alternatehistory.com
Anthony Wedgwood-Benn (1971-1978)
I expect there's scant point to me holding this back any longer-
Anthony Wedgwood-Benn was, in many ways, an unlikely Labour leader. His father and grandfather had both been prominent Liberal politicians (although the former went over to Labour), and his father had been made a viscount for his services to the wartime government. He went to Westminster School, not quite Eton but very nearly, and subsequently studied Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxford. He was an officer in the Royal Air Force, and while never seeing combat, remained in the reserve for many years after the war. When the elder Benn died in 1960, Anthony became the 2nd Viscount Stansgate, a title he found deeply distasteful and disclaimed as soon as the law was changed to let him do so. He retained, however, distinctly upper-class mannerisms and modes of speech throughout his life, a bizarre contrast against his political beliefs. So how did this public-school boy, this RAF reservist with noble pedigree, end up one of the foremost icons of political radicalism?
No doubt one is making omissions in a retelling of Benn's career if one does not mention the fact that he was close to Harold Wilson. Wilson met Benn in 1955 while looking for a new private secretary, and was deeply impressed by the man – so impressed that, a few years later, he took him into Cabinet as Education Secretary. Benn was responsible for rolling out the comprehensive school, and undertook the task with great gusto. A firm believer in the levelling power of education, Benn was enthusiastic in his perceived attacks on the very institutions that had formed him – the Education Act 1966, largely Benn's brainchild, saw the overwhelming majority of independent schools nationalised, and what few ones remained were to be tightly overseen by the state. No longer would class determine who was educated where – instead, each child was assigned to a state school based on where he or she lived, and little wiggle room existed.
Benn made himself known as an orator, both inside Parliament and outside it – he frequently led the marches on the First of May, and during election campaigns he served as a sort of “attack dog” against the divided opposition. He made some headlines when, during the 1968 student riots, he entered the occupied LSESU building and spoke to calm the students within. The appeal was a failure, but the fact that he tried spoke volumes about Benn's political style. He was different from the previous generation of Labour politicians, who would probably have considered his actions rash and unnecessary. The fact that Benn seemed to be one of the only politicians who would actually respect the youth made him popular among them, moreso than probably any politician at the time.
So it was that when Wilson resigned, he proposed Benn as his candidate to succeed him. The election was unopposed, and Benn entered Number 10 in short order. His first priority was completing the constitutional arrangements begun by Wilson, and more specifically, Lords reform. Benn wanted the Lords abolished if possible and reformed to be more democratic if not. He proposed a scheme whereby half the house would be appointed by the sitting government through the issuing of life peerages, the other half elected by various sectional interests. The caveat to all this, of course, was that the Lords themselves would have to agree to it, and the overwhelmingly right-wing house wouldn't countenance such a radical reform. Where the Lords had consented to the expansion of the welfare state, the gradual dismantlement of Empire and the abolition of the public schools, here, they put their collective foot down. Hectic negotiations ensued, and ultimately it transpired that the Lords might be inclined to support the introduction of technocratic elements, but they wanted another reform in return – perhaps a slightly unexpected one: proportional representation for the Commons.
Fifteen years prior, the idea of the House of Lords imposing PR would've been a ludicrous one. However, the division of the right meant that Labour was essentially in power for all eternity under first-past-the-post, while the still largely hereditary Lords remained dominated by Centrists and Nationals. This situation became rather distasteful to them, and after six successive election losses to Labour, that the right should champion proportional representation became a less and less ridiculous concept by the day. Benn, unlike most in Labour, was not wholly opposed to the idea of PR, and after some consideration let it be known that he'd agree to the proposals. The Parliament Act 1972 would split the Lords into three categories: a hundred representative peers elected by the entire hereditary peerage to represent them, two hundred technocratic peers selected by “panels” composed of workers within specific social groups – this was inspired by the Irish Senate – and a maximum of two hundred life peers appointed by the Prime Minister. The Commons, meanwhile, would be elected by proportional representation in constituencies of no more than twelve members, coinciding with local government boundaries in most places.
In sharp contrast to Wilson, who'd been an eager reformer at home and at best a quiet safekeeper abroad, Benn was enthusiastic about his foreign policy views. Foremost of these was support for the liberation of various oppressed peoples, from Palestine to Angola to Chile to Vietnam. This latter point earned him the scorn of Washington – when the US Air Force firebombed Hanoi in late 1972, he referred to them in a televised speech as “murderers”, and linked their actions to those of Nazi Germany and apartheid South Africa. The American reaction was not long coming, and days after the speech they recalled their ambassador to London. If any previous Prime Minister had made such statements, he'd have been forced out of office, but Benn was unflappable. In the first Prime Minister's Questions of 1973, when he was inevitably grilled about these events, Benn proclaimed his adherence to two principles: “firstly, the triumph of democracy over imperialism, whether that imperialism wears a swastika or a white star on blue, and secondly, the triumph of truth over lies and sycophancy, whether or not that truth is politically convenient at the time”.
