The Benn Diaries: 1940-1990

by Benn, Tony

  I let him finish and then I asked, ‘What view did you take two years ago?’

  ‘I was in favour of the advanced gas-cooled reactor,’ he said. ‘The customer has to decide.’ He couldn’t really give me a clear answer.

  So I asked Walter Marshall what his view was two years ago. He said, ‘I had only just joined the board. I didn’t know much about it but I had doubts.’

  I think there is now a plot to kill it off. They see it slipping, costs escalating, they want to save money and get on with the fast breeder without delay.

  I said, ‘This news is tremendously important. It’s the AEA deserting its own child. We developed the Magnox and the AGR ourselves and we are proud of it. This will come as a real shock. Moreover, it is bound to throw doubt on the fast breeder because if you are not going to build the system, the SGHWR, which you designed, people will say, Why not buy the fast breeder from abroad?’

  As a matter of fact, I am not sorry. I personally don’t want the SGHWR but I shall fight like a tiger against the American light-water reactor.

  Marshall was very uncomfortable, even though for him it was a triumph. Rampton was looking quizzical because he never liked the SGHWR. I think they all reckon on my going quickly and then they’ll get the American reactor. But I’ll be absolutely opposed to that and I might have some influence over the decision wherever I am in Whitehall.

  Tuesday 8 June

  Didn’t get to bed until 4 am, up at 7.30 and another all-night sitting tonight. I brought my car in so Ron Vaughan doesn’t have to wait up again.

  Wednesday 9 June

  Had lunch at the Foreign Office with Tony Crosland. He was in that great room overlooking the park. Anyone working there would be quite paralysed and incapable of challenging the existing authority in any way. He had his jacket off and was in his blue and white striped shirt with his shoes off, his specs on his nose and a cigar. For him, informality is a sort of substitute for radicalism and it amuses him. He brought with him to the Foreign Office his diary secretary from the Department of the Environment and she obviously acts as his personal friend. I took some photographs of him. He is enjoying it enormously though he says it is a bore having to go abroad so much.

  We gossiped about Roy Hattersley. Tony said that although Roy was very able, he was unsuccessful politically because he angered people. He had angered the Jenkinsites and the Left and generally speaking had isolated himself. Tony does love gossip – mind you, so do we all.

  Friday 11 June

  We had an amusing lunch in the State Drawing Room. Peter said that in 1968, presumably when he was Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, he had attended a dinner at the Royal Academy and sat next to Mrs Thatcher when she was Opposition spokesman on Economic Affairs, and he had tried very hard and very non-politically to get on with her (he said she was the most unpleasant woman he had ever met) but she had an absolute thrusting ambition and reflected the most odious values, of everyone doing well for themselves. Shirley Williams recalled sitting next to Ted Heath at a dinner and when she tried to speak to him, he declined to answer – simply didn’t reply. She had turned to the man on her left and asked, ‘Does Ted Heath not speak to women?’ and he had answered, ‘He doesn’t speak to many people at all.’

  Shirley thought Mrs Thatcher would be out by the end of the year, that the Tories simply would not accept her. That is interesting, but I find it difficult to imagine.

  Tuesday 15 June

  At 3 we had a meeting on the fast breeder – Arthur Hawkins and Robert Peddie of the CEGB, Frank Tombs of the South of Scotland Electricity Board, Peter Menzies, Brian Tucker, Alex Eadie and Rampton. I began by saying. ‘I am committed to looking at this again and there are a lot of general questions – safety, time scale, methods. Will you give me your comments?’

  They told me that the fast breeder just wasn’t safe. I think the phrase was that it was in some way ‘physically unstable’.

  ‘You mean because of the problem of the China syndrome?’

  ‘Yes,’ they said. ‘The core might melt through the container and go right through the earth.’

  ‘Well, if it’s unstable at present, what about the reactor at Dounreay?’ I asked.

  Peddie said, ‘Don’t ask me about safety at Dounreay,’ and everybody laughed.

