The Benn Diaries: 1940-1990

by Benn, Tony

  . . . I am, incidentally, following your lead in getting a tape recorder.

  Yours, Neil.

  Well, that settles the matter as far as I am concerned.

  Sunday 2 October – Labour Party Conference, Brighton

  I confess that I am dictating this on 14 October from very accurate notes.

  At the meeting of the NEC, there was an attempt to remit the T&G resolution committing the next Labour Government to scrapping all nuclear weapons systems unilaterally, but by 14 to 11 we accepted it. Kinnock abstained, made a big thing about abstaining and then tried to get the issue reopened, but Sam McCluskie wouldn’t have it. I was confirmed to speak on the unemployment debate, and I reported that I would be moving the Irish resolution from the floor on behalf of Kensington GMC.

  Neil Kinnock overwhelmingly won the leadership on the first ballot, and Roy Hattersley the deputy leadership on the first ballot. The TGWU went against the recommendations of their executive and voted for Hattersley instead of Michael Meacher, which was a scandal, but nobody referred to it because everybody wanted the ‘dream ticket’. Meacher himself voted for Kinnock and not for Heffer, which was a disgrace, really.

  Tuesday 4 October

  I was elected top of the NEC constituency section again with the highest vote I have had for twenty years, the tenth year in a row I have received the most votes.

  Michael Foot made his farewell speech and got tremendous applause. Caroline went back to London to take her evening class; she doesn’t like Conference.

  Thursday 6 October

  In the afternoon Kinnock made his first speech as Leader. It was pretty vacuous, I thought, but he got a huge ovation.

  Friday 11 November

  I went to Bristol to attend a memorial meeting for Alan Mason, the South West Regional Organiser, who died recently. While I was there Mike Cocks told me privately that Eric Varley is meeting his Party’s executive committee in Chesterfield tonight and intends to announce that he is resigning from Parliament to become Chief Executive of Coalite. I must admit it took some time for this to sink in, but it became quite clear that this would mean a by-election in a seat with a 7,000 Labour majority.

  When I got home (on the last train) I spoke on the phone to Arthur Scargill, who had a word with Peter Heathfield, General Secretary of the Derbyshire Miners, who is also a member of the GMC of the Chesterfield Party, and Arthur rang me back and said, ‘You must move quickly. We will get statements put out in the constituency to the effect that they would like you, and you must be ready to say you would be pleased to respond.’

  My prospects may possibly have changed a bit.

  Saturday 19 November

  I have been in touch with Tom and Margaret Vallins, who are both on the Chesterfield executive committee. Apparently the NUM are allowed only five delegates at the selection conference out of a total of 132 votes, so the miners haven’t actually got a dominating role. They have decided to nominate a miner, and vote for me on the second ballot – which is better than nothing. The YS have nominated me, but whether that’s a good start or not I don’t know. The AUEW are pretty strong. Alan Tuffin of the Union of Communication Workers sent instructions to the UCW there to nominate Charles Morris, who lost his Manchester seat in the boundaries redistribution. That caused some resentment among the UCW people in Chesterfield. ASLEF have got a strong branch there. Tom Sawyer is getting on to NUPE and there are two or three wards that could nominate me, so I might end up with a few nominations. The first hurdle is to get shortlisted, the second hurdle is to get into the final ballot, and if that happened I think I would have a reasonable chance.

  David Blunkett told me that when he was in Chesterfield he found that a lot of people had been influenced by the hostile press campaign. The local papers and the Daily Mail have been using polls to influence the selection process.

  Doesn’t look too good, but it’s not entirely impossible.

  Sunday 11 December

  Caught the train to Chesterfield to meet Party members. The train didn’t actually stop in Chesterfield station but went straight through, then halted, and I thought the driver had forgotten to stop in Chesterfield, so I opened the carriage door and jumped on to the line and walked back about half a mile. In fact they were having to back the train into the platform. It was a risky thing to do, but I couldn’t afford to be late.

