Callaghan: A Life

415 Pages·1997·24.593 MB·English

by  Kenneth O.Morgan

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CALLAGHAN
ALie
By KENNETH 0. MORGAN
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1997
Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford oxz 6op
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Library ofC ongress Cataloging in Publication Data
Morgan , &1111eth 0.
Callaghan: a life I &nneth 0. Morgan.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical reforences (p. ).
r. Callaghan, James, 1.912- . 2. Prime ministers-Great Britain
Biography. J. Great Britain-Politics and government-IM.J-
I. Title.
DA5g1.C3.,Aflf7 I.9.97 J14r.08J'ogr--dw .P?-1.9750
ISBN o-1.9-SzoZI~4
I 3 J 7 9 IO 8 6 4 2
1jpe.ret by Hope Services (Abingdon) Ltd.
Printed in Great Britain
on acid free paper by
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Nr. Bath, Somerset
Preface
THE career of Lord Callaghan is inseparable from British history in the
second half of the twentieth century. In many ways he is one of its repre
sentative figures. He has played a part in British public life for well over
sixty years. He became a union official in 1933 and he is an active peer in
1997. His longevity in politics exceeds that of Lloyd George and rivals that
of Gladstone or Churchill. Not even they managed to hold all the major
offices of prime minister, foreign secretary, chancellor of the Exchequer,
and home secretary which Lord Callaghan uniquely has done. No one else
better embodies the rise and decline of the social democratic consensus
that largely shaped British history for the three decades after the end of the
war in 1945. His fall from power in 1979 was commonly taken as marking
the end of an era. Many commentators then saw him as Labour's last prime
minister, a prophecy which events in May 1997 were to demolish. Lord
Callaghan is a symbol of our present as well as our recent past, New
Labour as well as Old. He links the age of Clem Attlee and that of Tony
Blair.
The art and craft of biography are subtle and contentious. The rela
tionships of author and subject have been extensively, often passionately,
discussed. In my own case, this book is an official biography in the sense
that I have had unhindered access to Lord Callaghan's personal archive of
55 boxes and to Lord Callaghan himself. But it remains a totally independ
ent work of history. He has not revised my judgements. Nor indeed, since
he has already written a work of autobiography, did he wish to. I do not
feel in any way compromised by my own relationship with my subject. I
met him intermittently in earlier years, notably when I chaired an election
meeting at which he spoke in Swansea West back in 1959. But I had little
contact with him over subsequent decades until we met again in early 1989
after my appointment as a vice-chancellor in the University of Wales. I
was an academic observer of his career but never in any way a participant
vu
PREFACE PREFACE
in the events described in this book. I do not feel inhibited by the fact that ulation over the past eight years, as well as to Lady Callaghan for much
Lord Callaghan is still alive. I hope and believe that I have written in the personal kindness and hospitality. In addition to subjecting himself to, I
same spirit of frankness and independence as ifhe were a figure in the past. imagine, dozens of meetings (informal open-'ended conversations, not
In any event, a biography such as David Douglas's fine study of William tape-recorded interviews) with invariable frankness, courtesy, and good
the Conqueror, or almost any book by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., reminds us humour, Lord Callaghan also gave me free range over his archive of fifty
that bias towards one's subject is not confined to the living. five boxes. They form a very substantial collection which spans his life in
There is, obviously, one colossal gain in writing the biography of a all its aspects from his career as a trade union official in the early 1930s
living person, namely the ability to talk freely with my subject on anything I onwards. It contains a wealth of correspondence, manuscript notes and
choose. In writing earlier books of mine, how I would have loved to talk to jottings, transcripts, reports, aides-memoires, and sections of diaries. The
Keir Hardie or David Lloyd George. In the case of Keir Hardie, who died Callaghan Papers have gone to the Bodleian Library in Oxford, where
twenty years before I was born (despite his firm belief in spiritualism and a they will lie alongside those of Attlee, Macmillan, and Wilson amongst
recorded account of a conversation with him at a socialist seance on i.6 July other post-war political figures, and I hope that they will shortly be made
1945), I did at least talk to the late Fenner Brockway. He was able to give me available to other scholars. During the writing of this book, I was much
many insights into Hardie (whom he first met in 1906) that I simply could not indebted to successive keepers of the House of Lords Record Office, Mr
have obtained elsewhere. The personality of Lloyd George was much illu H. C. Cobb and Mr D. J. Johnson and their staff of the House of Lords
minated for me by conversations with two of his children, his nephew, and Record Office who looked after the main archive from 1990, and latterly to
some of his grandchildren. In the case of this contemporary leader, Lord Mrs Mary Clapinson of the Bodleian and Dr Angela Raspin of the LSE for
Callaghan, alive, well, and mentally in full vigour during the eight years in their help in arranging the transfer of material to the Bodleian.
