The Benn Diaries: 1940-1990

by Benn, Tony

  Friday 24 August

  This evening Kathy Ludbrook looked in to discuss the possibility of becoming my secretary to replace Julie. She has exceptional political knowledge and experience. She said one thing to me: ‘I am afraid I am very sensitive to smoking. Do you smoke a lot?’ That really worried me, but we’ll try it out.

  Thursday 13 September

  The Acting Chief Constable of Derbyshire, Mr Leonard, had written to me saying he would like to see me, and he arrived at the Labour Club accompanied by another officer. I had with me Gordon Butler and Johnny Burrows.

  Leonard said at the beginning, ‘I thought it would be a good idea to have a talk, because from some of the things you have been saying about police action you misunderstand that I have complete operational control. I have only got 1,800 policemen in the whole of Derbyshire.’

  I listened carefully, and said, ‘Thank you very much, but remember I have a certain amount of Whitehall experience as a Minister. I was in the Cabinet during the Winter of Discontent, and I know perfectly well that the Home Secretary chairs a meeting with the police, the army and Ministers and that all the instructions are given by the Home Secretary. So please don’t ask me to believe that you are in charge. I don’t honestly believe you are.’

  Then he made a great point about how in Derbyshire they had not closed the motorways, that the Metropolitan police officers who had been brought in were under his control and they weren’t as bad as we thought. He said he briefed the police every Sunday night about the history and traditions of the Derbyshire miners. He then remarked, ‘You may think me cynical and think I am scapegoating, but it suits our books to see the Met criticised because, when the strike is over, the Derbyshire Constabulary will be able to resume normal relations with the local people and say it was the Mets who caused trouble.’

  I thought he was taking a bit of a risk saying that. He’s an intelligent person and, personally, quite a nice guy. He certainly will be a Chief Constable; he is standing in for the Chief Constable.

  Then I gave him some examples of people’s fear of the police breaking into their homes in the middle of the night. Generally speaking, I indicated that the situation was explosive and there was no point in pretending otherwise. ‘If I may say this to you, Chief Constable, I believe that you, as individuals, should make it clear to the Home Office that you resent the police being used for what are, in effect, political purposes, and that you are being used to cover up for a failure of government policy.’

  He said, ‘Police dislike the idea of being described as “under the control of left-wing extremists in the local authorities”. Well, I am equally against right-wing extremists in the Cabinet controlling us’ (a hostage to fortune). ‘I am quite independent. I am here to keep the peace and enforce the law, and, if there is a conflict between the two, I have, probably, to keep the peace.’

  He was looking forward to the time when it would all be over, and I said, ‘I think your problems will begin then.’

  Tuesday 2 October – Labour Party Conference, Blackpool

  Neil Kinnock made his Conference speech, which lasted forty-five minutes. I was sitting next but one to him, so I had to listen. He got a standing ovation of a most forced kind. People rose to their feet and clapped in order to prolong it. Glenys was brought on and they held up their hands. Then he himself stopped it because it was getting to the point where people were standing like a sullen crowd clapping to try to get the pub doors open! Arthur Scargill had got a spontaneous and passionate ovation, and Neil didn’t want comparisons drawn with Arthur.

  Friday 12 October

  At 3 o’clock this morning a bomb exploded in the Grand Hotel in Brighton, and four people were killed. Norman Tebbit and his wife were injured, and it just missed Mrs Thatcher, who emerged unscathed. The IRA have claimed responsibility. It is a big event, like the Gunpowder Plot or the Cato Street Conspiracy. The IRA issued a statement, which the press never printed, saying that they had planted the bomb because prisoners in Northern Ireland were being tortured.

