John Stonehouse, My Father

by Julia Stonehouse

  On the 17th January, my father made the mistake of meeting members of the press ‘off the record’ at the Hilton Hotel, hoping he could explain the series of events that led to his breakdown. It was like sticking his hand in a hornet’s nest and hoping not to get stung. He was angry with Ted Short for not releasing the whole text of his letter of the 13th January, which included the lines: ‘I now appreciate that the long traumas I suffered were caused by a deep disillusionment with the state of English society and the complete frustration of the ideals I have pursued in my political and business life. The most traumatic frustrations I suffered relate particularly to Africa, Bangladesh, and the British Cooperative Movement.’16 In his letter to Short on the 16th, he referred to a statement by the government chief whip, Robert ‘Bob’ Mellish, saying, ‘I hope he has been misquoted.’ This may refer to the front-page headline on the London Evening News that day: ‘Angry Mellish accuses Labour’s runaway MP, STONEHOUSE “LIKE MANIAC”’. As chief whip of a government with a razor-thin majority, Mellish was much inconvenienced by his runaway MP. He didn’t intend to be understanding of my father’s mental health issues, but nevertheless arrived at the same point: ‘His behaviour does not seem to be that of a normal man.’ The opinions of three other Labour MPs were quoted. Marcus Lipton said: ‘A simple straightforward motion on Monday to expel him is all we need – cut the cackle and let’s get on with it.’ John Lee said: ‘What we are concerned about is the whole skulduggery of absconding and entering Australia under false names which is conduct unbecoming of a Member of Parliament.’ Even my father’s friend, William Molloy, was cutting ties with a vengeance: ‘Stonehouse has now by his recent action destroyed all vestiges of honourable behaviour. To err is human, to revel in it is repugnant.’17

  Bob Mellish and Ted Short got lambasted by my father during the ‘off the record’ dinner with the reporters on the 17th and, the next day, very much ‘on the record’, the Daily Mail’s front-page headline ran: ‘STONEHOUSE BLOWS HIS TOP. SHORT: “The man is a pusillanimous twit …” MELLISH: “He’s nothing but a crude bore”’. In fact, he’d called Mellish an ‘uncouth bully’. Either way, it was not the way to make friends and influence people. The word ‘pusillanimous’ means lacking courage or resolution, but Ted Short wasn’t going to be cowardly now. He wrote to my father on the 21st: ‘I very much regret to have to tell you that, as you have not yet signed the application for your appointment as Steward of the Manor of Northstead, I am now compelled to set in hand Parliamentary consideration of your case,’18 and he set about making arrangements for a select committee to be appointed, essentially to see how they could get rid of him.

  During that dinner with the reporters, my father had also banged his hand on the table and said: ‘I tell you I am going to stay here. I am going to stay.’ This also appeared in the Daily Mail article by their chief crime reporter, Harry Longmuir, and it was no doubt relayed to Chief Superintendent Etheridge of Scotland Yard when the two of them met for a prearranged tête-à-tête later that night. This is how it works: the press tell the police what they know, and the police tell the press what they know. Longmuir and Etheridge had such a relationship, possibly forged on their flight out to Melbourne together.

  The only journalist who had a good word to say about my father was Bernard Levin, columnist on The Times. On 21st January he wrote a piece that began: ‘The only surprising thing about the Labour Party’s attitude to the case of Mr John Stonehouse, MP, is that there has not so far been a proposal that he should be immediately executed, by hanging, without the formality of a trial.’ Bernard had been a friend of my father for 25 years and wrote, ‘Perhaps one never knows anybody; but to me, as to others who know him, he has always seemed the most rational, the least wild of men. Yet his behaviour has been that of a man who is seriously disturbed in his mind. (It is true that his descriptions of Mr Short as ‘a pusillanimous twit’ and Mr Mellish as ‘a crude bore’ have the stamp of a man who is in full possession of his faculties. But nobody is so crazy that he has no lucid intervals.) Is it not reasonable, then, to assume that mentally disturbed is precisely what he is?’ Bernard clearly picked up on the collective negativity of the political party my father had dedicated his life to: ‘the sheer indecency of the Labour Party’s behaviour, in assuming the worst of a colleague, in presuming him guilty of crimes with which he has not even been charged, in ignoring the obvious and tragic fact that, on all the evidence, he is clearly suffering from a severe breakdown, and in making such unseemly haste to rid themselves of possible embarrassment and to restore their tiny majority in the House of Commons, should not pass without censure’.19 Bernard’s voice was like a short sweet whistle in a loud howling gale that would go on and on.