On the home front, however, Benn's ministry is poorly remembered if it's remembered at all. Soon after the Vietnam debacle, Benn found himself in a domestic crisis when the Arabs invaded Israel in a surprise attack – the Foreign Office joined most of the West in condemning the attack, whereupon the Arab states in OPEC cut off their oil. At roughly the same time, industrial relations within the National Coal Board broke down, and the coal miners went on strike. Suddenly Britain found itself crippled by fuel shortages, and though exploitation of the North Sea oil resources was sped up in response, this was a long-term solution that would do little to bring people the fuel they desperately needed in the present. It wasn't long before Hugh Gaitskell, the long-serving Chancellor who'd first been minted during the early Wilson years, was forced to go on television to announce the introduction of a new rationing scheme for coal and oil. Private households would receive only a limited allocation of these resources per week, and as for industry, they were limited to three days a week of electrical supply. The “Three-Day Week” as it became known, was an unmitigated disaster for Labour, and coupled with the introduction of PR, they were widely expected to lose the next General Election in a landslide.
Proportional representation works in funny ways, however, and it was a huge upset when the 1975 general elections returned exactly 310 seats for Labour and their Communist passive supporters, and 309 for the combined opposition. Discount the Speaker, and the two “blocs” were equally powerful. The opposition clamoured for a new election – Benn, however, refused to call one. He claimed this was because his mandate technically wasn't gone, but in practice his reasons were almost certainly more prosaic – he feared (quite rightly) that a fresh election would lead to him losing power. So it was that the Benn ministry stayed in power, and the farce of the “Lottery Parliament” ensued. Labour would seek compromise where possible, but where this was not possible – such as for appropriations bills – the vote in the House of Commons would be decided by the drawing of lots. As a general rule, this method proved surprisingly equitable – the government won about 52% of draws, the opposition about 48 – however, this did little to change the incongruous nature of the fact that the governance of Britain was now decided by who picked the hand where the Chairman of Ways and Means was holding the pebble.
When the drawing for the budget of 1978 came up against the government, Benn decided to resign and contest an early election rather than sit through any more of this. The government had been able to curtail fuel rationing shortly after the previous election, and hoped that the people would've forgotten about the whole sordid affair by this point. They had not, however, and for the first time in over three decades, Labour was voted out of power. No clear successor was found, however, and so the choice of Prime Minister was a somewhat unconventional one...
Anthony Wedgwood-Benn was, in many ways, an unlikely Labour leader. His father and grandfather had both been prominent Liberal politicians (although the former went over to Labour), and his father had been made a viscount for his services to the wartime government. He went to Westminster School, not quite Eton but very nearly, and subsequently studied Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxford. He was an officer in the Royal Air Force, and while never seeing combat, remained in the reserve for many years after the war. When the elder Benn died in 1960, Anthony became the 2nd Viscount Stansgate, a title he found deeply distasteful and disclaimed as soon as the law was changed to let him do so. He retained, however, distinctly upper-class mannerisms and modes of speech throughout his life, a bizarre contrast against his political beliefs. So how did this public-school boy, this RAF reservist with noble pedigree, end up one of the foremost icons of political radicalism?
No doubt one is making omissions in a retelling of Benn's career if one does not mention the fact that he was close to Harold Wilson. Wilson met Benn in 1955 while looking for a new private secretary, and was deeply impressed by the man – so impressed that, a few years later, he took him into Cabinet as Education Secretary. Benn was responsible for rolling out the comprehensive school, and undertook the task with great gusto. A firm believer in the levelling power of education, Benn was enthusiastic in his perceived attacks on the very institutions that had formed him – the Education Act 1966, largely Benn's brainchild, saw the overwhelming majority of independent schools nationalised, and what few ones remained were to be tightly overseen by the state. No longer would class determine who was educated where – instead, each child was assigned to a state school based on where he or she lived, and little wiggle room existed.
Benn made himself known as an orator, both inside Parliament and outside it – he frequently led the marches on the First of May, and during election campaigns he served as a sort of “attack dog” against the divided opposition. He made some headlines when, during the 1968 student riots, he entered the occupied LSESU building and spoke to calm the students within. The appeal was a failure, but the fact that he tried spoke volumes about Benn's political style. He was different from the previous generation of Labour politicians, who would probably have considered his actions rash and unnecessary. The fact that Benn seemed to be one of the only politicians who would actually respect the youth made him popular among them, moreso than probably any politician at the time.