  Saturday 13 October

  Caught the 7.45 to Chesterfield. There were a couple of young striking miners from South Derbyshire on the train. They had no money at all and I bought them a cup of tea. We had two problems: first, how to get them to Derby without a ticket, then how to get them past the ticket collector in Derby. I spoke to the ticket collector on the train, who initially got very tough and said, ‘I’ll have to take their names and addresses.’ Then he whispered to me, ‘The man behind me is one of my gaffers from BR, a retired inspector.’ So he took their details but won’t act on it. I wrote a note to the ticket collector at Derby, explaining their situation and saying that, as the NUR was showing solidarity with the miners, I would be grateful if they could be allowed through and, if there was a problem, they should send the bill to me. I think everything was all right in the end. It gave me great pleasure that there was this sort of network of help.

  Monday 19 November

  In the House of Commons a statement was made about the Animal Liberation Front, who claimed to have poisoned Mars Bars with rat poison, as a result of which the Mars Corporation had taken their chocolate out of the shops. The ALF said Mars were funding experiments on animals. Well, there was shock-horror-disgust from all sides of the House. The only person who spoke up and said the Government had been slow to deal with animal welfare was Dale Campbell-Savours of all people. Everyone else just poured contempt on the ALF and said how the RSPCA was being undermined by this sort of irresponsible behaviour.

  Wednesday 21 November

  I went into the House at 10 pm. After a division, Mick Welsh, Labour MP for Doncaster North, a Yorkshire miner, got up, and he was so incensed at the cut of a further £1 a week from the benefit paid to the families of miners on strike that he stood shaking his finger. Quite spontaneously, Eric Heffer, Dennis Skinner, Dave Nellist and Terry Fields went and stood in front of the mace; a number of people joined them, including myself. I remember the same thing happening over the Industrial Relations Act. On this occasion the Speaker suspended the sitting for ten minutes. There was uproar in the House, and I believe Dave Nellist tore up the statement that the Social Services Secretary, Norman Fowler, was making. The Speaker came back, saw people still standing and adjourned the House. It was a tremendous row, and gave publicity to the miners’ strike and the demand for a debate. Things happen when you make a row, and if you don’t make a row people don’t give a damn.

  Thursday 22 November

  To Brussels for a meeting with the British Labour Group in the European Parliament, and we collected £400 for the miners.

  Friday 14 December

  At 10.35 pm, Joshua rang to say that William Graydon Feeney Benn had been born – our third grandchild. He is six weeks early, but seems to be all right.

  Tuesday 8 January 1985

  Bought four rather clever attachments to put on my shoes so that I wouldn’t slip on the ice. I’ve been afraid of falling and breaking my hip or something. With the remains of the Guillain-Barré Syndrome I’m still not getting a perfect set of messages from my feet.

  Thursday 31 January

  Peter Heathfield said there were pickets who simply couldn’t go on any more because their shoes had worn out, they hadn’t got any warm clothes, they had been evicted from their homes, and their gas and electricity had been cut off. The union hadn’t any money; they needed £150,000 a week to keep the strike going.

  Sunday 10 February

  The judge in the Ponting case apparently said that the interests of the state were the interests of the Government of the day, implying that criticism of the Government was unacceptable.

  Monday 11 February

  We heard on the news that Clive Ponting had been acquitted – a tremendously significant victory, particularly after the judge had given a violently anti-Labour summing-up. He almost directed the jury to convict.

  Wednesday 13 February

  A man in Wales has left me in his will many personal
papers, including letters from Keir Hardie to Emrys Hughes’s sister (while Emrys was in prison as a conscientious objector during the First World War), and a lovely ebony stick which Mahatma Gandhi gave to Hardie, and a small armchair.

  Tuesday 19 February

  The press generally presented yesterday’s debate on the Belgrano as a great government triumph, with Heseltine having completely destroyed the reputation of Clive Ponting. The Labour attack hasn’t really registered, and that is the problem that we are facing as a party.

  Sunday 3 March

  Today the delayed miners’ delegate conference took place at TUC headquarters. The NUM executive had been split 11:11 on the continuation of the strike, and Arthur had refused to use his casting vote. The delegate conference itself ultimately voted by 98 to 91 for an organised return to work.

