by Tom Black
But in spite of everything, when Roy had finally acquiesced to Barnett’s pleas and arrived in Huyton, the beleaguered (and recently-elected) CLP Chair had informed him that – incredibly – the core vote actually seemed to be holding up. Labour being riddled with traitors or not, many members of the electorate seemed to be even more unhappy with the idea of voting for a Tory party which was currently propping up a military dictator.
The car turned onto Tarbock Road, and Roy waved back to a group of red-rosetted canvassers who seemed to be getting a decent reception from the local fish-and-chip shop owner. As a small and apparently receptive crowd began to gather around them, Jenkins wondered if Labour weren’t ‘literally fucked’ after all.
With a satisfying ‘ping’, Margaret Thatcher’s typewriter performed a smooth carriage return. After a perfunctory glance at her notes, the former Prime Minister continued to tap contentedly away at the keys.
“Tea?” called Denis from the kitchen. Margaret politely declined, without taking her eyes off the page. This was a matter that required her utmost attention. The slightest ambiguity in her wording could have dire consequences for herself, the government and the realm. After a deep breath, she read aloud what she had written so far.
“Once again, the figures of yesteryear, so intent on hamstringing the government of Lord Mountbatten, have attempted to ‘get me out of the picture’. By offering me the sinecure of High Commissioner to Canada, Yesterday’s Men have unwittingly revealed their true intentions. I can assure you, my readers, that this lady is not for deserting.”
“Sounds a bit grandiose, dear,” said Denis, settling into his armchair. Margaret did not respond. The readers of the Daily Mail deserved to know the truth, and if rhetorical punch was what it took to get that across, then rhetorical punch it would be.
Margaret had been surprised when Vere Harmsworth asked to meet with her, and doubly so when he offered her the weekly column. It had taken her a good three or four days to decide whether she would agree, but it was actually a ‘polite’ telephone call from Willie offering her a seat on the Royal Commission on Industrial Relations that tipped her over the edge. Since Advent Sunday, Margaret Thatcher had found herself an unlikely thorn in the side of the establishment. When it became clear that the government’s response to the Remembrance Day bombing was to be rather more meek than Margaret and the rest of Right-Thinking Britain expected, she had been quick to condemn the cabinet (but, carefully, not Lord Louis himself) for ‘mealy-mouthed cowardice in the face of the enemy’.
As the deck was shuffled on an apparently daily basis in the Kremlin, it had been ‘Margaret Thatcher: the voice of Middle England’ who had demanded a ‘pressing of the advantage’ in international diplomacy. The socialists in Moscow, so guilty of skullduggery and humiliation of England’s green and pleasant land, had to be brought to heel through a consummate show of strength from Britain and her allies across the Atlantic. When Home returned from Copenhagen with the status quo intact, this had not been enough. This was the time for brinksmanship, with lashings of poker-faced ultimata.
Uncharitable readers of the Mail had sent letters to the paper suggesting that Margaret was now calling for what she apparently wished she had done when in Number 10 herself. Margaret, thick-skinned as ever, had brushed away such implications and, as always, got on with the task at hand. As she had outlined in her final column before the Christmas break, the Soviets must be made to guarantee no propagandistic capital would come from the Wilson affair. With the Politburo in alleged disarray (the LSE’s finest Kremlinologists had been giving themselves headaches throughout November and December, though a consensus was beginning to emerge), now was the time to strike. The Communists might have scored a ‘win’, but they had apparently torn themselves apart at the moment of victory. What better opportunity would there be to even the score?
The exact details of how the score could be ‘evened’ were left by Margaret for others to determine. She was well aware that Gromyko might quite happily shake hands on a ‘Treaty of Honesty’ with his fingers crossed behind his back. During her all-too short time in Number 10 she had made wild inquiries one night as to whether Mr Gierek or General Secretary Zhivkov were, in fact, agents of British intelligence. Like her request to know whether MI6 ‘had anyone in the Politburo’, these questions had not received encouraging answers. A like-for-like exposure was, most likely, out of the question. On balance, it was perhaps unfair to imply that the government ought to do ‘what it could’ to ensure that one took place.
