The Benn Diaries: 1940-1990

by Benn, Tony

  Monday 16 November

  To the Office, where I found an invitation waiting for me to a sherry party at Buckingham Palace. This is what I have been dreading and I have now got to find some way of establishing from the outset that I don’t have to go.

  Harold Wilson had asked me to lunch with him at the Commons. I think he had heard from Marcia, George Wigg and Tommy Balogh that I was feeling a bit lonely and we had an hour together which allowed me to talk to him about what I was doing. His Private Secretary had queried the reports that I had decided to ban cigarette advertising and I told Harold this was pure speculation. He is not against it and was only keen that I should follow normal procedures.

  I came home to change and Caroline and I went to the Lord Mayor’s banquet. It was a scene of splendid pageantry. Everyone is expected to wear a white tie but I went in a black one. The only other person in a black tie was George Brown and it established a warm bond of sympathy between us.

  Before dinner Mountbatten came up and I had a long talk to him. It was the first time I had ever spoken to him and he spent the whole time name-dropping. His conversation consisted of a long list of well-known people whom he described by their nicknames and claimed to know very well. For the uncle of the Queen and an earl and Admiral of the Fleet, it was astonishing that he wanted to impress.

  After that we went in to dinner and sat between Lord Chief Justice Parker and the President of the Admiralty, Probate and Divorce Division, and opposite a former Lord Mayor and Cecil King. Lady Parker, who was on my left, is an American woman from Kentucky. During the Archbishop of Canterbury’s speech she wrote me a note on the back of her menu, ‘When you are Prime Minister will you decree that there shall only be two speeches? I cannot bear another archbishop.’ I wrote back underneath, ‘By that time, you will need every archbishop you can lay your hands on.’ She laughed – and handed it to the Lord Chief Justice.

  Cecil King was completely lumpen and defeatist about the Sun and when we both tried to persuade him that its role was to criticise the Labour Government from the left, I don’t think he understood what we meant.

  As we left dinner, some City bigwig shouted, ‘Why aren’t you properly dressed?’ I didn’t hear him but he caught Caroline by the arm and repeated it to her. She was extremely angry. I had the opportunity for a word with the Lord Provost of Glasgow about the Post Office Savings Bank move.

  Saturday 5 December

  Surgery in Bristol this morning and home by late lunch. The telephone answering machine is an absolute Godsend. I sit in the office and hear the thing ringing and ringing and then the machine answers and the telephone stops. Without changing my number it gives me exactly the privacy that I need. I suppose one could just not answer the phone and it would have the same effect.

  Monday 7 December

  At the Post Office this morning an M15 man came along to interview me about a political adviser who has given me as a reference for the positive-vetting procedure in order to work at Number 10. The chap was a real pudgy flatfoot police type, and very friendly. But it is an odious business being asked to answer personal questions about someone such as drinking habits, sexual deviations and private life.

  I had the first of my informal lunch meetings with thirteen people from the Building, Welfare and Transport departments. They sat round my table drinking beer and eating sandwiches and apples like a lot of middle-aged bankers on a church outing. There was not a spark of enthusiasm, imagination or excitement of any kind to be seen. I am really talent-spotting and even a person of average intelligence would shine out of that sort of group.

  To the Commons and Sir John Macpherson, the chairman of Cable & Wireless, came to see me. He is a retired colonial official and his company is progressively being squeezed out all over the world. He brightened visibly when I said that I thought perhaps he might be the instrument by which Britain sold satellite tracking stations round the world. But the DG was there with a million reasons why it couldn’t be done. I have been PMG for seven weeks now and not a single bright idea has come up from below. It’s like trying to resusciate a dying elephant – tiring and almost hopeless.

  Stayed at the Commons till 1 am working, voting and talking to the Seijeant-at-Arms about Commons postal, messenger and telephone services.

  Monday 21 December

  This afternoon we had the private office party with experimental colour TV laid on by the BBC and it went well.