  I felt like weeping when I heard it on the news, after this great struggle – at the fact that the people who had been victimised were not being negotiated back, and at the Coal Board’s and the Government’s arrogance.

  The strike has been a monumental and titanic struggle. The overwhelming majority of the miners and their families have supported it to the last, and the crude use by the Government of the apparatus of the state to crush the miners has been on an unprecedented scale. The lessons to be learned from that are enormous. The Coal Board as a nationalised industry has completely abandoned any legitimate loyalty from the miners – they are just state coal-owners.

  The other unions who have supported them – the NUR, the NUS, and so on – have been marvellous. The TUC has been pathetic. The Labour hierarchy has been shown to be quite inadequate. But at grassroots level there has been a formidable development of support groups and so on. I think that is where we will see the moves coming now.

  Tuesday 5 March

  Chesterfield. Still have a filthy cough. I got up at 4, and at 4.50 we gathered in the pitch dark outside the Labour Club. We decided to go with Johnny Burrows to Markham colliery, and as the sun began to rise people gathered round.

  All the miners and their wives, carrying banners, marched down the hill under the railway bridge towards Markham. It was an extraordinary day. Betty Heathfield was on the brink of tears and I hugged her. I felt drained by the end of it because every emotion swept through me like a gale – tragedy, wanting to weep at seeing these people who had sacrificed so much having to go back without having won; then tremendous pride that they could go back with their banners high and not give any sort of impression that they were beaten; then feelings of intense hate as a scab came forward dressed in his pit clothes and photographed them. They began shouting ‘Scabby bastard!’, and the level of hatred is frightening. Then I had feelings of hope and dignity as we stood there and applauded as they all marched into the colliery.

  Later, on TV, we saw pictures from other collieries. At Maerdy, the last pit in the Rhondda, where not a single man had scabbed, they marched round the whole village and went in together. In Yorkshire Arthur Scargill led them back and was stopped by three Kent miners, who had come up all the way to picket that particular colliery because the Kent men are still out. So they all turned back and didn’t go into work that day. The media will try to dance on the grave of the NUM, but they will make a terrible mistake.

  Thursday 28 March

  Brought my diary up to date. It would be so lovely if I had my own room at the Commons. I’m a nomad with a desk, and I can’t even make private phone calls – every word can be overheard.

  I have a huge burden of work at the moment but it is enjoyable, and now that I’ve been squeezed out of the top of Labour politics I’m determined to do a really good job as MP for Chesterfield.

  Monday 1 April

  I have had five invitations to go on chat shows, because it’s my sixtieth birthday on Wednesday. I suppose when you reach sixty the journalists think they can rehabilitate you as an eccentric, lovable old character. These shows would be entirely personal, nothing to do with politics, and I would be presented as an attractive person if I was prepared to go along with it on their terms. But people at home who know me as a fighter would say, ‘God, he’s sold out.’

  Tuesday 23 April

  Today was the christening of Joshua’s son, William, in the Commons Crypt. Michael and little James ran around and took no notice of the service at all. When the vicar asked us to stand for a prayer, Michael could be heard saying, ‘We’ve got to stand again.’ But it went beautifully, and William didn’t cry at all. Afterwards we all went up to the Members’ Dining Room and had tea.

  Wednesday 24 April

  Bought the New Socialist, and there was the article by Patrick Seyd called ‘Bennism without Benn’ of which I had been warned. To find a socialist journal carrying an article as personal as this is revolting. Stuart Weir, the Editor, is of the Hobsbawm school, and what the article says in effect is that Ken Coates, Michael Meacher, Tom Sawyer, Stuart Holland and Frances Morrell have all completely deserted me and joined the Kinnock camp and that I am now alone with ‘Dennis Skinner and the headbangers’.

  Thursday 25 April

  New Left Review carried an article by Ralph Miliband in which he patiently took to pieces the arguments of the new revisionists – everyone from the Eurocommunists to the soft Left of the Labour Party. He described how people had detached themselves from the Left and were being drawn towards Kinnock with a view to ‘saving Kinnock from the Right’, the old argument that I heard Crossman and Castle use in relation to Wilson time and again.