which I was writing this book, I needed no such intermediaries. Beyond this, I have incurred an immense range of obligations over the
Biography is a kaleidoscopic art form. In this book, I was concerned to past eight years. I am much indebted for formal interviews with Lord
go beyond merely describing the career of one important figure, and to Allen of Abbeydale, the late Lord Bancroft, Dr Nigel Bowles, Lord Brooks
revert in part to an earlier literary tradition. The great majority of my pre of Tremorfa, Sir Julian Bullard, Sir Alec Caimcross, Michael Callaghan,
vious books have not been biographies. I have tried here to write some Baroness Castle, Sir Brian Cubbon, Dr Jack Cunningham MP, Sir
thing akin to the more traditional 'life and times', to set Lord Callaghan's Geoffrey de Deney, Lord Donoughue of Ashton, Gwyneth Evans, David
career against the context of Britain's domestic and international history Faulkner, Michael Foot, Lord Gladwin of Clee, Geoffrey Goodman, Roy
from the 1930s to the 1990s, and locate it within the distinctive evolution Hattersley, Lord Healey, the late Lord Houghton of Sowerby, Lord Hunt
'
tradition, and mythology of the British Labour movement. I have greatly ofTanworth, Lady Jay of Paddington, the late Lord Jay ofBattersea, Peter
benefited from the recent flowering of contemporary history in this coun Jay, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, Jack Jones, Dr Henry Kissinger, His
try. It is the public man, the national and world figure, who has been my Excellency Lee Kuan Yew, Professor Ian Little, Sir Thomas McCaffrey,
main concern. I do not think that a psycho-biography of Lord Callaghan Tom McNally, Lord Merlyn-Rees of Cilfynydd, Alun Michael MP, Lord
would be of any great interest, even assuming I was professionally compe Murray of Epping Forest, Lord Rodgers of Quarrybank, His Excellency
tent to produce one. On the other hand, Lytton Strachey has long taught Helmut Schmidt, Roger Stott MP, Sir Kenneth Stowe, and Alan Watkins.
us that the public and the private are virtually impossible to disentangle. I have also benefited from information,·o ften extensive, kindly provided
Lord Callaghan's ancestry, personal characteristics, and style of life, his by Donald Anderson MP, Kenneth Baker, Lord Blake, Albert Booth,
views on religion and culture, on public and personal morality, on family, Ken Bovington, Lord Bullock, Natasha Burkhardt, Tony Christopher,
friendship, and foreign lands are an essential part of trying to explain his Professor Brian Clarkson, Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos, Edmund Dell, Dr
career and draw out the fullest implications of his role in the making of the N. H. Dimsdale, Mrs Marjorie Durbin, Emrys Evans, Dr Ewen Green,
modem world. Harry Green, Kenneth Harris, Professor Peter Hennessy, Sir Reginald
My tn:1in thanks must be to Lord Callaghan himself for asking me to Hibbert, Lord Hooson, Lord Hunt of Llanfairwaterdine, Lady Jay of
write a book which has given me such extraordinary enjoyment and stim- Battersea, Rt. Hon. Neil Kinnock, Sir Montague Levine, Robert
Vlll ix
PREFACE PREFACE
Maclennan MP, Professor David Marquand, Leslie Monckton, Mrs the University of Malaya (Kuala Lumpur); the National University of
Margaret Park (UW Swansea), W. G. A. Raggett, Gerald Rees (Bank of Singapore; the Aberystwyth Rotary Club; the Stubbs Society, Oxford; the
Wales), John Sadden, Dr Jean Seaton, Peter Shore MP, Olive Tanton, University of Wales, Swansea; the University of East Anglia; the
Professor Charles Webster, Baroness Williams of Crosby, and Jessie Worrall. University of Tiibingen (Baden-Wiirttemberg); the University of Wales,
I am very grateful to the following libraries and archive centres for per Aberystwyth, History Society; the graduate research seminar at St John's
mission to quote from papers in their possession: the Public Record College, Oxford; the Universities of. the Witwatersrand, Cape Town, and
Office; the Bodleian Library, Oxford (Attlee, George-Brown, Greenwood, Western Cape, South Africa, and the University of Sheffield.