  Ken Coates and Tom Vallins took me over to the old Market Hall for a pre-selection meeting between the candidates and members of all the wards. The other candidates were John Lenthall, the treasurer of the Chesterfield Party, Cliff Fox, the NUM candidate, Bill Flanagan, leader of the council Labour Group, Philip Whitehead and Paul Vaughan, President of the Party. I had prepared my speech too much, and it was a bit off putting because it was so rigidly controlled. I was asked three questions. One was about the media attacks, another about my age and health and one, from the YS, asking if I was in favour of MPs taking the average workers’ wage. I felt very discouraged.

  Wednesday 14 December

  To Chesterfield for the St Helen’s Ward nomination meeting. I was absolutely certain that Paul Vaughan, who is Chairman of the ward Party, would get it.

  When I got home, I rang Tom Vallins for the result and heard I had won the ward by 11 to 8. Then I heard that in Moor Ward, where they nominated without hearing the candidates, there was a tie between me and Paul Vaughan, and the Chairman gave his casting vote in support of Paul.

  Wednesday 21 December

  Bea Campbell came to do an interview for City Limits. She pursued me on a number of points but she is obsessed with my class. She was trying to suggest that on a particular day in 1966 I met a worker at the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders and this was when the scales fell from my eyes. It isn’t quite as simple as that, but it was a useful discussion, and she wants to come back and pursue Hobsbawm’s argument for a popular front, she being a member of the Eurocommunist wing of the CP.

  Wednesday 4 January 1984

  Arkady Maslennikov, the London correspondent of Pravda, came to interview me. He had said he would very much like to see how my computer worked, so, before he arrived, I prepared ‘a message from the Central Committee of the CP in Moscow to the London Pravda correspondent’. The message stated that it was amazing that he was still using a typewriter, which was a tsarist invention, that he might even be using a medieval instrument known as a pen, that all correspondents had to equip themselves with computers in order to demonstrate the Soviet lead in technology, and ‘would he please confirm the receipt of this message by sending a carrier pigeon at once to Moscow’. Maslennikov laughed heartily when I called up the message on the screen. Then I showed him how it could be printed in various typefaces, and he took four copies away with him.

  Sunday 15 January

  We left for Chesterfield at 8 am for the selection conference of the GMC, and arrived in snow and blizzards. Caroline dropped me off at the NUM offices in Saltergate, where there was an enormous crowd of media people standing about as the snowflakes fluttered down. There was the usual checking of Party membership cards and trade union membership as delegates arrived. I drew number six in the speaking order.

  The final list was Cllr Dave Wilcox of USDAW, Phillip Whitehead, Bill Flanagan, Cliff Fox, John Lenthall and me.

  I finally went in just after 6pm. I had only been speaking for two minutes when a miner in the front row had an epileptic fit and had to be carted out. He was a very heavy man and had been sick, but they managed to move him and left him at the back so officially he could hear the speeches. I had to recover after that incident. I was asked the obvious questions – ‘Didn’t we lose the General Election because you fought against Healey?’, ‘How would you deal with the media?’, and so on.

  There were three ballots, and, to cut a long story short, I was selected. I shook hands with the others and said I hoped to see them all in Parliament in other seats after the next General Election. Phillip Whitehead and Bill Flanagan made little speeches of congratulations, then all
hell broke loose. As I went out the front door, there were the media surging about with cameras. We moved slowly across their ranks to the Labour Club, where I gave a press conference. Afterwards I had a word with all my supporters and then Caroline and I drove home.

  Caroline was marvellous all day. I have overcome the biggest hurdle, despite the huge press campaign designed to prevent my being selected. I did actually win with more votes than the next two candidates combined, so that was something.

  Tuesday 7 February

  Visited the Arkwright colliery, where the manager had told the media they were not allowed to come inside. I went down the pit for the first time since my illness in 1981, and I did wonder whether I would stand up to it because my legs are still a bit shaky. Fortunately it was a drift mine, and they took me down in the man-rider. I still had to walk three and a half miles underground on a 1:4 gradient. John Burrows, the treasurer of the Derbyshire NUM, and Cliff Fox came with me. I went and talked to the media in my pit clothes before I had a bath.

  Sunday 12 February

  Laurie Flynn, who is a friend of Maxine Baker on ‘World in Action’, came to discuss a programme they want to do on the media coverage of the by-election. I was a bit suspicious, truthfully.