  I said, ‘I have to ask.’

  They told me that in fact the AEA have different safety standards to the Nuclear Inspectorate because they are doing research and development. I suppose the plain truth is that Dounreay isn’t safe and that’s why it was originally situated there.

  Sunday 27 June

  Still boiling hot, I think 95 degrees yesterday. The Observer had a piece on the Energy Conference, the first time they’ve seen any merit in what I have been doing since about 1970.

  Tuesday 6 July

  Cabinet spent three hours or more discussing the papers that had been submitted by Denis Healey and Joel Barnett calling for a cut of £1.25 billion in public expenditure to produce a cut in the PSBR to £11 billion; and secondly, calling for the abolition of the contingency fund by reabsorbing all the extra bids back into the main programme and making cuts elsewhere.

  I had two briefs with me, one from the Department resisting what was being suggested, and the other – an excellent paper from Francis Cripps arguing his case even more strongly and effectively on general economic grounds – linked to the paper at last Friday’s Committee. I was therefore in the formidable position of being the only other Cabinet Minister with a view to put before the Cabinet.

  We sat round the table in our shirtsleeves on a very hot July day and it reminded me of my first meeting as a full Cabinet Minister ten years ago when we were in exactly the same position.

  I pointed out that the size of the cuts demanded was much bigger than it appeared – £1.25 billion, plus £1.6 billion that would flow from absorbing the claims on the contingency fund into the main programme – nearly £3 billion of cuts. I didn’t want to worry the Cabinet at the moment with my departmental arguments but the damage would be irreparable to our policy on oil and other areas. If we did have to make economies, they should be done on a different basis.

  After everyone had contributed, Jim summed up by saying there was a majority for the cuts. So he suggested bilateral talks between various Ministers to sort it all out, and we would consult with the Neddy Six and the PLP.

  Saturday 10 July

  To Stansgate. Still unbelievably hot. It’s been in the eighties or nineties for about a month now and the grass is absolutely brown, like Cincinnati grass.

  Wednesday 14 July

  My first appointment was with Dunster and Gausden, the Nuclear Inspectors from the HSE, about the fast breeder. They told me that past experience was no help in considering the safety aspects of the fast breeder. Sodium-cooled systems were different from gas-cooled ones, and plutonium, which was dependent on sodium-cooled systems, raised special problems. There were two basic safety issues. One was the mechanism of a whole core accident which might derive from an escalating sub-assembly accident, perhaps a local blockage of fuel, though the Americans and the French were less concerned about this. As to a whole core accident itself, the core would disintegrate, melt and vaporise or collapse and perhaps explode the reactor, and the whole core would be released into the containment, which could fracture; there was no agreement about the extent of the release of energy into the atmosphere, nobody could calculate it. I asked why they hadn’t tested it at a nuclear testing ground. They said, ‘The United States was to have tested the energy release but they found it too expensive, and then their fast-breeder programmes were set back.’

  ‘How many people would die?’

  ‘Thousands would die over ten to twenty years, as well as those killed in the explosion.’ They did say, however, that the commercial fast-breeder reactor is licensable subject to conditions. After a long discussion I came up with the idea I would send them questions and publish their replies, and they were quite taken with that. />
  Thursday 15 July

  Cabinet at 9.30. On public expenditure, the main item on the agenda, Jim said, ‘We have got to decide today what to do.’ Denis then outlined his objective, to reduce the PSBR to £9 billion by 1977/8, to reduce money supply by 10 per cent and the domestic credit expansion to £8 billion.

  There were two general papers, one from Peter Shore and one from me. Peter was called first and he said tax was the right solution, and he warned of the terrible dangers of making cuts in his particular field. He rambled a bit. I must say I am lucky in having Frances and Francis. I do sound more coherent when I am called. I spoke and summed up by saying: ‘Prime Minister, I think the Treasury have won the battle and lost the war because they will never ever be able to come back and argue this again; the Cabinet won’t have it, the Movement won’t have it, the Party won’t have it, the unions won’t have it and the public won’t have it. Can I finish with one point which I put without offence or discourtesy. I think that the British Establishment is now infected with the same spirit which afflicted France in 1940, the Vichy spirit of complete capitulation and defeatism. It is that which is going finally to destroy us. I hope nobody will take this as being offensive but my Privy Councillor’s oath requires me to disclose my opinions in the Council and this is what I have done.’