  This evening to the Commons to vote for the abolition of capital punishment – which was carried overwhelmingly. At last the gallows have gone.

  Wednesday 30 December

  I received a royal warrant giving me a quarter of a doe, shot in Windsor Great Park – one of the perks of Ministers. The only question is, what to do with it?

  I did score one success today which gives me great pleasure. My scheme for using every post office as a mini art gallery has not presented the insuperable difficulties I expected and we are going ahead. It means that possibly 2,000 post offices will have pictures on display as a result of co-operation between curators of local museums and Head Postmasters. This is Arnold Wesker’s dream – or part of it – coming about.

  Thursday 14 January 1965

  Defence, colour television, Concorde, rocket development – these are all issues raising economic considerations that reveal this country’s basic inability to stay in the big league. We just can’t afford it. The real choice is, do we go in with Europe or do we become an American satellite? Without a conscious decision being taken the latter course is being followed everywhere. For personal reasons, I would see much attraction in an English-speaking federation, bringing in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Britain to a greater United States. But this is a pipe dream and in reality the choice lies between Britain as an island and a US protectorate, or Britain as a full member of the Six, followed by a wider European federation. I was always against the Common Market but the reality of our isolation is being borne in on me all the time. This country is so decrepit and hidebound that only activities in a wider sphere can help us to escape from the myths that surround our politics. I do not know yet what the answer is but I do know that the questions cannot be dodged.

  Friday 15 January

  To Bristol for an executive. There was a storm of criticism, both personal and political. On the personal level they complained that I had neglected the constituency since the Election, had sent the thank-you letters out late, had not sent them Christmas cards, and even that I didn’t write to everyone who was married or promoted, in the way that some Tory MPs do using the local press to keep them informed.

  This was followed by an outcry of political protest. I could understand their terrific anxieties about the aircraft industry, which could acutely affect Bristol. But it was broadened out into a general attack on the bank rate, rising income tax, foreign policy and the lot. They are unaware of the critical economic situation, or of the achievements of the 100 days and emerged as a most short-sighted group. There must be much more political education and active campaigning. All in all, a discouraging meeting. My faith in democracy was a bit shattered.

  Churchill is gravely ill and it looks like the end.

  Tuesday 19 January

  To the House of Commons this afternoon, where everybody was waiting to hear news of Churchill’s illness. All major government policy statements have been postponed, the Prime Minister having cancelled his visit to Bonn. The crude fact is that everybody is waiting for the old man to die. Parliament will probably have to adjourn for five days when he does, since we can hardly meet while his body is lying in state in Westminster Hall. Yet he may well drag on for days, weeks or months. It is macabre and grisly.

  Thursday 21 January

  At midnight after we were both asleep, Peter Shore rang up to tell us the appalling news that Patrick Gordon Walker had been defeated in the Leyton by-election by 200 votes. This is a terrible shock to the Government and reduces our majority to three. It poses immediate problems for Harold. Wh
at is to be done with Patrick? He cannot be made a peer as Foreign Secretary, he can hardly be exposed to another by-election, and he cannot be left any longer as Foreign Secretary without being in Parliament.

  My own feeling is that Gordon Walker’s defeat is partly attributable to the crude manipulation of the honours list in order to make room for him. Quintin Hogg had a similarly humiliating result in his 1963 by-election. People who have elected a Member of Parliament whom they know and trust cannot like it much if he is bought off with a peerage so that the Prime Minister can impose upon the constituency someone else of his choice for reasons of his own. I put this to Peter Shore and it had never occurred to him that this might be the case.

  Friday 22 January

  The press this morning blew up the Leyton defeat – inevitably – as the Waterloo of the 100 days. There were urgent talks at Number 10 all day as a result of which Michael Stewart was moved to the Foreign Office and Tony Crosland to the Ministry of Education. I’m sorry that Michael has moved from a more important to a less important job and particularly that he has given up education, where he was an anchor man who knew what he wanted. Also I have some doubts about Tony who has a middle-class obsession with the public-schools issue and may be weak on the comprehensives, behind-hand on the real issue of streaming versus non-streaming and too keen on extending the direct grant idea.