  Today Meg Crack, Chris Mullin, Ian Flintoff and Jon Lansman arrived; my team is beginning to assemble. I visited a Labour club, where, I think, Vincent Hanna had interviewed people and, seemingly, only two out of 150 supported me. They began the bingo, and when number 10 was drawn they called out, ‘Number Ten, Wedgie’s Den.’ Everybody laughed; it was a sort of sign of acceptance, and Dennis Skinner, who organised it, was absolutely thrilled.

  It’s bitterly cold at the moment, and I have to wear two pairs of socks and two woolly jumpers.

  Sunday 19 February

  Seventeen candidates have been nominated – a record. I should mention a couple of the other candidates. Screaming Lord Sutch, David Sutch, of the Monster Raving Loony Party Last Stand, turned up at some of my meetings. He has become something of a friend. He’s a decent guy, he is actually quite serious and liked the things we were saying, and my view of him altered completely. He appears to be making fun of the Election but he’s shrewd: he’s a court jester in the medieval sense.

  Neil Kinnock came up today. I met him at lunchtime at the Labour Club and there was a photo-call. For the purpose of the battle, you have to be seen side by side, and he played it very well. We went on a walkabout in the market and were mobbed by the media; there must have been sixty of them walking backwards in front of us. I wonder whether it was worth doing, because hardly anyone in the market could get near us. Even when we went for a cup of tea they surrounded us.

  Kinnock performed his part excellently. At the public meeting, we held up our hands together and I called it ‘The Return Ticket’, a comment on the so-called ‘Dream Ticket’.

  I did have a chance to talk to Neil about his visit to America. He had seen Reagan, who had said to him, ‘Do you think the United States would ever have used nuclear weapons on Japan if Japan had had the bomb?’ So Kinnock replied, ‘Well, that would be Qadhafi’s case for having the bomb!’ Reagan couldn’t think of an answer to that one.

  Kinnock was quite friendly throughout, but it was a formal occasion. That part of the campaign is over, and Kinnock must want it to succeed.

  Friday 24 February

  I went to the Chesterfield Royal Hospital. Patricia Moberly and Jenny Holland from Vauxhall were here canvassing. Hilary, Sally, Michael and James turned up, and it was lovely to hear Michael cry out, ‘Dandan!’, which is what he calls me.

  At the NHS rally in the evening with 500 people, I did a very silly thing. To show how fit I was (I suppose), I tried to leap on to the platform, which was only about 18 inches off the ground, but I missed and fell and broke my specs. It hurt like anything, but I was determined not to show it.

  Sunday 26 February

  The last Sunday before polling day. Pat Phoenix, Tony Booth, Dennis Skinner, Caroline and I went out for four hours in the morning and four hours in the afternoon. It was cold and wet and exhausting, but I must say Pat Phoenix was marvellous. There were over 1,000 helpers from all over the country – a great response.

  Monday 27 February

  Jim Mortimer, Eric Heffer and Denis Healey arrived for a public meeting. I must say Denis played it like an old trouper. He spoke before me, and just as he said, ‘Tony and I are inseparable, like Torvill and Dean’, the Party banner behind us fell off the wall; it was hilarious, and it was impossible not to laugh uproariously. He made a great speech and got a good reception. Then we went to the Hopflower pub, where he played the piano and we sang together, ‘Here we are again, happy as can be, all good pals and jolly good company!’ He was extremely good, and even the press were laughing.

  Wednesday 29 February

  Eve of poll. Went canvassing with Colin Welland, who wrote Chariots of Fire, which was such a success, and Stephen Lewis, who plays an inspector in ‘On the Buses’; he is a committed socialist and extremely amusing, very direct and couldn’t have been better. At a canteen meeting and later at the Brimington Ward eve-of-poll meetings I spoke about restoring our self-respect and getting rid of the Tories.

  A series of eve-of-poll meetings with Jo Richardson, Ken Coates, Peter Heathfield and Stuart Holland. Bed at 12.

  Thursday 1 March – Chesterfield by-election

  Joshua worked all day feeding canvassing information into the computer system set up at the Westdale Hotel. I went round the constituency all day.

