by Tom Black
“We certainly do, but their stars are on the wane, either through age or because they tied themselves too closely to Mrs Thatcher’s mast.”
“I still don’t know if I can endorse your suggestion – some of my best friends are on the Frontbench.”
“If you care about the Union as much as you insist, James, you would put petty matters of friendship below the Constitutional settlement.”
Molyneaux was silent.
“Otherwise,” Powell concluded, “we shall fall with them, and it will be the Republicans on one side, the Good Reverend on the other, and we will be off-stage during the final Act of national disintegration.”
The Leader of the Ulster Unionist Party in the House of Commons remained quiet. As the landlord tapped his watch, he made up his mind.
“I will not allow us to be shackled to a corpse, if that is how things look to be going.”
Powell looked triumphant.
There was a loud hum of an electrical buzzer as the heavy metal door was hauled open. Harold Wilson looked up from his copy of War and Revolution – the Governor had been merciful – and wondered who would come through it.
“Your solicitor,” a warden said, appearing in the doorway.
“Oh,” said Harold absently, “if I’d known I’d have dressed up.” He had a point, even if he was joking. Shirtsleeves and five o’clock shadow were not a smart look for the former Prime Minister.
The warden did not smile, but turned on his heel and left. Screws were, thankfully, not allowed to be present during legal briefings. Harold had been surprised by just how much habeas corpus he was getting these days.
“Good evening, Mr Wilson,” said Michael Mansfield as the door closed behind him.
“Michael,” Wilson nodded, closing the battered copy of Ulyanov’s seminal work, whose stamp indicated it had been brought over from Wandsworth Library. Mansfield remained standing.
“They really are giving you the ‘last man in Spandau’ treatment, aren’t they?” he said brightly.
“I do hope you’re not comparing me with Rudolf Hess.”
Harold’s solicitor gave a professional smile, one he’d perfected over the years. Mansfield had been loudly protesting the ‘obvious and outrageous stitch-up’ being carried out by the authorities ‘against Mr Wilson, doubtless with the intention of destabilising relations with the Eastern Bloc’.
When Wilson had finally been allowed to request legal assistance, he had initially been unsure of his options. The family brief had been understandably reluctant to take the job, and most of the lawyers he’d worked with over the years were in some way connected with the Labour Party and, therefore, were not returning his calls. He had received excited letters from Mansfield, who despite his relative youth had an impressive slew of anti-establishment cases under his belt. The fact he seemed to steadfastly believe that Harold was innocent was the clincher. It would also come in very handy, if everything went to plan.
“You know they searched my bloody briefcase?” Mansfield said with an indignant chortle, pulling out a chair opposite Harold and loosening his tie.
“Why did they do that?”
“I wasn’t allowed to take in any fountain pens. ‘Sharp points’, apparently!”
Harold unconsciously crossed his legs, ironically drawing attention to the laceless plimsolls he was trying to hide.
“They’ve had me under constant watch for a while,” he said quietly, “don’t want me to ‘pull a Göring’.”
Mansfield hesitated. Since their first meeting two weeks earlier, Harold had noticed he was treading on eggshells around him. He cleared his throat and sat up straight, trying to put the young man at ease.
“Shall we get on with it?” he asked, “the trial won’t wait forever.”
Mansfield gave a nervous smile.
“Absolutely. Yes. Let’s crack on,” he reached into his case and retrieved a notebook, “we were going over your history.”
“Ah yes,” began Harold, “where were we?”
“We’d just been through the war. I understand they’ve got a lot of trumped-up nonsense about missing files from the Home Department, but I’m fairly sure that won’t be admissible. All you have to do—”
“All I have to do,” Harold cut in with an easy smile, “is tell the truth: that I have had no ulterior motive in any of my political or private activities over the years, and since 1945, I have had no higher authority to whom I owe allegiance than the electorate of Huyton.”
Mansfield clapped his hands together.
“Marvellous! Marvellous. That’s the kind of thing you need to be able to come up with on the spot. They’ll rake you over the… hold on. You said Huyton…” Mansfield began flipping through his notebook.
“What?” said Harold, puzzled.
“You weren’t elected to Huyton until 1950,” said Mansfield, not looking up, “what was your first constituency called?”
“Oh, yes. Of course. The boundary changes changed the name. It was—”
Harold stopped. Mansfield put down the notebook and looked at Wilson. A hint of concern crossed his face.
“Mr Wilson?”
Harold frowned. What was it?
“It was…”
“If you can’t remember, Mr Wilson, that’s—”
“I can remember.” Harold hissed suddenly, then relaxed again, all in the space of a moment. Come on, he knew this. Until 1950, he was the Member for… Nothing. Like coming back to where you parked your car and finding an empty space.
“I’m sure I can look it up,” Michael was saying, very gently. Harold looked him in the eye.
“I do know it, Michael. I do. That’s what’s so damned irritating,” he said truthfully.
“I can only imagine.”
“Anyway,” Harold said forcefully, “what’s next?”
Mansfield scanned his papers.
“We were going to talk about your trips to the Soviet Union.”