  Also in contrast to the cacophony of press and parliamentary hate was the warm sympathy we experienced from constituency officials. My father had been MP for the constituency of Wednesbury for seventeen years until it was abolished in the boundary changes set for the February 1974 election, when he was elected to Walsall North, which included part of the old constituency. We’d built up close relationships in the old constituency – particularly with the chairman, Sam Stevenson, and agent Vic Steed, and their families, and in the new constituency there was Harry Richards. They were all, throughout the whole long nightmare, steadfast and understanding and our family will always be grateful to them for that.

  The motion to agree to the setting up of a select committee took place on the 28th January. The issue was vexing for the members. They knew that if a precedent was established, it could affect them all. The parliamentary columnist Andrew Alexander summed up the problem in the Daily Mail the following day, asking ‘what is the select committee going to say … After all, if it is going to say that strange behaviour, telling lies, ignoring one’s parliamentary duties, making utterly contradictory statements on television and so on – that all these are grounds for disqualification, then we must be prepared for the biggest rash of by-elections in British History.’20

  Alexander noted that the Labour MPs were pulsating with ‘righteous indignation’. One of these was Dennis Skinner, who said: ‘When BBC television has to announce that it is broadcasting photographs from Australia by kind courtesy of the Daily Express, that is enough for me to suggest that the right hon. Gentleman, or someone very closely attached to him, was of a sound enough state of mind to get involved in that.’ He was implying that my father’s mind was sound enough to make a financial arrangement with the Daily Express for their taking of photographs. Skinner didn’t know that it was my mother who had made a deal with the newspaper, simply so she could get herself to Australia on Christmas Day.

  Members were concerned that my father’s behaviour would call their own integrity into question, an idea voiced by Mr Fernyhough: ‘But the one thing that we must try to understand and appreciate is the feeling of the general public. I am certain that they will come to the conclusion that this place is the best club in the world and that once again we are trying to cover up, to shove matters under the carpet and to conceal something which does none of us any good and which, unless it is dealt with, is bound to leave some further mark upon what I would call the general integrity of this House. It is the integrity of the House which is suffering in these circumstances. It affects every Member; some of it rubs off on him.’

  The mental health issue was raised by Emlyn Hooson: ‘That is a matter which it will be extremely difficult for a select committee to decide. For example, I know, from my experience at the Bar, of a medical certificate or a medical report relating to an accused man which on the face of it disclosed a certain state of affairs. However, when the medical expert was questioned and cross-examined thereafter, a totally different state of affairs was disclosed. How would a select committee, for example, be able to judge and assess a medical report from an Australian psychiatrist who was not present to be cross-examined by the committee? That medical issue might be the very issue which the House would eventually be asked to decide. I can think of
many difficulties that would face a select committee now.’

  Members were conflicted about whether they should discuss the matter at all. Sir John Langford-Holt noted: ‘My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition said that we could act only on the fullest information. We have not had that information. We have had speculation in newspapers. I know what the right hon. Member for Walsall, North is supposed to have said in one newspaper but when I read another newspaper I find that he has said something different. We read what his wife has said, what his secretary has said and what his secretary’s husband has said. But there is nothing of authority.’ (Sheila had no husband; they’d been divorced for years.) Mr Fernyhough thought differently: ‘I do not think it is fair to say that we are not entitled to discuss the matter. The whole of the press has discussed it. It has been discussed on television. It is not fair to say that the House somehow must not say one word on this issue.’ After three hours, the motion was passed by 237 for, and 30 against.