So it was that when Wilson resigned, he proposed Benn as his candidate to succeed him. The election was unopposed, and Benn entered Number 10 in short order. His first priority was completing the constitutional arrangements begun by Wilson, and more specifically, Lords reform. Benn wanted the Lords abolished if possible and reformed to be more democratic if not. He proposed a scheme whereby half the house would be appointed by the sitting government through the issuing of life peerages, the other half elected by various sectional interests. The caveat to all this, of course, was that the Lords themselves would have to agree to it, and the overwhelmingly right-wing house wouldn't countenance such a radical reform. Where the Lords had consented to the expansion of the welfare state, the gradual dismantlement of Empire and the abolition of the public schools, here, they put their collective foot down. Hectic negotiations ensued, and ultimately it transpired that the Lords might be inclined to support the introduction of technocratic elements, but they wanted another reform in return – perhaps a slightly unexpected one: proportional representation for the Commons.
Fifteen years prior, the idea of the House of Lords imposing PR would've been a ludicrous one. However, the division of the right meant that Labour was essentially in power for all eternity under first-past-the-post, while the still largely hereditary Lords remained dominated by Centrists and Nationals. This situation became rather distasteful to them, and after six successive election losses to Labour, that the right should champion proportional representation became a less and less ridiculous concept by the day. Benn, unlike most in Labour, was not wholly opposed to the idea of PR, and after some consideration let it be known that he'd agree to the proposals. The Parliament Act 1972 would split the Lords into three categories: a hundred representative peers elected by the entire hereditary peerage to represent them, two hundred technocratic peers selected by “panels” composed of workers within specific social groups – this was inspired by the Irish Senate – and a maximum of two hundred life peers appointed by the Prime Minister. The Commons, meanwhile, would be elected by proportional representation in constituencies of no more than twelve members, coinciding with local government boundaries in most places.
In sharp contrast to Wilson, who'd been an eager reformer at home and at best a quiet safekeeper abroad, Benn was enthusiastic about his foreign policy views. Foremost of these was support for the liberation of various oppressed peoples, from Palestine to Angola to Chile to Vietnam. This latter point earned him the scorn of Washington – when the US Air Force firebombed Hanoi in late 1972, he referred to them in a televised speech as “murderers”, and linked their actions to those of Nazi Germany and apartheid South Africa. The American reaction was not long coming, and days after the speech they recalled their ambassador to London. If any previous Prime Minister had made such statements, he'd have been forced out of office, but Benn was unflappable. In the first Prime Minister's Questions of 1973, when he was inevitably grilled about these events, Benn proclaimed his adherence to two principles: “firstly, the triumph of democracy over imperialism, whether that imperialism wears a swastika or a white star on blue, and secondly, the triumph of truth over lies and sycophancy, whether or not that truth is politically convenient at the time”.
On the home front, however, Benn's ministry is poorly remembered if it's remembered at all. Soon after the Vietnam debacle, Benn found himself in a domestic crisis when the Arabs invaded Israel in a surprise attack – the Foreign Office joined most of the West in condemning the attack, whereupon the Arab states in OPEC cut off their oil. At roughly the same time, industrial relations within the National Coal Board broke down, and the coal miners went on strike. Suddenly Britain found itself crippled by fuel shortages, and though exploitation of the North Sea oil resources was sped up in response, this was a long-term solution that would do little to bring people the fuel they desperately needed in the present. It wasn't long before Hugh Gaitskell, the long-serving Chancellor who'd first been minted during the early Wilson years, was forced to go on television to announce the introduction of a new rationing scheme for coal and oil. Private households would receive only a limited allocation of these resources per week, and as for industry, they were limited to three days a week of electrical supply. The “Three-Day Week” as it became known, was an unmitigated disaster for Labour, and coupled with the introduction of PR, they were widely expected to lose the next General Election in a landslide.
Proportional representation works in funny ways, however, and it was a huge upset when the 1975 general elections returned exactly 310 seats for Labour and their Communist passive supporters, and 309 for the combined opposition. Discount the Speaker, and the two “blocs” were equally powerful. The opposition clamoured for a new election – Benn, however, refused to call one. He claimed this was because his mandate technically wasn't gone, but in practice his reasons were almost certainly more prosaic – he feared (quite rightly) that a fresh election would lead to him losing power. So it was that the Benn ministry stayed in power, and the farce of the “Lottery Parliament” ensued. Labour would seek compromise where possible, but where this was not possible – such as for appropriations bills – the vote in the House of Commons would be decided by the drawing of lots. As a general rule, this method proved surprisingly equitable – the government won about 52% of draws, the opposition about 48 – however, this did little to change the incongruous nature of the fact that the governance of Britain was now decided by who picked the hand where the Chairman of Ways and Means was holding the pebble.
When the drawing for the budget of 1978 came up against the government, Benn decided to resign and contest an early election rather than sit through any more of this. The government had been able to curtail fuel rationing shortly after the previous election, and hoped that the people would've forgotten about the whole sordid affair by this point. They had not, however, and for the first time in over three decades, Labour was voted out of power. No clear successor was found, however, and so the choice of Prime Minister was a somewhat unconventional one...
- Utgard96
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