“Oh, yes. Remind me, what is it they’ve been claiming about me? That I was having baths with Marshal Stalin, no doubt!” Harold chuckled. A fair few column inches had been expended on only slightly less absurd assertions.
“Not quite,” his solicitor replied, “though they are likely going to make much of the periods in which you were unaccounted for. There’s a reference to a trade delegation to Moscow in 1947…”
“Ah, yes. The Soviet Union,” said Harold whimsically, “what have they been saying about me lately? Probably that I’ve been having baths with Marshal Stalin…”
Harold laughed again, but stopped as he recognised a look on Mansfield’s face.
“What is it?” he asked, dreading the answer.
“It’s nothing, Mr Wilson. It’s just…”
“...I said that already, didn’t I?”
“You did, yes.”
Damn. Come on.
“I’m sorry.”
“You needn’t apologise, you’re tired—”
“No,” Harold said firmly, “it’s just that it’s been happening a lot lately. When I was still PM, it had started to creep in. But I supposed it was to be expected – all that nonsense you have to remember when you’re at the top. You’re bound to forget a face, a name, a place. But, since I’ve been in here, there’s a lot less to think about. It… it’s become more acute.”
Mansfield nodded.
“It’s something for us to bear in mind,” he said smoothly, “but nothing to worry about.”
“I hope you’re right,” said Harold placidly, “I do have good days and bad days. It comes and goes.”
“Well, I’ll note it down, see if we can get a doctor in to see you,” Mansfield began, before slapping his forehead in frustration, “oh, silly me. I don’t have any pens.”
Harold blinked.
“Why don’t you have any pens?”
As Mansfield looked back at him, Harold had a feeling he was going to have to get used to that look in other people’s eyes.
Chapter twenty-six
Sir Michael Hanley was working late. This was not an irregular occurrence – one didn’t become Director-General of MI5 without a few all-nighters – and Sir Michael was particularly happy to stay after hours this evening.
Everything was going well. The Universities Section had reported last week that they were satisfied that ‘subversive elements’ had been successfully extracted from the academic staffs of Britain’s higher education establishments. Everyone from Enid Brimley to Ralph Miliband had been politely but firmly informed their services would no longer be required. Miliband, like many of them, had buggered off to the States to go on some lecture tour of New England. Others had contented themselves with protesting their ‘intellectual incarceration’ by sending letters to The Times, though of course none of them ever got published.
Hanley smiled to himself as he reached for another unread file. Cecil King’s influence on Fleet Street – largely exercised through drinks parties with the generation of men who owed him their careers – had proved to be very useful indeed. Preventing letters from being published was the least of the favours he had been able to call in. The D-notice had barely needed to be deployed in recent months, though it had come in handy when a few too many questions were asked about the new vetting process for the police force.
Yes, only twice had the dreaded ‘you’re not allowed to report this’ order been used. Once was over the arrest of the Everton Three – a legitimate usage, Hanley reasoned, even to the pinkos of this world. The ongoing operation relied on it being unknown that McCullough, Adamson and Richardson were in custody.
The second use of a D-notice had been slightly more controversial, and had seen more than one Home Affairs Correspondent pack their bags and move to New York. When the Universities Section had got underway, Taskforce B was responsible for the infiltration of left-wing seditious groups in student bodies. While eyebrows had been raised at the departure of Miliband and his ilk, the more shrieking elements of the press had been unable to hold their tongues when details of quite what this particular definition of ‘infiltration’ entailed.
Hanley had travelled himself to the presses of the Mirror, entourage in tow and D-notice in hand, to order them to cease production of the Monday edition immediately. The headline ‘FASCIST COPPER UNDER-THE-COVERS WITH HIPPIE STUDENTS’ really wouldn’t do. It had been a good thing that Five had someone in the Mirror’s offices in the first place, really. Without that phone call coming through when it did, things could’ve gotten out of hand.
All in all, the whole operation had been an accomplished success. It was, however, not without niggles. Whitehall’s attitude towards the unions, and to Ireland, had been two areas of policy that the League of Gentlemen – which Bentine had suggested they informally call themselves – had been unable to shape. It went without saying that putting Joe Gormley on the board of the NCB had not been a priority of this particular group of patriots when they rallied around Lord Mountbatten. And that was before one looked at the astonishing display of cowardice being forced through the Commons this evening.
“We shall negotiate on the beaches,” muttered Hanley bitterly as he removed his reading glasses, in an echo of a cruel jibe that circulated Westminster during the war whenever Lord Halifax left the room.
The First Lord was no Halifax, this was clear. But nor was he proving to be quite the man of action the League had initially believed him to be. Well, he was a man of action, but not of the actions that had been expected of him. He had agreed to the creation of the Universities Section, signed the orders for Operation Greenland, and even given carte blanche to the activities of the Zinoviev Detachment. But he had dismissed the proposals for a ‘begin again’ approach to staffing the BBC, and ordered a halt to the smear campaign against the Theatre of the Absurd.
Indeed, the last few weeks had seen a hardening in the Earl of Burma’s manner towards the League. An atmosphere of reluctant welcome had been replaced with testy objection. Worse, Sir John now found it impossible to stand being in the same room as them – which Sir Michael thought was such a shame.
