by Tom Black
Mandelson had no such suicidal tendency for self-publicity. Regaining full control of his senses, he turned and ran as fast as he could. He was already thinking.
In contrast to the excitement that had rapidly enveloped Horse Guard’s Parade, Lord Mountbatten was stifling a yawn.
“...following the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths...” came the soulless commentary provided by Radio 4, “...we are pleased to welcome the young men of the Plymouth Sea Cadets!”
The First Lord of the Treasury found himself joining in the half-hearted clapping and glared over at Sir Michael Hanley – who was trying to achieve a very difficult challenge and look small. Not for the first time that day, Mountbatten wondered why he had been talked into green-lighting the idea. The crowds were a third of what had been expected, the promised sun had failed to materialise and worst of all, he’d had to endure ten minutes of a furious Walter Walker, who had demanded to know why Civil Assistance had not been invited to participate in the march, and didn’t he know that the Guildhall was a Communist Front organisation?
To Mountbatten’s surprise the only person who did not look bored out of her skull was Her Majesty, who actually seemed to enjoy being seen in public again. Pelican had suggested to Kestrel several days ago that her presence at the – frankly Bolshevik – show of arms would be inadvisable, but he had been quickly silenced at the last meeting by a furious stare that had probably last been seen in the eyes of the first Elizabeth.
“I will go, Dickie,” she had said, “because I do have a duty of care to this country that, frankly, I feel I have neglected as of late.”
She had probably been right, Mountbatten conceded, and her arrival had been accompanied by the first genuine cheer of the day.
“...and right behind them, ladies and gentlemen,” the voice on the other end of the public address system had said, “come the Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors!”
Mountbatten looked down at the programme. Ah, yes, he mused, all the Livery Companies had been invited; the butchers, the bakers and – ah – both sets of candlestick makers.
Mountbatten let his eyes glaze over slightly, half-wondering if it would be socially acceptable to use the hip flask he had filled with Talisker that morning. He noted the first of the Scout troops wander past and suppressed a smile. Oh, how a host of pre-pubescent teenagers would strike terror into the hearts of a Soviet advance guard!
Hang on, he thought, the Scouts weren’t meant to be next. He looked back at the running order. Where were the tanks?
The catcalls from the far end of Trafalgar Square had turned to screams.
Ah, he realised with a sense of predictability, they were there.
Paddy Ashdown was, for the third day in a row, walking the streets of Great Yarmouth. Hastily cobbled-together ‘wanted’ posters had been intended to make his and his officers’ work easier, but had only led to hysteria and an inundation of telephone calls to the police whenever someone overheard a sneeze that sounded like a Yorkshire accent. Local left wing academics had been rounded up and interrogated – they weren’t going to have another Brimley on their hands – but those who had not already been taken in by the police for membership of ‘subversive organisations’ (including, bizarrely, The New New Left Book Club) had all stood proudly in handcuffs while uniformed officers ransacked their homes and found nothing. Priest holes not being overly common in seaside terraces, that line of enquiry had been forced to come to an end on Friday night.
There was always the possibility that Wilson had already made his escape. However, until he was crowing from the balcony in Red Square, the Services were to assume he was at large and still scurrying about Her Majesty’s Sceptred Isle.
Strolling through the busy high street, Paddy put from his mind the troubling thought that he might have been completely wrong in his guess on Wednesday evening. Something – a hunch, nothing more – told him he wasn’t. His eyes darted from face to face. Fipps and the rest of his motley crew were doing the same. To have his SBS team back under his command! Imagine that. A concerted sweep, a will of iron, an unbreakable net… He sighed at the thought, balling his hands into fists.
Something caught his eye about a tramp walking towards him, a sack under his arm. He was wearing a large hat, with a brim that almost covered his eyes, and his jaw was adorned with the beginnings of a scraggly beard. As the tramp adjusted the hat, Paddy caught a proper glimpse of the man’s eyes. Paddy stopped in the middle of the street.
No.
No, it couldn’t be.
But it could.
Paddy took a step forward, the tramp now only ten feet away from him. He would just walk over, ask to speak to the man and that would be that.
“Excuse me—” he began, but had barely raised his hand before Fipps barreled into him.
“Sir!” the policeman said breathlessly, “have you heard what’s happening?”
Paddy regained his balance and glanced furiously over Fipps’ shoulder. The tramp had changed course, and was now moving towards an alleyway next to a Chinese restaurant.
“Sir!” Fipps grabbed Paddy’s arm as he tried to brush him away, “sir, I really think we should find a wireless, or at least a telephone!”
Paddy turned his head to face Fipps, still intending to follow the tramp.
“What are you on about, man?”
“There’s tanks on the streets, sir. In London.”
Paddy snarled.
“There’s a military parade today, you imbecile.”
“No, they broke away from the parade, sir. Drove straight through a protest camp. That’s what they say. Jim’s mate in the Met just rang him. Mountbatten’s gone barmy!”
Paddy stared at Fipps, and suddenly became aware that people elsewhere in the street were shouting, and that radios were being perched on windowsills and garden walls, allowing passers-by to gather and anxiously listen in. Forgetting all talk of tramps, alleyways and Chinese restaurants, Paddy pointed towards the pub where Operational HQ had been established, and ordered Fipps to follow him.