  Sunday 24 January

  Winston Churchill died this morning. I heard it on the news at 8.45. Thus ends the life of one of the greatest Englishment of our time. Our family have much cause to be grateful to him. He it was who gave Father his extra twenty years of active life in the House of Lords. Also he was one of those who supported me so much during my long constitutional struggle and that support was of great practical value. Even with the many years of waiting for this moment it is nonetheless a shock.

  The effect of all this is to put politics into cold storage for a week.

  Monday 25 January

  I had decided to write to Harold to get his general consent about a Churchill stamp and was told that his main anxiety was whether the Queen would agree to share a stamp with the face of Sir Winston. It’s perfectly obvious that far from being able to get the Queen off the stamps, I’m going to fight like a tiger in order to get the right to put some other faces on. However, I happened to see him later this evening and I told him that the design would have to be approved by the Palace in any case and then he gave me the go-ahead. I suspect that the network has been feeding information to him to suggest that I want to get the Queen off the stamps and this has been reported tactfully to him.

  Afterwards Caroline and I had dinner at St Stephen’s Restaurant and as we looked out of the window we saw the coffin of Sir Winston being brought in and carried on the shoulders of the pallbearers to the catafalque in Westminster Hall where it is to lie in state tomorrow, Thursday and Friday.

  Wednesday 27 January

  Went to Westminster Hall to see the lying-in-state.

  This afternoon I went to see the Attorney-General about the pirate-broadcasting Bill. Most of the discussion was about the title of the Bill, which is currently called the ‘Suppression of Marine etc. Broadcasting Bill’. It is a massive document creating dozens of new offences, all designed to strangle the pirates. I have the greatest doubt as to whether it will be effective and the Government have no time to introduce it in this session. It is obvious that before this is done, an alternative of our own will have to be put forward. The pirates are establishing themselves firmly in public favour and if we killed them it would be extremely unpopular. I can see ourselves moving steadily towards the starvation of the BBC through a failure to raise the licence fee and ultimately capitulation in favour of commercial sound broadcasting. That is unless we permit the expansion of broadcasting on the basis of public service with advertising revenue to finance it.

  Afterwards I took all the children to see the lying-in-state. They were much impressed except for Joshua, aged seven, who thought we were going to ‘Lyons Steak’ which he believed to be a restaurant. He declared that he was delighted as he was very fond of steaks. When he saw Westminster Hall he couldn’t understand and said he knew there was a coffin under the flag, but he clearly didn’t know what a coffin was or what it contained. The thing that made the biggest impression on him was the sight of the television cameras.

  Monday 15 February

  David Gentleman came to see me for breakfast this morning. He’s about my age and is undoubtedly one of the best – if not the best – stamp designers in this country. He wanted to stress that it was impossible to get a decent quality of stamps in this country until the Queen’s head was removed. We discussed it at great length and he had brought along an album of foreign stamps showing what was possible if the designer had a completely free hand.

  Friday 19 February

  I went to Number 10 with the car to bring Harold’s personal secretaries Marcia Williams and Brenda Dew over to the Post Office for lunch. Joe Slater and I took them to the canteen and when he left for his train north they stayed for an hour’s talk with me in my room. We discussed the network at great length. They hate Derek Mitchell, who is Harold’s principal Civil Service secretary. We discussed in detail how these men operate, why their loyalty is to each other rather than to the Government, the techniques they use for evaluating the standing of Ministers and their power to undermine them and influence events. I mentioned the stamp business and the BBC lobby as examples. Marcia and Brenda are very nice and Harold leans heavily on them. No doubt there was a buzz of conversation in the Office to find out exactly why I had had the Prime Minister’s personal secretaries to lunch and what we were talking about.

