What If Gordon Banks Had Played, Part 8

2nd April 1976

Roy Mason, Shadow Defence Secretary, laid his prepared speech on the despatch box and looked up. His chaps had drafted up a standard response complaining about the Conservative Government wasting money on defence and on their dangerous fancination with nuclear weapons, attacking them for slavishly following the US's lead, the sort of thing that would cheer up the troops on the backbenches and send them home to their constituencies with a spring in their step. It was all based on the assumption, a reasonable one as far as Mason was concerned, that John Nott's defence review would be along the lines of the priorities set out by the Prime Minister in his speech on defence a couple of months back. Everyone knew that Powell was secretly in favour of nuclear disarmament and it was only the steadfast opposition of Conservative MPs, people like John Nott, that prevented the Government moving towards disarmament. But now...Mason put his speech to one side.

“Mr Speaker, can I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. It certainly came as a pleasant surprise to those of us on this side of the House.” A few sniggers came from the Labour backbenches. "Firstly may I wholeheartly congratulate the Government on the downgrading of Polaris, and I can only hope that the money that was to be used to build weapons of mass destruction can now be used to help some of those workers who have been thrown on the scrap heap by the Tory Government.

“The Secretary of State is looking somewhat downhearted,” Mason underexaggerated, Nott in fact had a face like a wet weekend. “I can't see why. I can only applaud his achievement of converting the Conservative Party to unilateralism — it cannot have been easy to pursuade so many staunch supporters of nuclear weapons to support of measure than can be intended to no nothing other than allow Britain's dangerous and unwanted nuclear detterent to wither upon the vine. Not least the opposition of the Prime Minister who spoke so eloquently in support of our nuclear weapons earlier this year.” There was laughter from the Labour benches. The Government benches were full of drawn, depressed faces, and Conservative MPs were already quietly scuttling away to the Commons bars. “I can only assume he has experienced some sort of Paulline conversion,” continued Mason, happily mining the rich vein of Conservative distress.

- — - -

John Nott did his best to hurry from the chamber without being barracked by his own MPs, rather than go to the tea room, he scuttled down the tiny staircase by the Speaker's Office and scampered down past the kitchens and towards the road that runs beneath the Palace of Westminster, linking the series of courtyards that make up the Palace. To his dismay, Alan Clark, was loitering by the Stranger's cafeteria. “What the hell what that all about?”

“Enoch,” Nott said, shaking his head.

“The damn fool is too smart for his own good.”

“It's not even that,” Nott said. “We all know he doesn't approve of nuclear weapons, Angus has been pushing him to make a commitment to Polaris to keep the Americans happy...”

“And it's wound him up?”

“Yes, yes. You know what he's like once he has a bee in his bonnet.”

“You could have refused. Could've said you'd resign.”

“And what? He would only have replaced me with someone else prepared to do his dirty work. Even if Angus had gone with me — if would just have torn the party apart. Enoch won't stand down. We just need to put up with him. After all, we don't want another 10 years in opposition.” Clark nodded. “The tax cuts need to be funded somehow, and frankly you've either got a nuclear deterrent or you haven't, it's not the size that matters. If Kennedy wins the election then the US will hate us anyway. So I don't suppose it's any great loss.”

“Just have to hope Reagan wins the nomination,” said Clark.

“The actor? The guy with the chimp? You can't be serious...”

3rd April 1976

“Tell me what's going on Hank,” said the President, sitting back in his seat on Air Force 1 as the Presidential Plane flew South towards Texas.

“I don't know Mr President,” The Secretary of State said from the seat opposite. “Ve had an agreement vith the British and they haf betrayed us.”

“Assholes,” the President said, gazing out the window. “What is this Powell guy's problem?”

“He is difficult, Mr President. His people though, they are helpful. We still have friends in the British government.”

“What do we do then?”

“We can either look for alternatives, if Ireland continue to feel threatened by the UK ve can hope they vill move closer to us in the search for protection. Failing that, ve can try to ease Powell out of power. Arrange to haf some photo opportunities with alternative British leaders perhaps, let the CIA offer them some help, yes?”