A little light rain had come in during the afternoon – leaving the remnants of the ‘Peace Camp’ shivering around the fringes of Horse Guard’s Parade. In the midst of the huddle, John Cole was quite aware of how out of place he looked – his trenchcoat standing out against a backdrop of leather jackets and college hats. It was only at the behest of his producer that he was still here at all – he thought, grumbling to himself. Under most usual circumstances – the afternoon’s reporting would have been more than enough for a BAFTA. As it was, he would be lucky to be mentioned in the “Review of the Year” when the Academy finally decided who was most deserving from the foreign correspondents.
“Him, I think,” he said, pointing at someone wearing a Saint Cat’s scarf. “he looks the least rambunctious.”
Peter Mandelson – who had been mentally flicking through the timetables for Paddington and wondering if any cafes were still open – found himself being dragged before a television camera and an irate BBC editor.
“Just nod and look contrite,” Cole hissed in his ear, “and we can both get home.”
Contrition was not an emotion that Peter Mandelson did well at the best of times, especially when he was being told to do it.
“...joined now by one of the ringleaders of this afternoon’s demonstration…” Cole was saying. This seemed especially unfair, Mandelson thought to himself. Even ‘Human Cannonball’ would have been pushing the seniority of his role in the NUS Circus. He looked back at Cole, frowning slightly.
Cole was looking at him. He had obviously missed the first question and spent a good five seconds looking like a goldfish in front of the nation.
“Could you repeat the question?”
The journalist rolled his eyes, but repeated the statement, which was something about “students causing mayhem by reckless and untoward standing around.”
Mandelson thought he might as well go for it.
“Mr Cole,” he began, more polite
ly that he felt was warranted, “I would like to begin by saying…”
The journalist had already started again – this time insinuating that Mandelson was the sort of person who wanted to collectivise the entirety of agriculture and send everyone in the capital to go and live in labour camps in deepest Powys.
“Mr Cole,” he said, with a voice that would soon be familiar to everyone who was watching the BBC, “You will know, as well as I, that we have seen tanks on the streets of the United Kingdom today.”
At the other end of London, an editor swore.
“Tanks,” Mandelson was now ignoring John Cole entirely and speaking directly into the camera, “that were sent out by a government that no-one has voted for, to apparently show strength and legitimacy.”
Cole made an effort to interrupt, but found himself unable to do so.
“Tanks,” Mandelson continued, “that have now resulted in chaos on the streets of the capital and endangered the lives of innocent civilians who are guilty of nothing more than concern for the direction that our nation is apparently destined to travel down. We are a nation threatened – I will freely admit, by State Capitalists in Moscow and Leningrad – but also by an unelected Admiral and his cabal of unaccountable Ministers in the Lords.”
That was a little unfair on Quentin Hogg, Cole thought to himself, but allowed the student to continue to pontificate.
“We are British,” Mandelson continued, “and whilst we may not be proud of everything that this country has done in the name of ‘democracy,’ I think that freedom from military coup should be one of them.”
Regardless of how many times that government ministers would insist – quite rightly – that eight tanks going down the wrong street did not amount to a very effecting seizure of power, it was a line that certainly had the ability to resonate with the popular imagination. Cole decided to step in.
“I don’t think a coup is a helpful frame for today’s traffic mishap—”
But Mandelson was now enjoying himself. He interrupted.
“Perhaps you don’t – but the people have a right to make that decision for themselves. Your cameras must have caught all of today’s events, including the deployment of armoured vehicles against a peaceful protest—”
“That’s not—”
“But why won’t you show it? The footage has not been aired on any channel, much less the BBC,” Mandelson continued, thinking very rapidly indeed. With a moment’s consideration to decide whether he really was going to do what he had now decided to do, he turned past Cole and looked directly into the camera again.
“The BBC will not show you what happened this afternoon,” he said, as Cole frantically looked over his shoulder and saw, incredibly, that his producer was not only gesturing that they were still live, but also that he had no intention of taking the camera off Mandelson. The student was still talking.
“- a free press, and the free distribution of information. What are our leaders afraid of? That we will see that they have now explicitly made use of the language of force? The BBC must decide whether it is a state broadcaster or a public broadcaster – the latter would show the Great British Public what occurred here today. The former would cover it up.”
“Look,” Cole half-bellowed, finally succeeding in interrupting the student, “there is no question of a cover-up here, and you are mischaracterising what went on—”
Mandelson remained fixed on the lens.
“Then let people see it for themselves!” he cried, now furiously gesturing with his arms, “if you’re watching this right now, contact the BBC immediately. You pay a license fee. Demand to see what the whole world wants to see – the facts of what really occurred this afternoon! Call them now!”
Cole finally realised there was only one thing to do. Placing himself in the centre of the frame, he gave a hurried ‘John Cole, BBC News, in Westminster’ and only moved out of the way when his producer admitted they were ‘out’. With a snarl, Cole turned back around.
“I don’t know why you thought that was a sensible idea—” he began, but Peter Mandelson was nowhere to be found. No, he was already quite some distance away, and on his way to the nearest common room with a television in it.