  We discussed the honours list and I said what I had thought about it. They told me what a fantastic struggle Harold had had to get the footballer Stanley Matthews his knighthood. He is obviously in just as great difficulty as I am.

  Thursday 25 February

  I rang Marcia Williams at Number 10 and she told me that the Queen had readily agreed to give me an audience to discuss stamps, which is most encouraging.

  To the Commons this afternoon and there was a deputation from the Phonographic Society and the Musicians’ Union brought by Brian O’Malley. They wanted to know how quickly I could kill pirates. Both are deeply affected. I told them that the legislative programme was congested and that there were political difficulties. We must have an alternative to propose.

  I asked them to think hard about the problem of an alternative which would perhaps mean a national programme of light music made up of records and live orchestras, interspersed. This might be run by the BBC or possibly by a Post Office network called POP. It might be linked to local stations which could opt in and out of the network if their local resources were unable to fill the full day.

  Wednesday 10 March

  David Gentleman came to breakfast this morning at my request as today is the day that I am seeing the Queen about new stamps. He brought along the most beautiful designs for Battle of Britain stamps made up of silhouettes of RAF and Luftwaffe planes in combat, which could be sold in blocks of twelve. I didn’t tell him I was going to see the Queen but I think he must have guessed it. He also brought along some models for Christmas cards and I shall take these into the Office and get them done.

  Then to the House of Commons for an hour and at 12.20 to Buckingham Palace for my audience with the Queen. Yesterday I received a notification that the court was in mourning so I had to wear a black tie.

  As my car arrived I was greeted by Sir Michael Adeane, the Queen’s Private Secretary, and taken up in the lift to the private apartments. Adeane went out of his way to be friendly and was somewhat nervous of my arrival. He said, ‘Don’t you think our stamps need some new ideas?’ and, ‘There’s a real danger we will get out of date, don’t you think?’ This was obviously designed to draw me out about the subject of my audience and also to suggest that the Palace was a great modernising influence. I nodded gravely, and agreed with him, a
nd admired the view and looked at the paintings and then, at 12.40, one of the big flunkeys called out my name and I went in to the state apartment grasping a huge black official box, bowed, shook hands, the Queen beckoned me to sit down and I started on a carefully prepared speech.

  I said that I was very grateful to her for seeing me as I knew the keen interest that she took in postage stamps. I said that I had some stamps for her approval but didn’t want to worry her to approve them there and then. What I wanted to do was to talk about stamp design policy generally. I said that the new Government saw stamps in an entirely new context as part of the arts and not just as adhesive money labels for postage purposes. That was why we had set up a Fellowship in Minuscule Design and wanted to improve design generally. Miss Jennie Lee was greatly concerned, and the Prime Minister had kindly arranged this audience so that I could discuss it with the Queen. There were many things about Britain that we ought to project abroad, perhaps through postage stamps.

  Specifically we would like to have new definitives which would have a more beautiful picture of the Queen on them. She smiled graciously. On commemoratives, I said that we had broadened the criteria to many subjects that had previously been excluded and I thought this was the right technique. Also I said the designers were keen to produce pictorial stamps depicting perhaps our composers, our landscapes, our architecture, our painters, our kings and queens and this was a most exciting field that had never been explored.

  ‘However,’ I said, ‘this raised the whole question of the use of the head on the stamps.’ The Queen frowned and smiled. I said that there was a view held by many designers that the necessity of depicting the head on the stamp was restrictive and embarrassing. For example, the Burns stamp would be difficult to put out as a two-head stamp. Similarly, the United Nations stamp which the UN was trying to get issued all over the world in identical design would be excluded under our present rules. And even the Battle of Britain stamp might not be appropriate for a head. On the other hand, I added hastily, the Parliament stamp was absolutely right for the royal head and so of course was the Commonwealth Arts Festival and the 900th anniversary of the Abbey.