“We might have to, Hank. After the election though. There is too much on my plate right now to start worrying about the Brits. After all, who needs their handful of nukes? All we really need is someone to agree with us in the media and vote in the security council.”

“That may be a problem Mr President...”

From “Wasted Opportunities. Britain and the European Union since 1958” by H.Young (Orion, 1997)

Leo Tindemans, retiring Prime Minister of Belgium, was selected as the next President of the European Commission in July 1976. His selection marked a turning point in the development of the EEC. The appointment of such a high-profile figure instantly politicised a position that had, until Tindemans appointment, been seen as little more than a senior civil servant and for the next eight years Tindeman would be a driving force behind the developement of the EEC. Tindeman's appointment also signalled a new drive towards integration. Since the failure of the integrated defence policy the development of Europe had stalled somewhat, with the Community concentrating more on expanding to include the UK, Ireland, Denmark and Norway. Tindeman's appointment signalled the Community's intention to turn away from expansion, and instead concentrate upon further integration. Upon his appointment Tindeman made his primary aim clear — the adoption of a single European Currency by 1986.

The change of direction within Europe had a marked effect on British politics. There was a feeling amongst many observers that Britain had “missed the boat”, that the EEC had given up waiting for the UK to join and had decided to continue on their way without Britain holding them back. The possibility of a single currency gave anti-Europeans a new weapon in their arsenal, and made the job of the pro-European in seeking to pursuade a hugely sceptical British public that they had nothing to fear from the EEC all the more difficult.

From the Times, 3rd August 1976

President Gerald Ford yesterday suffered a humiliating defeat as he failed to secure the Republican nomination for the US Presidential election. He is the first sitting President to be defeated for their party's nomination since the terminally ill President Arthur in 1884. Admist much recriminations at the Republican Conference in Kansas City Ronald Reagan, the former Governor of California, secured the nomination with 1,162 to President Ford's 1,095.

Ronald Reagan, 65, a former actor who stared in such films as A Modern Hero, King's Row and Bedtime for Bonzo, was Governor of California from 1966 until 1974. He is seen as being on the right-wing of the Republican Party and has been sharply critical of President Ford's foreign policy. He is expected to run upon a platform of increased defence spending and Powellite economic policy.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Presidential candidate, Senator Ted Kennedy was again grilled over the Chappaqudick incident during a television interview yesterday. Questions over the 1969 tradgedy in which a secretary, Mary Jo Kopechne, drowned in the back of Senator Kennedy's car after it was driven off a bridge after a party have haunted the Democratic candidate throughout his campaign, and with questions still hanging over Senator Kennedy about the events at Chappaquidick, it is unlikely to go away.

18th August 1976

Even with all the windows open and the electric fans whirring at full speed, it was a stiflingly hot evening. “Not to much soda, old boy. Hosepipe ban and all that,” Willie Whitelaw guffawed across the room. The Prime Minister passed him a drink and saw to his other guests needs before taking a seat.

“Thank you all for coming, this is just intended as an informal meeting, to idenfity our priorities for the Queen's Speech before it goes before the full cabinet. My initial thoughts are that the main pieces of legislation that will need to be brought forward, are the Education Bill, which we have been holding off on until now, a tying up of loose ends on industrial relations and a cross departmental family and benefits bill, which will include the replacements for child benefit and unemployment benefit. Of course there will be a variety of smaller bills as well, not least the bill to increase the number of seats in Ulster.”

“My only worry,” Peter Thorneycroft interjected. “Is that we have a lot of controversial stuff there. We haven't defeated the Unions, Enoch, they are only sleeping. Indeed, we only got out of the last mess by perverse and unpleasant luck.”

“That's why we need to tie the ends up,” said Norman Tebbit. He was the youngest of the group and, as Minister for Transport, the most junior. “The provisions in the last act will make it much more difficult for them. If we hammer them down now we may be able to kill them off.”

“But there's the Education Bill as well. We all know what the teachers are like. Nothing, absolutely nothing that we ever do is approved of. They would find some reason to kick up a fuss over a Free Money to Teachers Bill. On top of that is Keith's bill, which frankly, if split up into smaller pieces could fill a whole sessions itself.”