But, as Margaret had learned over time and now took great pleasure in, leaving behind the power of office freed one from its responsibilities. It was not for the humble columnist, ‘the woman who says what Britain is thinking’, to dictate policy to the ministers of state.
“But it is certainly my business to tell them what they are doing wrong,” she muttered to herself as Denis switched on the television.
A few days into the new year, Margaret had received a telephone call from Geoffrey Howe. Poor Geoffrey, who had not yet been laid into in the Mail, had evidently been asked to soften her up on behalf of the people who had. Margaret smiled now as her tapping away increased in pace, and recalled how he’d asked ever so sweetly that she ‘go a little easier’ on ‘the good people trying to do the right thing for the country’. Nonsense, she had told him. The actions of Lord Mountbatten’s ministers had been limp-wristed in the face of violence and humiliation from two of Britain’s oldest enemies – Irish Republicans (be they Marxist, Maoist or, the newest strand, ‘Orthodox Connollyite’) and Russia. A conference in Denmark and a few more troops on the ground in Belfast would not do it. If the British security services had proved themselves so excellent at tracking down Wilson, she had asked Howe, why were they not currently finding the ringleaders of the ongoing ‘Mainland Campaign’ and putting them on trial?
Geoffrey’s response had been typically wet. It was all ‘but Du Cann this’ and ‘Reginald that’. The one thing Margaret could not abide was when he began to tell her blatant untruths about Lord Mountbatten’s opinion of the situation. She would not – could not – believe that the hero of the Kelly was himself advocating a ‘soft touch’. It was she, lest it be forgotten, who put him in charge in the first place!
No, the blame lay squarely with those who were moderating Mountbatten’s instincts, which were obviously to take firm action. Eventually, Margaret had asked when Willie would show some backbone and threaten her with suspension from the party. She knew, she’d said, that she had not broken any rules – and she had certainly had time to read the rulebook recently – but wished to know whether Yesterday’s Men were going to forego actual procedure and punish her for doing what was right. They seemed so fond of doing so, after all.
The call had then ended rather abruptly, with Geoffrey apparently retreating with a bruised ear. Margaret shook her head as she thought back to it. To think she’d seen such promise in him once! As Denis shouted obscenities at BBC footage of Roy Jenkins, Margaret smiled to herself and began her final paragraph. This Saturday’s column might be her most excoriating yet.
Ted Heath was not a nocturnal creature. In a literal sense, he was not an owl, but in a more metaphorical one he did not deal well with late nights. A few hundred too many between 1970 and 1974 seemed to have taken their toll, a fact which became obvious as a casual glance at his watch became a monumental yawn. It was just after two-thirty, and after what seemed like an age of unencouraging pile-watching (thankfully no recounts were on the cards) the candidates and returning officer had taken to the stage. Ted had a somewhat firmly-held objection to being sent out to a by-election count. To ‘doorstep’ with the candidate struck him as vulgar, and almost impossibly self-defeating in the constituency of his greatest rival (whatever may have happened to said rival’s reputation recently).
But ‘doorstep’ he had, and received enough four-letter farewells to last a lifetime. Now, he was not to return to London until the result was in, as the Conserv
ative Party had to be seen to be ‘taking democracy seriously’ at present. Ted sardonically wondered why. But as the short, plump man with a blotchy face introduced himself as the acting returning officer for the Huyton constituency, Ted supposed he ought to listen to what was coming next.
“Colonel Philip Arthur, Powellite Conservative...”
A smatter of cheers, followed by stony silence. Colonel Arthur bristled.
“Two thousand, two hundred and fifty-one.”
Ted’s jaw dropped. That was unheard of – and Enoch hadn’t dignified this chump with any kind of endorsement. If those votes had come from people who ought to have voted Tory…
“William George Boaks (commonly known as ‘Bill’ Boaks), Public Safety Democratic Patriotic Monarchist...”
Of course, thought Ted, you couldn’t really have an election without the old eccentric.