Boyd of Merton); Rhodes House Library, Oxford (Creech Jones, Many learned colleagues and friends have generously given their time
Welensk:y); the National Library of Wales (Cledwyn, Donnelly, Griffiths, in commenting upon all or part of this book. Professor Vernon Bogdanor
Tonypandy); British Library of Political and Economic Science (Crosland, of Brasenose College, Oxford, read the entire text and offered a host of
Dalton); Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick (Cousins, CBI, stimulating suggestions or corrections; I am deeply in his debt, as also to
IRSF); Clive Brooke (Inland Revenue Staff Federation papers); Lyndon the anonymous reader for Oxford University Press. I also benefited from
Baines Johnson Library, Austin (Johnson, Fowler); Gerald R. Ford the learning of Dr John Darwin ofNuffield College and Dr Nick Owen
Library (Ford); Jimmy Carter Library (Carter). I am also indebted to Mr of Queen's on colonial policy, Dr Nicholas Dimsdale of Queen's on eco
John Cousins for access to the Cousins Papers, to Lady George-Brown for nomic policy, Professor Richard Rose of Strathclyde on the premiership,
access to the George-Brown Papers, and to Lord Cledwyn and Lord Dr John Rowett of Brasenose on modem political history, Professor
Tonypandy for access to their papers. Professor Ian Little kindly let me use Roger Hood of All Souls and my late wife Jane on penal policy, and Dr
his papers on the economics seminars of the early 1960s. My old friend Sir Nigel Bowles of St Anne's on recent politics, quite apart from his own
Alec Cairncross, himself an eighth wonder of the world, allowed me to use close association with Lord Callaghan since 1979. I have, as always, bene
his MS diary as well as his important study of economic policy in the 1960s, fited from conversation with my friends Dr Alastair Parker of Queen's and
prior to publication. Lord Tonypandy, Rhodri Morgan MP, Baroness Dr Denis Balsam, warden of Gregynog, as well as with Tim Bale of
Williams, Peter Shore MP, Dr Jack Cunningham MP, David Lipsey, and Sheffield University. Obviously, blemishes and errors that remain are my
Sir Goronwy Daniel allowed me to print extracts from letters to which responsibility and mine alone. I would like to mention also the endlessly
they own the copyright. I can only apologize if, through mischance or cheerful help of Gina Page, Lord Callaghan's secretary, and his driver,
inadvertence, I have failed to trace or acknowledge any other authors. Alan Currie, and of my two wonderful staff at the university in
I am also most grateful for help regarding source material to Lord Aberystwyth, my personal assistant Nan Thomas, and my secretary Beryl
Donoughue, Christine Woodland (Modern Records Centre, Warwick), Jones. Indeed, Aberystwyth as a whole was remarkably generous in allow
John Graham Jones (National Library of Wales), Geoffrey Goodman ing its vice-chancellor the opportunity to retain a foothold in the histori
and Tony Christopher (Lord Houghton papers), Stephen Bird (Labour cal world. My literary agent Bruce Hunter, a mentor and good friend over
Party archives), Harry Middleton and Michael Parrish (Lyndon Baines a quarter of a century, has always been a fount of encouragement. Tony
Johnson Library), Martin Elzy Q"immy Carter Library), Leesa Tobin Morris of OUP has once again been the most unstuffy of editors, and my
and Nancy Mirshat (Gerald R. Ford Library), Robert Morgan (BBC old friend Ivon Asquith a firm rock of reassurance. I am also indebted to
Today programme), Kirsty White (BBC archive), Hywel Francis (UW the advice of Kim Scott-Walwyn, and the calm efficiency of Mick Belson,
Swansea), Nick Crowson and Virginia Preston (Institute of Contempor Amy Turner, and Juliet New.
