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James Bolam plays Harold Wilson in the BBC2 drama ‘The
Plot Against Harold Wilson’
Chris Mullin
Harold Wilson
Frank Chapple |
Things to make you go coup!
Is there more than a grain of truth in Chris Mullin's story of political plot and treachery? asks Illtyd Harrington
A Very British Coup by Chris Mullin
Politico’s, £7.99
ON page 137 of Edna Healey’s smug autobiography she recalls
phone calls from her friend Anne the wife of Cecil King. Now
she claims she realises that it was part of the plot to replace
Harold Wilson as Prime Minister.
Unaware of all this, according to her, was her overworked husband
Dennis Healey in the Ministry of Defence.
King, the owner of the Daily Mirror actually set up a lunch
with Solly Zuckerman the government’s chief scientific
advisor and Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten to suggest a military
coup. Major General Walker, the founder of the SAS was an eager
if unstable supporter. Solly Zuckerman left immediately.
Wilson’s unexpected re-election for the fourth time in
1974 and his equally dramatic exit in 1976 have become the stuff
of speculation, intrigue, backstage melodrama and treachery.
Chris Mullin draws many parallels from this period for this
absorbing political novel. In 1988 Channel 4 made a fascinating
three-part programme of it, the late lamented Ray McAnally in
the lead as Harry Perkins – a sea-green incorruptible steel
worker from Sheffield, who becomes the unlikely left-wing Labour
Prime Minister. His government programme pledges an end to the
UK nuclear deterrent and an uncompromising range of far-reaching
reforms.
The deep-seated Establishment realises that Perkins means what
he says whereas the US government thunders away by having their
British position challenged by an elected government.
Mullin, who once edited the left-wing weekly Tribune and later
became a Labour MP, served in Blair’s second government
so he knows the corridors and dark corners of power. His descriptive
accuracy makes for an intriguing intimacy. Writing in 1982 he
was well-placed to monitor and translate the reality of the
mid-1970s into his semi-fictional tale with disturbing effect.
Then late Merlyn Rees Home Secretary in Callaghan’s government
(1976-1979) often mentioned to me that MI5 and MI6 were out
of control. After all he should have known because he shared
responsibility with the Prime Minister for the security services.
So Mullin’ description of the top civil servants, head
of the armed forces and the spooks is not without accuracy.
Cathy Massiter, the whistleblower from MI5, named the spy on
the council of CND the late Harry Newton and believe it or not
there was one hidden away in the BBC vetting appointments. If
he stamped them with an upturned Christmas tree they were considered
a risk.
Reg Smith, the odious leader of the power workers, is obviously
based on Frank Chapple, an ex-communist ennobled in due course
by a grateful Margaret Thatcher and the oily Chancellor of the
Exchequer Lawrence Wainwright could have been the self-modelled
patrician Roy Jenkins, who made no secrets of what he believed
to be his right, the tenancy of Number 10.
Harry Perkins’ eventual tragedy has the ring of truth.
His enforced confinement in the Royal Free Hospital and his
rustication to the shadows of Chequers – there are similarities
to Wilson’s case here.
There are two leading Tory MPs who were vicious opponents of
CND from a campaign base which seemed to be suspiciously well-funded.
The CND spy Harry Newton actually came to my house for dinner
in 1979 with Howard Brenton the playwright.
I was unable to form an opinion of Newton.
Finally, on the main staircase of Number 10 are the painted
portraits and photographs of all the Prime Ministers since Robert
Walpole in 1714.
One day in 1975 Harold Wilson took time off to show them to
me. At the end of my guided tour he said mysteriously: “Time
to go before the tanks come rumbling down Whitehall to cart
us off.”
His alter ego Harry Perkins was dispatched with more sophistication,
a salutary story wrapped up in a gripping plot. |
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