  Denis sat there scarlet. He always blushes when he is in difficulty and the argument is gaining force. A year ago, I was alone and now I am in a minority of five or six.

  After further discussion Jim Callaghan said, ‘We must now move to a decision. Is it agreed that we exclude making cuts in social security benefits – because I think that would be impossible.’ That was agreed. ‘Is is agreed that we exclude cuts in overseas aid – because I think that would be very unpopular.’ I think the report in the Observer that Reg Prentice might resign over such cuts had influenced him. So that went through.

  Later, I had a talk to Peter Shore, who said to me, ‘Do you know, I would either like to be entirely free of responsibilities or Prime Minister.’

  ‘I feel rather the same,’ I replied, ‘but as my ambition is to be Leader of the Party, it is not incompatible with your being Prime Minister!’

  He said, ‘I would also like to be Foreign Secretary because so much could be done. If only this country would mobilise all its assets, its defence assets, its oil assets, which you are trying to get hold of it, its goodwill assets, it could do so much.’ I agree. I get crabby with Peter in my diary from time to time but I like him enormously.

  Monday 26 July

  I came home and talked to my driver Ron. I tell him everything. It is a day when politics was perfectly bloody and I have a thumping headache.

  Thursday 29 July

  I visited three desperately sick MPs who had been brought in for the vote on the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Bill. Alex Lyon, the MP for York, looked as if he was about to die – old, thin and weak; Frank McElhone was flat on his back on a stretcher in a massive spinal carriage with Helen beside him; and Alec Jones from Rhondda was recovering from a serious coronary. Sir Alfred Broughton from Batley and Morley was brought in on a respirator. It is quite criminal but we needed those votes to win.

  Friday 6 August

  John Stonehouse was convicted yesterday of fraud and sentenced today to seven years in jail.

  Thursday 12 August

  Stansgate. I’m reading a remarkable book by Milan Machovec called A Marxist Looks at Jesus which the magazine Theology has asked me to review. It is a translation of the German book Jesus für Atheisten and it is fascinating.

  Wednesday 8 September

  Went to the dentist who has just moved into a new surgery in Westbourne Grove. All his new equipment is imported – Italian X-ray machine, Japanese light, German drill, and so on. This is what one sees everywhere, the decline of our manufacturing industry and floods of imports.

  Thursday 9 September

  First Cabinet since the summer recess. Tony Crosland said, ‘I expect you have heard, Chairman Mao is dead.’ In fact, I hadn’t heard it on the news. He didn’t say much about it. ‘I don’t suppose there’s much point in my trying to assess Mao Tse Tung’s role in the world,’ and he just passed over the event. Somehow I did feel that Mao merited a moment of reflection in the British Cabinet. In my opinion, he will undoubtedly be regarded as one of the greatest – if not the greatest – figures of the twentieth century: a schoolteacher who transformed China, released it from civil war and foreign attack and constructed a new society there. His influence throughout the world has been immense, based to some extent on power I suppose, but also on his tremendous achievements. Whether history will just put him among the emperors or whether he will be seen as having a quality distinct from them, I do not know, but he certainly towers above any other twentieth-century figure I can think of in his philosophical contribution and his military genius.

  Friday 10 September

  There is going to be a reshuffle triggered off by Roy Jenkins, who has finally left the Government. Merlyn Rees becomes Home Secretary; Shirley is diverted into Education, where she will have to carry the can on all the public-expenditure cuts (although she does fully support them); John Silkin has been kept in, which surprised me, to become Minister of Agriculture, and there are three new members of the Cabinet – Roy Hattersley, Stan Orme and Bill Rodgers. Fred Peart is now Leader of the Lords – how he survives, I don’t know.

