slopping out’. It is during his second tenure in 1974–6 that he can be criticised for not doing more.
As a member of the Cabinet, Jenkins was now more involved with economic policy than he had been at Aviation, though still outside the inner circle. The critical decision was whether to devalue the pound. Despite the £800 million deficit and heavy pressure in the money markets, Wilson had agreed with Callaghan and Brown, on the very first day after the 1964 election, before the rest of the Cabinet had even been appointed, that for a mixture of political and patriotic reasons the value of sterling must be preserved. On the one hand, Wilson remembered Stafford Cripps’ 1949 devaluation and did not want Labour to be cast again as the party of devaluation; on the other, the parity of sterling was held to be the symbol of Britain’s credit in the world. The decision was taken, and defended with stubborn resolution for three years, in defiance of most of the government’s economic advisers who saw it as a futile distraction of resources from the government’s real purposes and doomed to failure in the long run anyway. There was undoubtedly a political case for not devaluing straight away in 1964, when the government’s very survival was precarious. By 1966, however, when Labour had secured its landslide majority, there was none. Moreover the balance of the Cabinet had changed, with Tony Crosland, Barbara Castle and Tony Wedgwood Benn, as well as Jenkins, replacing some of the older loyalists whom Wilson had felt obliged to appoint in 1964. These four plus Crossman – the ‘intellectuals’ of right and left – all believed that what Wilson had declared ‘the unmentionable’ must not merely be discussed but should be accepted and got over with as quickly as possible if the government was ever to break free of recurrent financial crises which required repeated doses of painful deflation to appease the bankers. They were joined by George Brown, an increasingly loose cannon, who was disillusioned with Wilson, drinking too much and constantly on the verge of resignation. But Brown was a doubtful asset to the devaluationist camp, since left-wingers like Barbara Castle would not defeat Wilson to make him leader.
In mid-July 1966 sterling suddenly came under renewed pressure, due largely to the seamen’s strike. Even Callaghan began to think devaluation was inevitable, before he recovered his nerve to demand another package of spending cuts and tough deflationary measures, including a six-month wage freeze. In Cabinet the devaluers called for a complete change of strategy if the deflation was to be made to work. In turn Crossman, Jenkins (‘quietly but convincingly’), Benn and Castle argued that it was impossible to maintain full employment and a healthy balance of payments at the present parity. The Cabinet minutes do not name individual speakers, but the assertion that Britain must be prepared to ‘abandon a very substantial part of our oversea [sic] commitments’ expressed Jenkins’ long-held view. The counter-argument, led by Callaghan and supported by the Foreign Secretary Michael Stewart, was that devaluation would still have to be accompanied by deflation, would not necessarily help and would have incalculable international consequences. ‘One after another,’ Barbara Castle wrote, ‘the “do-nothing yet” brigade mowed us down.’74 Wilson was able to sum up that the majority was still against devaluation, though Brown insisted that his disagreement be specially recorded.75 When Crossman, Jenkins and Healey tried to argue that the Cabinet must discuss contingency plans in case it became unavoidable, Wilson re-imposed his ban on even uttering the dreaded word.76
So Wilson got his way for the moment; but the July crisi