“He could have been one of us,” he mused, turning a page with a sigh. But there were plenty of young bucks snapping at the Cabinet Secretary’s heels. At the right time, the correct one would be found to replace Hunt.
Replacements were always best deployed at the right time, Sir Michael knew. He himself had been brought in to replace Roger Hollis, the man all of Whitehall had suspected was a KGB informant. As it turned out, it was looking rather like Hollis had been a scapegoat for a rather more spectacular feat of infiltration elsewhere in Westminster, but that was by the by. The lessons had been learned.
Sir Michael allowed himself a smile as he pondered the plans for ‘replacing’ the First Lord of the Treasury. It was no secret – between League members – that they existed. Lord Mountbatten seemed unaware, as was for the best. As if someone a mile away had heard his thoughts, Sir Michael’s telephone rang. It came through direct at this hour. He answered, gave monosyllabic responses to the information he was given, and hung up. This was not the call he had expected – the operational commander of the tail on a Czech travelling salesman was supposed to have reported in by now – but was altogether more concerning.
Based on what he had just been told, Sir Michael sketched out some numbers on a piece of scrap paper. No, this would not do at all. Too many unknown variables, and a high probability of the early collapse of Mountbatten’s authority – and for the League’s intentions, ‘early’ was potentially disastrous.
There was, however, an obvious way to bring a large number of votes into line. With a cautious smile, Sir Michael reached for his telephone again and asked to be connected to the offices of the Daily Express.
Within half an hour, all was in place. Sir Michael could not be certain his gambit would work, but over the years he had developed a pretty good sense of probabilities when it came to these things. Tomorrow would probably go the way the League wanted it to, and the good Earl would remain in office until the time was right – and then Messrs King, Bentine, McWhirter and McWhirter would be ready with a helpful shove.
Sir Michael got up, walked to the door, and turned off the lights.
If there was one positive thing that could be said for running elections in the United States, it was resilience. Considering that Presidents had been elected when the country was splintered, involved in war against Nazi Germany and even when the White House was being burned down by the Canadians, running a re-election campaign shortly after finding that the Head of Government of one of your closest allies was a Soviet stooge was – in Ford’s indomitable turn-of-phrase – small fry.
Nevertheless, ‘Ford ’76’ still had to fend off constant attacks from the Jackson campaign that the current incumbent of the Oval Office was either being deliberately obtuse about the incompetence of the CIA, or was a Kremlin sympathiser himself. True, the Washington Senator had won the nomination by a squeaker, but it had been a long time since the Republicans had been placed on the back foot over national security issues. Not for the first time, the President had rued McGovern’s decision to destroy himself against Dick four years ago – given the Democratic Party’s tendency to grab defeat from the jaws of victory, Ford had assumed that the South Dakota liberal would have been an obvious contender for the Presidential Race this time around.
“Of course,” Cheney said from the far end of the table, dragging the President away from his self-pitying reverie, “it will leave us open to allegations that we are just continuing to press for a core-vote strategy in the Deep South.”
Ford raised an eyebrow at his Chief of Staff.
“What were you saying, Dick?”
The man opposite looked to the heavens.
“Mr President,” Cheney repeated in his best ‘My Little Finger has a Higher IQ than Your Entire Body’ voice, “I was simply saying that we have to ensure that Howard Baker is not wasted in this campaign, but I just
don’t think that he is going to play very well in New England.”
The President, who still couldn’t pick up when he was being treated condescendingly, tilted his head to one side as he listened to Rockefeller going over the latest Gallup polling.
There was a polite knock on the door – a courtesy that was rendered null-and-void when the Secretary of State walked in; regardless of the circumstances, Henry Kissinger was the sort of person who felt that “Do Not Disturb” signs and the protests of the Secret Service applied to other people.
As Cheney rounded on the Secretary of Defence with an exasperated cry of “we are not privatising NASA, Don,” the President turned to face the newcomer.
“Hank,” Ford said in a determinedly over-enthusiastic tone that was aimed at disrupting the Rumsfeld-Cheney debate, “I can only hope that your bursting in unannounced was not done to bring us all some bad news when we are all already at rock bottom?”
The Secretary of State’s brain worked his way through the mesh of double-negatives, before giving a fake smile.
“The British government is on the verge of collapse.”
The sentence hung in the Cabinet Room in a way not seen since a former Vice-President had dropped the n-word during a discussion on the Civil Rights Act. Eventually, Rumsfeld broke the silence with a four letter summary of the five-page State Department memo that had just been handed to the President.
“My feelings entirely, Secretary of Defence,” Kissinger said as Ford scanned the pages, his face greying as he got to the table detailing seat distributions. Although the past ten months had been more effective at teaching the Cabinet the principles of the Westminster system than an entire semester of political science lectures, the idea of a government ‘falling’ was still a novel idea.
With a practised air of nonchalance, the White House Chief of Staff spoke for the President.
“So,” Cheney said with barely concealed contempt, “if this vote does go the wrong way, there’ll be an election. Does that mean that we are going to be dealing with the actual Commies, the pretend Commies, or Mr Powell and his Amazing Unilateralist Fascists?”