  I had a letter from Stuart Weir, offering me the right of reply in New Socialist and saying the Seyd article did not represent the paper’s view.

  Sunday 5 May

  In the evening I had a useful meeting with the New Left Review people, organised by Ralph Miliband: John Palmer, Perry Anderson (Editor of the NLR), Tariq Ali, Hilary Wainwright and Robin Blackburn. Caroline sat in – which was a great tribute to them.

  Ralph outlined the three elements of the Left: the ultra-Left (eg the Workers’ Revolutionary Party and Militant) and some radical feminists, who were intransigent; the Hattersley to Hobsbawm Left (including Frances Morrell and possibly Ken Livingstone), who lean towards the leadership; and the independent socialist Left, the Bennites inside and outside the Labour Party, who wanted socialism without rocking the boat. Ralph wanted to see this last element strengthened.

  He said Bennism could be summarised as ‘the need for a democratic revolution’ in Britain to tackle corporate power and the class structure. But how?

  John Palmer was reminded of 1962–64 when Wilson had been able to co-opt the old Left because it had not prepared its position. Kinnock was attempting to do the same thing. John’s fears for the next Election were that a Labour or Labour/SDP government might come to power and then fail, and that would produce a strong backlash of the Right, currently held in check by Thatcherism itself. He didn’t agree entirely with me on the EEC but did agree on the question of NATO.

  He continued, ‘We must arm the Left with all sorts of weapons, weapons which may have to be used even against a Labour government. The defeat of the miners’ strike was a blow to the Left, and helps to explain the shift towards Kinnock. The Left has to utilise its resources to mount a massive and serious anti-Thatcher campaign, because there is no attack on capitalism by Labour at the moment.’ He said there would be a hard fight inside Parliament of fifty to sixty new Labour MPs who must tell the next Labour Government, ‘We will not support what you propose – neither the acceptance of Cruise nor any attacks on the working class.’

  Robin Blackburn believed we must attack British capitalism and not Thatcherism, which was the worst form of capitalism we’d ever had but had meant great success for the City. We must examine the empowerment of workers and the democratisation of British capitalism.

  We discussed the accusation of ‘boat-rocking’. John Palmer said that rocking the boat couldn’t be avoided; there shouldn’t be a leadership contest but there was a need for a clear challenge to Kinnock’s p
osition.

  So from that beginning we decided to call ourselves the Independent Left Corresponding Society (ILCS) and meet monthly. It is what Ralph had in mind as a ‘think tank’, and I think we all enjoyed it. There has been a major political shift and we have to accept it without bitterness. The ‘new realists’ have been propelled towards Kinnock partly by the defeat of the miners and the local authorities, partly by the fact that if Kinnock becomes PM he will have a lot of patronage to offer and their own careers will be promoted. The media have been making it tough for the Left. The so-called Bennites are trying to find a new base from which to advance, rooted in the trade union movement and the constituency Parties.

  Friday 19 July

  Train to Chesterfield. As I went to get some tea a woman asked me if I was Tony Benn. She said, ‘I’m Gareth Peirce.’ Well, Gareth is one of the solicitors who has been defending the miners on trial for rioting at Orgreave, and we talked and talked. She told me the trial was of tremendous historical importance. At the beginning, the prosecution had said it was one of the gravest cases of riot in Britain, but the defence counsel had so successfully cross-examined the prosecution witnesses that it had gradually emerged, from the clear evidence of video recordings and photographs, that the police account was flawed.

  She said that from reading the Public Order Tactical Operations Manual- the police training manual – detailing the use by the police of short and long shields, of mounted police and truncheons, it was clear that unarmed civilians were being exposed to paramilitary tactics unauthorised by common law. I am going to raise it in the House on Monday. It was a military operation without doubt – nothing to do with protecting law and order. She is going to get me extracts of the manual used at the trial.