s marked the postponement of all the government’s socialist aspirations – so resoundingly endorsed by the electorate less than four months earlier – and permanently damaged both his reputation and his self-confidence. From now on he began to see enemies everywhere. The failed Cabinet revolt fuelled his growing suspicion that the devaluationists had been plotting to replace him, though he contradicted himself about whether Brown, Callaghan or Jenkins was the intended beneficiary. In August his devoted political secretary Marcia Williams told Peter Shore (then a junior minister at the Ministry of Technology), who in turn told Tony Benn, that ‘the events of the last weeks have absolutely shaken Harold to the core. He is convinced that a plot was conceived to get rid of him . . . Roy Jenkins and his gang decided to get rid of George Brown and to make Callaghan no. 2, with a view to getting Roy in as No. 1.’ This was palpable nonsense, if only because Jenkins would never have plotted with Callaghan against Brown; but it reflected Wilson’s suspicion that Jenkins had a ‘gang’ ceaselessly pushing his cause. Benn, though he recognised that Jenkins ‘may well have his eye on Number 10 in the long run’, sensibly did not believe a word of it, realising that Wilson lived ‘in an atmosphere of intrigue, encouraged by George Wigg, who is a completely crazy adviser, Marcia who gets a bit hysterical, and Gerald Kaufman’.77
It seems to have been Wigg – a deeply unpleasant former army officer, Labour MP for Dudley since 1945 and now Paymaster-General and Wilson’s unofficial security adviser – who planted in his mind the idea that the ‘July plot’ had been hatched over the weekend of 16–17 July (when Wilson was away in Moscow) at Ann Fleming’s country house at Sevenhampton where Jenkins had again been staying. ‘If any of you knew your job,’ Wilson charged Barbara Castle in October, ‘you would find out who attended that weekend meeting at her place last July when I was in Moscow.’78 ‘Amazing scandal,’ Mrs Fleming wrote excitedly to Nicko Henderson when the story leaked. ‘It seems that Mr H. Wilson imagined or was wrongfully informed that the July weekend you spent here with old pals, I was entertaining Callaghan, Crossman (some say Crosland) and Jenkins, hatching a plot to uncrown Wilson and crown Callaghan.’79 The truth was much more mundane. No other Cabinet minister stayed at or visited Sevenhampton that weekend, though there is some dispute about who exactly was there. Jenkins’ memoirs, based on his engagement diary, record that only Mark and Leslie Bonham Carter stayed, though John Sparrow, the Warden of All Souls, and the philosopher Stuart Hampshire came to lunch on the Saturday, presumably with their wives. (He seems to have forgotten about Henderson.)80 To add to the confusion, Lord Goodman later claimed that he was there too (and told Wilson that ‘the principal occupations had been scrabble and croquet’).81 Whoever was present, Hampshire remembered it as ‘an entirely social occasion . . . There was no intrigue. It was light gossip which prevailed on that sort of occasion with that particular set.’82 In imagining anything else Wilson entirely misunderstood the nature of Ann Fleming’s weekends, which were strictly for relaxation, not high politics.fn10
This is not to say that there was not some serious politicking going on in Wilson’s absence. Over the weekend Jenkins spoke (by phone) to both Brown (who was at the Durham Miners’ Gala) and Callaghan (on his farm in Sussex); and on his return to London he had a drink with Crosland. But these conversations were all about trying to win support for devaluation before Tuesday’s Cabinet, not about replacing the Prime Minister. Admittedly if he had succeeded in persuading Callaghan to stick to his wobble, a joint front of the two senior economic ministers would have made Wilson’s position impossible; but changing the Prime Minister’s mind, not forcing him out, was the purpose of the exercise. Jenkins had no wish by now to see the increasingly erratic Brown as Prime Minister, and he was never a fan of Callaghan; while he himself, though beginning to be touted as a future leader, was not yet a credible challenger. After barely seven months he was enjoying the Home Office too much to wish to move on so soon. Fantastic though it was, Wilson’s unshakable belief in a ‘July plot’ illustrated the feverish paranoia now at the heart of the government.