Chapter seventeen
Saturday 15th November 1975 – 5:20pm
Although the BBC had become rather more establishment since becoming the primary conduit for the Ministry for Information – and although Sir Charles Curran was only slightly less predisposed to Harold Wilson than Peter Wright had been – it had been a difficult meeting between the Director-General and Robert Carr.
“Look,” the former Home Secretary explained, “I don’t like it any more than you do, Charles, but we really cannot have pictures like this sent to the wider world – just imagine the outcome in Northern Ireland. Chaos – perhaps even fatally so.”
Sir Charles had said nothing.
“Director-General,” Carr had said as he had left, “don’t think of this as censorship – you will be able to have full editorial control as soon as the present crisis is over – Lord Mountbatten made that very clear.”
It had been all said with such sincerity that it had made the obvious lie all the more bothersome.
As it was, unofficial D-Notice or not, the telephones had not stopped ringing since the young man in Horse Guard’s had made the brief transformation from PPE student to harbinger of civic revolution.
The Director-General was standing in front of a bank of monitors, flanked by a flunky from the Ministry and facing a sweaty, furious Controller of BBC1.
“I am not asking you to—”
“Fuck you, Sir Charles.”
“There is no need to use—”
“Fuck you, Sir Charles.”
Even the more technically-minded members of staff were aware that Bryan Cowgill was annoyed by something. The Director-General made one final attempt to put his own editorial stance across, but was quickly silenced by a raised hand.
“I don’t care what MI5 or anyone else has said to you,” Cowgill said, lowering his faux-punch, “but we have standards to follow here. Standards that, may, just may, get up Downing Street’s nose. You have to remember something, Sir Charles, we are here to speak truth to power – and power doesn’t always like the truth.”
Sir Charles Curran looked at the monitor. A billion miles away, Tom Baker was fighting with a scientist in a temple.
“What are you showing at the moment?” he said to one of the technicians, who had been making a superb attempt at feigning deafness.
“Doctor Who, Sir Charles,” he replied, “it’s – er – the final episode of The Pyramids of Mars.”
Sir Charles stared. He’d got this job as an uncontroversial choice, he knew that. Everyone knew it. But appeasing Mrs Whitehouse and her merry band of puritans was one thing – wilful withholding of problematic (to put it mildly) images from the news-watching public was another thing altogether. Cowgill stepped forward, as if readying himself to deliver a final, impassioned speech. Sir Charles caught his eye and raised a hand.
“You know what?” the Director-General said, “play the damn thing – we’re not bloody Chile.”
Chilliness was very much on Harold Wilson’s mind as he surveyed his makeshift shelter. He was sandwiched in a draughty, unloved alleyway between a bookies and a Cantonese restaurant. Although this was not his first time sleeping out in the open, it had still been a rather miserable learning process, adapting to the joys of wet cardboard being used for bedding. It took him back – once again – to the forfeit system that he had occasionally had to endure at the Jesus JCR.
He’d had a good haul this afternoon. The docks had plenty of unattended locker rooms which an unassuming vagrant like himself could nip in and out of to obtain this or that. He was particularly pleased with the shiny tin bowl he’d managed to clandestinely scoop up. It would make a good shaving basin.
He patted the pockets of his increasingly filthy Gannex, looking for his box of cigars. A triumphant dis
covery soon turned into a moan of disappointment – there was only one left, and it seemed bad form to waste it now, stuck in the streets of East Anglia’s most miserable seaside resort.
Sighing, he felt for his pipe. As he lit it (with some difficulty, as the dampness had even permeated as far as his tobacco) he recalled how successful the object had been for drawing people around him. How well it had given off the impression of Proletarian respectability. How loyally it had served him whilst on the campaign trail.
It had been Moscow when he had first learned the trick, way back when he had been Clem’s Minister for Overseas Trade. He smiled to himself, yet again, at how unwilling the press had been to make something of it. Even The Spectator had not made much of his visits to Leningrad and Kirov – it was all important for commerce and national recovery. Yet it had been his one and only visit to the Kremlin that had given it to him. As a chill wind forced him to wrap his blankets around himself, he thought back to the time he’d known true cold – May 1947...
“Come!” the Commissaire had said.
The Commissaire was really more of a Commissionaire, Harold Wilson had thought to himself. He was seemingly tasked with nothing more serious than being a messenger boy.
The unmarked car had deposited him in a courtyard, dropping the three men just outside the Cathedral of the Dormition. Even in the twilight, it looked shabby. The gold leaf was peeling from the five domes, showing nothing more Holy than off-white stucco beneath.
“I said ‘Come!” the Commissaire yelled – this time proffering a Tokarev from his greatcoat. This time Wilson did follow, already wondering if he was about to become the reason for another by-election.
The third man – some attaché from the Embassy – followed behind at a discreet distance. The small party walked through the courtyard, the darkening sky casting vast shadows around the open ground. Although it was already May, the entire visit had been accompanied by gloom and a prevailing, miserable wind from the Urals. Wilson, a man more used to drafts coming down from the Pennines, was grateful when the party reached the central complex.