ary British History), and the library of the Athenaeum. Like so many To my children, David and Katherine, my debt is beyond words. They
historians I am deep in the debt of the Public Record Office and its have materially helped this book (not least by explaining to a grossly non
good-natured staff over the years. technical father how word-processors work!), they have been eternally
I have also appreciated the opportunity to try out my ideas on the mat cheerful, and they have shown immense reserves of courage when the
ters discussed in this book in seminars or public lectures at a variety ot most important person in our lives, my beloved Jane, was so cruelly taken
institutions. I am therefore most grateful to invitations successively from from us. They have shown me and each other love and endless loyalty. At
x xi
a time when such a thing appeared somewhat elusive, they have given me
a reason to live. Diolch o galon!
K.0.M.
Long Hanborough
SMayrJPJ
Contents
List ofI Dustrarions xv
PART ONE (1912-1964)
1. Naval Childhood 3
z.. Union Man 20
3. People's War 41
4. Backbench Critic 57
5. Junior Minister 78
6. Opposition Years 105
7. House and Home 123
\J·
The Ending of Empire 13d'
9. Hugh to Harold ld'JJ
10. Into Power lfJ2
7
@
Baptism of Fire 203
(~ Blown off Course 234
53) Devaluation and Departure 2d'o
14. La; Disorder, and the Permissive Society 2JJOJ
15. Troubles, In?ustrial and Irish 325
16. Out of Office 35JJ
17. In Place of Power 373
18. Europe and a Wider World (jil)
19. Negotiating to Succeed 4';;-r"
Xll xiii
CONTENTS
\to. Kissinger and the Commonwealth 437
PART THREE (1976- )
21. Into Number Ten 4og List of ·
22. Prime Ministerial Style 485 Illustrations
23. Britain in Hock 52]'
\I 24. A Successful Government 557
25. International Honest Broker 588
-J
26. Election Deferred 020
27. Discontent and Decline 053
(between pages 240-~
28. Dying Fall 077
1. Lord Callaghan's mother Charlotte (J. Blake, Devonport)
29. Last Phase of Leadership 702
2. Callaghan in the Portsmouth Northern school football team, December 1928
30. Elder Statesman 723 3. Callaghan with IRSF delegates, Scarborough, May 1936 .
31. Conclusion 74g 4. Callaghan carried on his victorious supporters' shoulders, Cardiff City Hall,
2sJuly 194s
S· Jim and Audrey Callaghan, Ramsgate, 1947
Sekct Bibliography 708
6. Callaghan's attack on Emanuel Shinwell's views on nationalization, 7 May 1948
Index 781 (South Ul/Jles Echo and &press)
7. Canvassing in Tiger Bay, Cardiff South-East, 19so · general election
(Hulton/Deutsch)
8. With Harold Wilson at the Scarborough Labour Party conference, 27
September 1963 (PA Photo Co.)
9. With President Lyndon B. Johnson in the Oval Office at the White House, z.9
Jnne 196s (Lyndon B. Johnson Library)
10. Enjoying a pint with Cardiff supporters, 1966 general election campaign
11. Callaghan driving to the House of Commons to make a statement on the
devaluation of the pound, 20 November 1967
1z.. Callaghan at a Crime Prevention Campaign press conference, Home Office,
16 February 1968 (Hulton/Getty)
13. Callaghan speaking to the crowd in Londonderry during his visit to Northern
Ireland, 29 August 1969 (Hulton/Getty)
14. Callaghan in a Cardiff bus with George Thomas MP, 1973 (Guardian)
is.
Callaghan meets President Amin's son Mwanga after the release of Dennis
Hills, Kampala, Uganda, August 1974 (Hulton/Getty)
s
16. First day as Prime Minister, April 1976 (Hulton/Getty)
17. At the Charing Cross Hotel farewell lnncheon for Harold Wilson, 28 April 1976
(Hulton/Getty)
18. With the Queen at Windsor Castle at the time of President Giscard
d'Estaing's visit, 12 December 1977 (Hulton/Getty)
XIV xv
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
19. Sailing across the Firth of Forth with Dr J. Dickson Mabon MP, and a young
friend, 18 March 1978 (George Young)
10. Presentation to Hugh Scanlon on his retirement at St Er~in's Hotel, London,
3J uly 1978 (Gerald Pudsey) -
s
11. Sketch of Callaghan while addressing the TUC on September 1978, by Ken
Gill, General Secretary of TASS.