One way Wilson tried to divide the devaluers was by telling Crossman and Barbara Castle that they had been ‘taken for a ride by the Europeans, who only want to devalue to get us in’ (to the Common Market).84 When Crossman tackled Jenkins directly about this, Jenkins admitted that the two issues were linked, though not inseparably:
I mean we will have to do something about sterling in order to enter Europe. This might mean devaluation; but in my view a floating pound gives a certain freedom of action, either to enter Europe or to do anything else, and what we are trying to do . . . is to regain freedom of action. If we go on as we are we remain prisoners of the situation and prisoners of our own weakness.85
Paradoxically, Wilson himself was just coming round to making a fresh attempt to join. The first hint of his shift, immediately after the 1966 election, was his appointment of George Thomson, a convinced pro-Marketeer, to be Minister for Europe (as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the office Ted Heath had held while negotiating for Macmillan in 1961–3). Then in August he switched Brown from the DEA – whose raison d’être had been destroyed by the July cuts – to the Foreign Office; and in November he devoted most of three Cabinets to discussing a new approach to Europe, at the end of which it was agreed – despite the profound suspicion of the anti-Marketeers – that there were ‘no insuperable obstacles’ to joining.86 In the New Year the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, in uncomfortable double harness, toured the capitals of the Six to demonstrate Britain’s renewed commitment and persuaded themselves that this time General de Gaulle would lift his veto. Five more Cabinets in March and April 1967 were devoted wholly or largely to the issue, as Wilson deviously manoeuvred his divided Cabinet towards agreeing to make an application. Again the minutes do not record individual contributions, but the various diarists – Crossman, Castle and Benn – suggest that Brown made most of the running. ‘Roy Jenkins never says much in Cabinet,’ Crossman wrote after one of the autumn meetings, ‘but he knew that we all regarded him as deeply committed and he didn’t see why he should say anything.’87 He was doubtless pleased that Wilson appeared to be converted to the cause, but did not believe another application had much chance of success so long as de Gaulle was President of France, so did not expend too much energy on supporting it. For the same reason the antis did not fight very hard against, since they confidently expected de Gaulle to do their work for them, as indeed he did. The whole application, in fact, was a bit of a charade. But when the Commons voted, after a three-day debate, by 488 votes to 62 to submit a formal application to join – actually a more definite approach than Macmillan’s, which was merely an exploration of possible terms – thirty-five Labour Members voted against and another fifty-one abstained: a clear warning that a substantial section of the party remained deeply opposed. (Likewise the party conference voted by only 2:1 to support the application.) When the General duly applied his second veto in November 1967, Wilson defiantly declared that Britain ‘would not take no for an answer’, and Brown successfully insisted that the government should leave its application ‘on the table’.88 This meant that when de Gaulle resigned in 1969 it had only to be picked up and dusted off and Labour went into the 1970 election still committed to negotiate, but this time with a real prospect of success.
Jenkins was now generally acknowledged as the Cabinet’s rising star: almost the only member of a floundering government who was steadily enhancing his reputation. But the tide of admiring profiles – the Guardian thought him the best Home Secretary of the century ‘and quite possibly the best since Peel’;89 Ian Trethowan in The Times called him ‘a superb debater, skilful in his deployment of argument, sensitive to the mood of the House, sometimes commanding in his use of language’;90 while the Sunday Times tipped ‘this clever, sophisticated, liberal-minded ambitious Welshman’ as Wilson’s likeliest successor – inevitably aroused the jealousy of his colleagues. ‘Jenkins’ rapidly emerging strength as a can
didate for eventual party leadership has . . . sparked off some curious psychological warfare by his rivals,’ the Sunday Times reported. There was no evidence at all that he had plotted against Wilson in July, ‘but plenty of evidence that a hostile Cabinet colleague had been spreading the story’.91 All three diarists clearly resented what they saw as Jenkins’ tireless self-promotion. Benn – even though he dismissed the Ann Fleming story – wrote in August 1966 that a New Statesman piece puffing ‘Labour’s Crown Prince’ ‘confirms my view that Roy is working hard with Bill Rodgers, Bernard Donoughue and the old Campaign for Democratic Socialism – Europe Group to take over the leadership of the party at some stage’.fn11 In the meantime ‘he obviously hopes to be made Chancellor of the Exchequer . . . in the autumn reshuffle’.92 A few days later Tony Crosland told Benn that he was ‘getting awfully sick of Cabinet Ministers telling the press what jobs they would like’ – the ‘main culprits’ being Callaghan (who was angling for the Foreign Office) and Jenkins, ‘who uses John Harris and Roy Hattersley . . . as his agents in dealing with the press’.93 Irritated by all the inspired speculation, Crosland demanded of his PPS, Christopher Price: ‘Why the fuck don’t I ever read about Crosland for PM; what the hell are you doing about it?’94 And when Crossman suggested to Crosland, the following summer, that he should warn Jenkins, as his oldest friend, that Harris’ activities were damaging him, Crosland replied that he entirely agreed but unfortunately could not help, because ‘he and I have ceased to know each other at all intimately . . . I think he is behaving in a very funny and remote and ambitious way.’ Crossman concluded that ‘Tony is completely on his own and Roy is running his drive for power completely on his own.’95
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