  The first thing the select committee did, on the 30th January, was to write to my father asking him to answer two questions, either in person or in writing: 1) Do you intend to remain a member of parliament and 2) Is it your wish to remain in Australia? At their next meeting, a few days later, on the 4th February, the select committee took evidence from Sir David Lidderdale KCB, clerk of the House of Commons. Their first question related to absence: ‘In the past there have been many occasions when members have been absent for a long time?’ – ‘Yes.’ It was established that if the select committee asked an absent MP to come, and they didn’t, they could get a resolution from the House ordering him to come. If he did not then come, it would be ‘contempt of the House’. They discussed precedents for ‘expelling’ or ‘discharging’ members, or for ‘disgraceful conduct’ and ‘constructive contempt’. They discussed cases of errant MPs going back to the 17th century. It was ascertained that there has never been a case where prolonged absence in itself was taken as a reason for expulsion. And they reminded themselves that there are republican MPs from Northern Ireland who, with the backing of their constituents, never set foot in the House of Commons because of ideological objections. There was an option of dismissing my father on the basis that he was obstructing the House in the performance of its functions, but there was no precedent that, simply for being absent, an MP had been dismissed on those grounds. At the end of the discussion, they seemed to have settled on one point. Michael Stewart asked the question: ‘It is clear, is it, that actions which one considers tend to lower the esteem in which the House is held by the country, are contempts?’ Sir David replied: ‘They have been so treated and could be again.’21

  My father replied to the select committee on the 18th February: ‘The advice of my psychiatrist is that a return to England would be extremely dangerous to my psychiatric health. The reason I wish to remain in Australia is because the conditions here are more conducive to my recovery. It may be that after a period of convalescence I would be fully recovered and able to return to the UK in which case I might make a personal statement to the House and resume my Parliamentary duties. But at this time I must be guided by my psychiatrist who has said that the circumstances would be better for me away from the conditions which brought on the traumas to which I have been subject.’22

  That same day, the Australian minister for immigration made a statement saying: ‘While Mr Stonehouse remains a Member of the House of Commons and there is no formal charge or request for extradition, it seems inappropriate to require his departure.’23 On the 26th February, the Australian House of Representatives in Canberra considered an urgency motion on the subject and, in this, the minister revealed that on the 15th January he’d instructed his department that if my father resigned he was to be given three days to leave Australia, or be deported. During the debate the minister also said: ‘The Commonwealth Health Department had recommended to me that Mr Stonehouse not be granted permanent residence on January 29, after he was given a psychiatric examination. The department’s report to me said: It is considered this man has had a mental breakdown which has resulted in a depressed, paranoic state of mind.’ It went into some detail: ‘This breakdown was due to him overloading himself with responsibilities beyond his capabilities to handle himself in political and business life. To this has been added the extra strain of things beyond his control going wrong. One result of this illness has been irresponsible acts without proper heed to the consequences in order to try and escape from his trouble.’ This was relayed to the select committee in London, along with the note that, ‘His mental illness is such that he fails to satisfy the criteria for permanent entry. Mr Stonehouse was not previously aware that he would have to leave Australia but he now knows he has to make plans. He could have fled from Australia and he will probably try to do so now.’24

  So here was the catch‑22: if my father resigned as an MP he’d have to leave Australia immediately and return to the UK, where they were universally antagonistic towards him and didn’t seem to recognise he’d had a mental breakdown – the same mental breakdown that made his stay in Australia impossible due to their immigration laws. What was my father supposed to do? He didn’t know. So he didn’t resign, and just stayed put. He continued to see his psychiatrist and started work on a book, Death of an Idealist, the writing of which became a form of therapy.