  Roy Jenkins came into politics on the coat tails of Attlee, as the son of Attlee’s PPS, and never shone individually while Gaitskell was alive because he was one of his principal lieutenants. When Gaitskell died, he emerged with full force as the leader of the liberal right of the Party who believed more in Europe than in the Party, ultimately sacrificing the deputy leadership in 1972 over the Referendum. He came back into the Government in 1974 as Home Secretary, desperately wanting to be Foreign Secretary. He has now accepted the presidency of the European Commission as a way of getting out of British politics and can never return except possibly in a coalition government. He is a charming man really, an Asquithian Liberal I suppose – not Labour in any significant sense.

  Tuesday 21 September

  At 9.30 Michael, Ron Hayward and I saw Jim at Number 10 to discuss some of the conflicts between the Government and the Party which will arise at Conference. He was really worried about the bank and insurance nationalisation demands and he read out letters that he had received from the clearing banks and the insurance associations asking for a view. He said he and Denis agreed that if it were passed at the Conference the pound would fall: it would be a disastrous policy, though he had no theological objection to nationalisation, indeed he served on the Italian nationalised bank as a director. But, listening to Jim, I realised that if the crisis is so great that you have to postpone socialism, and that even mentioning socialism brings down such a bitter attack on you, you really are up against powerful forces that you don’t control; if anything, that makes you more of a socialist. Jim says we’ll be defeated by the banks and the insurance companies, but if that is the case, all the more reason why we must tackle them.

  Tuesday 28 September – Labour Party Conference, Blackpool

  I retained my place at the top of the NEC, picking up 4,000 more votes, with Michael in second place. Norman Atkinson became Treasurer, knocking out Eric Varley. Joan Maynard told me that Jack Jones had been trying to get her knocked off the NEC and have Margaret Jackson elected instead.

  There was a debate on devolution, and Neil Kinnock made a speech attacking the statement, to which Michael replied. Neil Kinnock is not a substantial person. He is a media figure really: I have suspected it for some time and he knows I know it.

  Joe Ashton told me there was a resolution calling for a working party to examine new methods of electing the Leader. This had been tabled by Ken Coates, seconded by Joan Maynard’s constituency, Sheffield Brightside, and accepted. So that is a historical event.

  The pound has dropped to $1.63.

  Wednesday 29 Septembe
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  On the way to Conference a delegate came up to me and said, ‘Have you heard about the loan? I hope you’re not going to guarantee it and accept it.’ It was the first I had heard but apparently Denis had gone to the IMF and borrowed £2.5 billion and the conditions won’t come out until after the Conference.

  Went over to the Mirror party with Frances, and Jack Jones said amiably, ‘You know, young man, you’ll be Prime Minister next.’

  I said, ‘I have no ambition and I’ve seen too many who have.’

  ‘I’m not talking about that sort of ambition. You will be if you play it right’ A bit patronising. He said Jim was out of his depth and didn’t know what was going on, and he made a very offensive remark about Denis Healey.

  Then Joe and Maggie Ashton, Frances, Caroline and I went over to the Tribune meeting, where Eric Heffer made a most principled attack on Callaghan for his speech, and Neil Kinnock did a brilliant bit of fund-raising.

  Thursday 30 September

  News of the IMF loan filled the papers and there is much confusion. The smell of 1931 is very strong in my nostrils.

  Denis had arrived during the banks and insurance companies debate with a terrible flurry of cameras. There were hisses and boos when he came forward to speak and he said, ‘I have come from the battlefront.’ He then went on to shout and bully and rule out all alternative policies, saying this was the only way forward.

  Jones, Scanlon and Basnett looked very uncomfortable. The Conference was pretty hostile but when he finished, it having been such a bold and vigorous speech, parts of the Conference cheered him – the PLP, the Post Office Engineers, I think. I couldn’t even clap him, his speech was so vulgar and abusive.