11. The end of the Labour Party conference at Brighton, 7 October 1977: the 'Red
Flag' being sung by FrankAllaun, Callaghan, Ron Hayward, and Joan Lestor
(Hulton/Getty)
13. Callaghan and Margaret.T hatcher at the state opening of Parliament, 1
Nov.ember 1978 (Hulton/Getty)
PART
14. The 'winter of discontent': march by ambulancemen to the House of
Commons, 22January 1979 (Hulton/Deutsch)
1). Callaghan leaving Cardiff station: 4·4S a.m. on 4 May 1979 after his defeat in ONE
the general election (Hulton/Getty)
26. Ships passing in the night: Callaghan and Tony Benn at party conference,
Brighton, 2 October 1979 (Hulton/Getty)
27. The Vail Foundation World Forum: Callaghan with Gerald Ford, Valery
Giscard d'Estaing, Helmut Schmidt, and Malcolm Fraser in Colorado, 1983
(Gerald Ford Library)
18. At Temple West Mews with his granddaughter Alice Jay, 1990 (Independent)
XVI
[ J
NAVAL CHILDHOOD
LIKE Winston Churchill and perhaps with more justification, Jim
Callaghan could have adopted the description 'former naval person'. More
than any other British prime minister, his view of history and of geogra
phy was shaped by the Royal Navy and the mystique. of the sea. This, of
course, is almost as old as England itself. Historians from]. A. Froude to
G. M. Trevelyan regarded British sea power as a key to British (more
specifically English) liberty. It warded off would-be Continental invaders
and planted the seed of freedom in foreign lands. Froude saw sea power as
an essential component of Tudor greatness. He helped mould the imperi
alist geopolitical views of the American historian Admiral Mahan, author
in the 1890s of a book celebrated in its day, The Influence of Sea Power upon
History. Trevelyan was later to hail the fact that 'Nelson's was the best
loved name' in English history.1
Young Jim Callaghan grew up in precisely this tradition, in the shadow
of Nelson's own flagship, the Victory. His world was one in which Britannia
really ruled the waves, by means of the famous 'two-power standard', and
where Jolly Jack Tar with his pigtail, in contrast to the soldiers of a poten
tially oppressive standing army, was the people's instrument of national
freedom. His world-view started from here, as did a geographical sense
that stemmed from living in a great naval port on the English Channel. It
saw Britain's role as a global one rather than being narrowly restricted to
Continental societies across the water. In Portsmouth more than most
places, the maps glowed with imperial red. Europe was distant for its
inhabitants just as it seemed close by for Kentish citizens like the young
Edward Heath. All his life, Callaghan was pre-eminently at home in mar
itime and naval circles. This was to be reinforced by wartime service in the
navy, and by early ministerial experience at the Admiralty. It was a bond
between him and another erstwhile sailor, President Jimmy Carter.
Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, from the historically Anglophile seaport of
3
1912-1964
NAVAL CHILDHOOD
Hamburg, claimed to feel particularly at ease with someone from such a opmen~ on the north and east of the town, while neighbouring Southsea
bac~ound. An event_ Callaghan treasured during his premiership was
developed as a popular seaside resort. By the eve of war in 1914, Portsmouth,
~ttendmg the naval review at Spithead from on board the royal yacht dur
along with Devonport and Chatham, v:as pre-e?1ine~t a~ongst bas~s for
ing the Queen's silver jubilee in 1977· In later life, his Sussex farm would be
the Grand Fleet. Dreadnought battleships, Admiral Fishers monster iron
a~orned with a rich variety of naval prints, paintings, and photographs of
clad response to Tirpitz's naval challenge, were built there, culminating in
clippers and schooners and men-of-war. They included HMS Victoria and the Royal Sovereign, the largest of them all, which was launched in April 1915.