Keith Joseph, sat beside the open window looking out onto Eaton Square, spoke up. “We cannot afford to leave it. Measures of this size and importance... and while many of them seem like small changes they are, none the less, important, I think we all recognise that.” The Chancellor paused and looked around the room, the rest of the assembled inner cabinet nodded their agreement. "Measures of this importance need time to settle in. We cannot rely upon remaining in power after the next election, we need to get these measures through now.

“Hopefully the bill should be passed without large scale outcry anyway. Most of its measures are innocuous, and compared to the industrial relations bill it should attract little attention. Of course, while all of us see it as my baby, it will be going through as a DHSS Bill, under the control of whoever the Prime Minister chooses to give that poisoned chalice to.”

“I wouldn't relax too soon,” Whitelaw said with a smile.

“Legislation isn't the only problem though,” Thorneycroft continued. “There are a lot of other things on the agenda — the Silver Jubilee not to mention that we still have Northern Ireland hanging over us. At some point the slum clearance program is going to have to start.”

“December I should expect,” Jim Molyneaux said. Since his enforced departure at the beginning of the year he was only a backbencher, but a backbencher who retained the Prime Minister's ear. “No one wants to read about such things over the Christmas holidays, and the cold weather doesn't encourage rioting. If Kennedy wins the US election, and we should assume that it is likely, we want to get it done after campaigning finishes in November and before he becomes President in January.”

“Still whenever it starts, we can expect trouble. With strikes, people accusing us if eugenics and civil war in Ulster, we would have rather a lot on our plate Enoch.”

From “A Woman's Place: An Autobiography”, by Margaret Thatcher (HarperCollins, 1989)

By August 1976 it was clear that Enoch was planning another reshuffle. I was not happy as Leader of the House and was keen to move to a departmental position. While I admired Enoch greatly, he took a very traditional line on the role of women and I suspected he would rather not have any women in his cabinet. I had suspicions that my move to Leader of the House was a stopping point on being removed from the cabinet altogether. I had spoken with Keith about my concerns and he had promised to have a quiet word with Enoch. On the day of the reshuffle I was pleasantly surprised to be offered the position of Secretary of State for Health and Social Services. Amongst the other changes made to the cabinet was the departure of Angus Maude. While it was protrayed as retirement no one in the Parliamentary Party was under any doubt that Angus had been sacked for his stance over the USA and Defence policy.

My first task as Secretary of State for Health and Social Security was to pilot through the Social Security Bill. This was a huge piece of legislation that actually crossed many departmental boundaries. Much of it built upon work that had been developed by Keith for many years and was intended to reform the old social security system to prevent it rewarding idleness. Unemployment benefit was to be stopped, and replaced with short term payments to those who were infortunately out of work, which were strictly tied to efforts to find a job. No longer would be the lazy and feckless be able to survive upon tax payers money. The Bill would also prevent the families of workers on strike — people who had chosen to go without a wage — claiming benefits. [1]

Part of the problem on sink council estates was the so-called “poverty trap”, where people were actually better off claiming benefits than seeking work. This would be dealt with, not only by the cuts in benefit to those in work but by a new payment, called Family Credit, available to those leaving unemployment and entering low paid work.

During our time in opposition Keith had bravely spoken out about the consequences to our society if the majority of children continued to be born into families that were least able to support them. Rather than reacting to his points, the media and the Labour Government of the time had castigated him as a eugenicist. The Social Security Bill sought to deal with these problems. It abandoned the old Family Allowance which encouraged poor families to have large numbers of children and instead introduced a small subsistance payment, called Child Benefit, payable for the first child only. This would be supplemented by an extra tax allowance for parents in work.

The Bill also prevented single teenage mothers jumping the queue for council houses, another unforgivable example of rewarding irresponsibility. Instead we decided to act to promote birth control and encourage adoption. I knew as soon as a saw the draft proposals that this would be controversal and I knew as a mother of the importance of a child having the opportunity to have a relationship with their biological mother. However, Keith's warning was right, unless we acted whole generations would grow up on crime, drug and unemployment ridden sink estates. The social cost demanded that we act.