  The Sun had an article, ‘Benn on the Couch – a top psychiatrist’s view of Britain’s leading leftie’, in which they said they had fed my personal and political details to a psychiatrist in America who had concluded that I was power-hungry, would do anything to satisfy my hunger, was prone to periods of fantasy and so on.

  Dozed, had a bath at the Westdale, then watched TV.

  Just after midnight, we walked over to the Goldwell Rooms in the snow and the rain for the count. When we arrived, there was a huge crowd outside being held back by police. I did a few interviews, and the result was declared – Labour 24,633, Liberal 18,369, Tory 8,028. So the majority was 6,264, which was 663 higher than Varley’s. There were rowdy scenes as we got on the platform, and all the young Labour people came in chanting, ‘Tony Benn, Tony Benn!’ I made my victory speech. Payne, the Liberal, made an angry one which was greeted with so much noise that I had to quieten people down in order to allow him to be heard. Bourne, the Tory, spoke briefly.

  We withdrew like boxers after a big match and went back to the Labour Club with the media around in huge numbers, the police having a job to hold them back. Outside the Labour Club I spoke to the crowd again. Then I went inside and stood on a table and addressed the members.

  Got to bed at 5 exhausted, but what an extraordinarily good result it was, though ‘Newsnight’ were able to describe it as a very poor result for Labour. I must confess it was a triumph for the Left and showed that socialist policies are not a deterrent.

  Thursday 15 March

  The miners’ strike has been triggered off by the Government’s decision to accelerate pit closures, and there has been a ballot in the various areas. Derbyshire voted by only 16 votes against striking, and Nottingham by 3 to 1. It has precipitated a great new crisis in the mining industry and a big political crisis in Britain. I attacked the Home Secretary, Leon Brittan, in the House when he made his statement on picketing, saying that a ‘major coordinated police response, involving police officers throughout the country, has been deployed to ensure that any miner who wishes to work . . . may do so.’

  Friday 16 March

  I drove to Chesterfield for a surgery. Margaret and Tom Vallins have got it all organised, and Margaret has agreed to be my constituency secretary, part-time.

  Monday 19 March

  Thousands of police are being used to stop the miners from picketing; in Kent, miners were stopped from travelling through the Dartford Tunnel. I heard
that Michael Foot, Merlyn Rees, Eric Heffer and Tony Banks had protested to the Press Council about the Sun story, ‘Benn on the couch’.

  Tuesday 20 March

  Went to the Commons for Prime Minister’s Questions, and got in one about the use of the police in the strike. The whole mining industry is now up in arms because of flying policemen coming from all over the country to try to stop picketing in Nottinghamshire.

  Thursday 22 March

  Caught the train to Chesterfield. Tom and Margaret met me and we went straight to the Duckmanton miners’ wives meeting which had been organised by Margaret Vallins and Betty Heathfield. One woman, whose five-week-old baby had died in a cot death in January, had received a bill for £206 for a headstone, to be paid by the end of March. She was getting no strike pay from her husband.

  Friday 4 May

  Apparently some of the men still working in the pits are waving their £50 bonuses in the faces of the pickets. In Nottinghamshire, 10,000 tons of coal a day is being produced instead of 28,000 tons, and that means the subsidy on it would be £70–80 a ton.

  Saturday 5 May

  It looks as though the miners cannot beat the Government. However, with 85 per cent of the pits out, coal stocks must be shrinking like anything, and the steel industry is beginning to be affected. The miners won’t budge, and it is a very long strike, already longer than the 1926 strike. The TUC has got to back them, because, to put it bluntly, if the miners are beaten, the Government will ride all over everybody and workers couldn’t stand up to it again, so the miners mustn’t be beaten.

  The success or failure of the Government doesn’t depend on their capacity to bring in police to beat a particular group of workers, it depends on whether they carry the public with them, and they have gone so far over the top on democracy, trade union rights and brutality against the poor that the public are beginning to see it; but what a battle it is.

  Tuesday 15 May

  Roy Hattersley sat down next to me at tea and I had a chat with him. He told me he thought the miners would lose, and I said I thought we ought to take a stronger line because there were votes to be gained from strength and there was a sense of weakness prevailing at the moment. He agreed with that. He said he had had to protect Kinnock from getting the wrong line on Liverpool, and there was a twinkle in his eye.