Alberti~ ;which his father ~erved. The route up to his farm loft was by way
The town had a population of 233,929 recorded in the census of 1921. It
of a ships rope ladder. His speeches would be sometimes coloured with
boasted an imposing Guildhall in the town centre; at a popular level, a suc
naval terminology. A famous example was his 1967 budget speech in which
cessful Southern League football team, familiarly known as 'Pompey' to
the course of future financial policy was set out. 'All seamen know the
supporters, was based in Fratton Park. In the summer of 1914, witnessed by
word of command-"steady as she goes".'
thousands of excited and patriotic spectators including the Callaghan fam
This sea-faring background was the central feature of his upbringing.
ily, the King held a review of the Grand Fleet there. It was the mightiest
His_ home. wa~ the great naval base of Portsmouth. 2 It was perhaps at the naval force the world had ever seen, with 24 of the new Dreadnought
zemth of its importance in 1912, the year of the birth of Leonard James
battleships, 35 other battleships, 49 cruisers, 76 submarines, and 78 destroyers
Callag~an. The roots of its eminence as a maritime town went back many
on display, manned by around JOo,ooo sailors. The Commander-in-Chief of
centuries. It had been a naval station in the later Roman period. Since the
the Home Fleet on that day, by a curious twist, was Vice-Admiral Sir
~a.ter Middle Ages, it had been a significant port, with its deep-water facil
George Callaghan. It was in this thrusting, self-confident naval metropolis,
~ttes and easy a~cess to the Channel via the Solent. Under the early Tudors,
at 38 Funtingdon Road, Copnor, Portsmouth, that another Callaghan,
it ~ecame a maJOr naval base, along with Plymouth and Tilbury. Henry VII
Leonard James, was born on 27 March 1912.
bmlt the first naval dry dock there in the 1490s. Henry VIII expanded the
James Callaghan's father, also named James, was himself a naval man
Beet there as pan of a more adventurous foreign policy in the 15 0s and
3 and a free spirit in many ways. He was the grandson of an Irish weaver
i54os. It was from Portsmouth that the Mary Rose set off on its brief and
born around 1805-'7 who had migrated to Coventry after the catastrophe of
calamitous maiden voyage to repel an invading French Beet in 1545. In the
the Irish potato famine in 1845-6. He had a son, another James, born in 1851,
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the naval base and the town sur
who worked as a silversmith in Coventry. It was his son James, one of ten
rounding it co~tin~ed to ?row, especially during the French revolutionary
children and born inJanuary 1877, who was the-father of the future prime
wars. At ~at time, i? April _1797, Portsmouth was also to see the first major
minister. -when Jim Callaghan became premier in April 1976, the Sun
naval mutmy, on ships stationed at Spithead, which paralysed the British
newspaper displayed the habitual curiosity of the British press about his
Channel Fleet for a month at a critical moment just after the battle of Cape
ancestry.3 Its researches showed that the family name was not Callaghan
St Vincent. It was a reasoned appeal for higher pay: not one of the
at all, but Garoghan. In fact, Jim Callaghan's father joined the Royal Navy
Portsmouth mutineers was punished, unlike their colleagues of the North
under an assumed name as a young lad in the 1890s, hoping that his parents
Sea Fleet who mutinied at The Nore. More positively, Portsmouth Naval
would not be able to trace him-not an unusual event for naval recruits
College was established for superior shipyard apprentices by Order in
'running away to sea', then or later. In addition to his father's background
Council in 1809. Nelson's Victory, of course, was based there. "When he vis
being Irish Catholic and the family name not in fact being Callaghan at all,
ited the Leeward Islands as a senior statesman, Callaghan was to make a
the Prime Minister discovered another interesting detail about his ances
point of visiting Nelson's dockyard in English Harbour on the south shore
try in 1976. His father's mother was Elizabeth Bernstein, from Sheffield; ~e
of the small island of Antigua. The rundown state of the small naval
was, therefore, a quarter Jewish as well. None of these facts was to his
museum there, with its relics of Codrington and Nelson, was something he
disadvantage. Indeed, in the late 1960s, the very Irishness of the name
drew to the attention of the Antiguan government.
Callaghan, a name capable of being identified with either community in
Throughout the nineteenth century, Portsmouth expanded still further
Northern Ireland (unlike the republican-sounding Garoghan, for
as the naval dockyard grew in importance. The railways brought new <level-
instance), was a distinct political asset.
4
5