“Eighty seven.”
Not a bad performance, considering. The whispering had already begun to die down as eyes turned to the Director of the Child Poverty Action Group.
“Mr Frank Field, Labour Party…”
As Ted’s mind was denied the chance to wander further, there was what could only be described as an outburst from some sectors of the hall. Words that sounded like ‘communist’, ‘Trotskyite’, ‘tankie’ and good old, dependable ‘fascist’ filled the air. Others, many wearing red rosettes, responded with loud hushes and cries of ‘thugs!’. From what Ted could see, however, those agitated were far from jackbooted brutes. The usual suspects, with their shaven heads and ill-fitting shirts, were certainly among them. But many of those accusing Mr Field of loyalty to the Kremlin were well-dressed, and some were wearing blue or yellow rosettes. The returning officer regained control of the room and the tumult subsided. Ted supposed even the NF wanted to hear how much Field had won by.
“Mr Frank Field,” repeated the returning officer, “Labour Party, fourteen thousand, four hundred and seventy-four.”
That was about in line with what Ted had been told by the Tories’ pile-watchers when he arrived. Given what they also told him about the Conservative piles, the last glimmer of hope for an upset vanished from his mind.
“Mr Stephen Hill, Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist)...”
Always good to hear from the Maoists, thought Ted drily. His amusement turned to concern when it turned out Tongzhi Hill had got more than five hundred votes. Perhaps a Long March from Liverpool to Inverness would be forthcoming?
“Mr Sean Hughes, British Labour Party, one thousand, two hundred and eighteen.”
So Wilson’s old constituency chair had failed in his gamble. Aligning oneself with Reg Prentice was not a choice one took lightly, Heath imagined. Rumour had it the snub from the Labour new guard had hit the CLP hard, and Hughes was to be their champion. Now, it seemed, he was to be their footnote. Ted snapped back to reality as he heard a name he recognised.
“...Lamont, Conservative and Unionist Party, nine thousand, eight hundred and forty-nine…”
Ted joined in the cheers, but the applause did not go on for as long as it should have done.
“Mr Ian Smith, Liberal Party…”
“No relation,” muttered Ted.
“Six thousand, two hundred and thirty-two.”
Not bad for the Liberals, Ted thought, as the returning officer breezed through John Kingsley Read’s nine hundred-odd votes for the National Front, and Frank Field was ‘hereby declared’ the new MP for Huyton. Spying Jenkins on the other side of the room, Ted decided to make his way over.
Roy looked triumphant. Why not? Walsall North had not gone the way the Labour leader has presumably hoped, but here in the seat they had to hold to remain remotely credible, Jenkins’ chaps had clung on. Ted smiled – genuinely, as Roy was one of the few people he’d known at university that he could still stand talking to – and held out his hand.
“Congratulations, Roy, to you and Mr Field.”
“Thank you,” Roy said with a beaming smile, “I look forward to offering my congratulations to Mr Hodgson.”
“The House has gained two fine new members tonight,” said Ted. As he shook hands with Jenkins, he realised that for a few moments, it had all seemed normal. The fact that two months ago, the Prime Minister had absconded in the middle of the night with treason in his heart appeared to be forgotten. Ted and Roy were just two men shaking hands at a by-election. While that itself was irregular – they were much too senior to be present at the result under normal circumstances – the whole thing made Ted think that, perhaps, democracy might just be all right.
It also made Ted think back to the night of the EEC referendum. Goodness, was it really less than a year ago? Roy, Ted, and Jeremy Thorpe had got on like a house on fire after sharing a platform for so long. The press had ‘liked’ the image so much that the BBC’s chief interviewer had wondered aloud whether they were the faces of a new ‘moderate force’ in British politics. As Roy smiled and walked away to shake hands with a few more well-wishers, Ted wondered, as he had then, if Robin Day had been onto something.
Chapter twenty-two
Saturday 20th March 1976 – 8:30am
Harold Wilson had developed a number of games one could play with oneself while one’s head was in a bag. His favourite – how many times could one get through a hummed chorus of Katyusha before the bag was removed – had lost its appeal today, however. He contented himself with his own thoughts.