  On the 28th February, the Australian High Commission wrote to the select committee, clarifying that Mr Stonehouse would only be allowed to stay in Australia if he remained an MP. They pointed out that there was a provision in the Migration Act to disallow an MP to stay – a ‘declaration’ under Section 8(2) that could be instigated by the minister or an authorised officer – but that ‘In the existing situation the Minister does not have any present intention to make a declaration under Section 8(2) of the Migration Act.’ So there they had it: the Australians weren’t going to throw him out, so if they wanted Stonehouse back, or expelled, they’d have to do something themselves. The British parliamentarians remained unsympathetic and indignant. The Leader of the Commons, Ted Short, said if he didn’t resign or return to the UK he could be expelled from the House, and party officials continued to explore the procedural options. Some of the less aggressive MPs pointed out that the only known alleged charge was obtaining a passport in an assumed name and, as that appeared to be a remarkably easy thing to do, nobody was sure it was actually illegal. Plus, they knew that many other MPs had been absent from the House of Commons for various reasons for much longer periods of time. The press were baying for blood and whipping the nation into a frenzy of hate and the poor parliamentarians felt impotent, and didn’t like it.

  Then my father slapped them right across the face with an exclusive excerpt from the book he was writing, published in the News of the World on 16th March. The part that hurt was this: ‘The Commons became even more oppressive and the childish banter even more irrelevant and irritating. In the Division Lobbies as I shuffled through to have my name ticked and my nod counted, I realised that most MPs around me were robots, too, voting on issues which they did not bother to understand after debates to which they had not bothered to listen.’25 Five days later he was arrested on the instructions of London’s Scotland Yard.

  * The head of state in Australia is Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom, and her representative in Australia is the governor-general. People tend to think the Queen does nothing to interfere in Australian politics, but in 1975 the democratically elected prime minister, Gough Whitlam, was sacked by the Queen’s representative for daring to question the CIA’s use of the secret listening post at Pine Gap, near Alice Springs. Whitlam discovered later that MI6 had been spying on the Australian foreign affairs office and Clyde Cameron told him that MI6 had been bugging cabinet meetings and passing the information on to the CIA. Whitlam had wanted to get rid of the post-colonial relationship with Britain, end nuclear testing, and generally have the country’s resources and foreign policy in the hands of Australians. The CIA and Britain were having no
ne of that. On the 11th November 1975, Whitlam was called into the office of the governor-general, Sir John Kerr, a man with close ties to both UK and US intelligence services, and summarily dismissed using what’s known as ‘reserve powers’.

  12

  Three’s a Crowd

  My father was in love with two women at the same time: his wife, Barbara; and his secretary, Sheila. He once said to me that ‘men are different’, meaning men, euphemistically, ‘sow their oats’. Sheila said my father told her he felt relaxed with her, and I don’t doubt that, but at some point the cheat has to get up and leave his mistress, go home, and lie to his wife about where he’s been. He’d been doing that for about five years. At what point does the strain of lying become a crack in the persona, because lying to anyone, about anything, is always a strain, and the more lying there is, the more of a strain it becomes. In May 1976 my parents, unusually, had a row, during which my mother called him a cheat and a liar, and he replied, ‘That’s why I had to get away from Stonehouse. Don’t you realise how I hated him?’ My father had become disassociated from his emotional self.

  One might wonder, with two women devoted to him, how he managed to get into such a mess with the BBT. My mother blamed herself for not recognising what was going on. She later said, ‘If only John had taken me into his confidence and let me have a go at his business interests I might have done well for him. I actually asked him on several occasions if I could help, but he always shunted me sideways. I think he felt I was the little wife in the background being supportive.’1 But my mother had always supported him in an active way in his political career, and she had always worked to support the family while he was engaged in his various unpaid idealistic ventures. What made the BBT different was that my mother disapproved of the whole project from the outset and generally stayed away from it, and my father was too proud to admit it had defeated him. Also, my father didn’t encourage my mother to come to his office, because Sheila was there nine to five, five days a week. Until August 1974 Sheila was a director of several of his companies, and was a signatory on the accounts – that’s what caused her to stand trial with my father at the Old Bailey.