Months of daily questioning (but only occasional threats of torture, these days) had grown tiring, but had not yet worn Harold down. Over time, he had begun to notice a pattern in the questions he wasn’t answering. It was becoming clear that the establishment really didn’t have much of a case against him.
The Espionage Act meant a summary execution would have awaited him if Britain were at war with the USSR – a fact he had taken great pains to find out as soon as he entered Parliament. Thankfully, no such conflict had come to pass, and so a ‘fair trial’ had to be arranged. He knew that at some point they’d even have to offer him a solicitor. This had not yet come to pass, and as far as he knew (which was not very far at all), there were few, if any, calling for his treatment like any other suspect. With tanks on Whitehall and an Admiral in Downing Street, he supposed the public had gotten used to flagrant breaches of habeas corpus. Besides, the press appeared to be circulating the official line that he’d been caught red-handed – though this may have simply been out of a desire for punning headlines.
All they needed was a simple confession, a slip-up, the slightest acknowledgment that any one of their accusations and implications was accurate. That would be enough, as far as they were concerned, to fling him into the dock.
But he hadn’t caved in. At times, he asked himself why – the Soviets did not exactly command his absolute loyalty after their stunt with Crabb. Harold supposed the possibility of meeting the hangman’s noose made him wary of giving himself up. More to the point, his newfound distaste for the Soviets had not dampened his loathing of the British establishment one bit.
Serendipitously, the British establishment chose that moment to thrust him down and into his usual chair, and remove the bag. All in all, a relatively usual day, aside from the slightly longer walk—
He was not in his usual chair. In fact, the decrepit metal thing was nowhere to be seen. More to the point, he was very obviously in a different room. This was a pleasant, indeed luxurious, office. There was a carved oak table in the middle of it, on which stood a jug of water and an array of spirits. Light shone in from tall, curtained windows. The whole place had the air of a Whitehall office, or – as Harold reasoned – a managing director’s office. The luxury unnerved the former Prime Minister. Perhaps months in a cell had taken their toll. Gold-leafed fireplaces and French-looking mirrors seemed to be losing their charm. Then, Harold realised what it was that was bothering him the most. He was alone.
As soon as he had he processed the absence of anyone else from the room, the situation changed. An elderly m
an, proudly fighting a stoop and impeccably dressed in a three-piece just the right side of flamboyant, entered.
“Harold!” he beamed from the doorway.
“Hello, Tom.”
Driberg ambled across the room, practically breaking into a strut.
“Now, Harold,” he said in a sing-song voice, “I understand you’ve been very naughty indeed.”
“That’s what they tell me.”
“Why ever did you do it?” Driberg’s brow was unconvincingly furrowed.
“Do what?” Harold replied sharply. Driberg frowned for a moment.
“You know what, Harold.”
“If you’re trying to get me to admit to anything, Tom, you’ll leave here empty-handed.”
Driberg did not reply. Instead, he stopped pacing and pulled out the chair on the other side of the table. Sitting down opposite Harold, he produced a small, but recognisable box. Harold suppressed a flash of longing.
“Let’s start again,” he said brightly, “perhaps over a cigar?”
Harold said nothing. Driberg cocked his head to one side.
“Don’t worry,” Driberg smirked, “they’re not poisoned. Who do you think you are? Castro?” With a belly laugh, he removed a cigar and a chopper from the box. He took a long, theatrical sniff.
“Excellent quality, or so I’m told. Not poisonous, either. Well, no more than usual.”
Harold stared at the cleanly-cut roll of tobacco now tantalisingly close to his face. It had been a long time since he’d last enjoyed one. In fact, he hadn’t smoked anything better than a Woodbine since -
“Buster Crabb,” said Driberg. Harold looked at him quizzically. What? How could he -
“His body washed up in Great Yarmouth last month. Well, they think it’s him. Mind you, they thought it was him last time!” Another belly laugh. Another poignant silence.