The Cecil King Diary

The monumental gnat

George Gale

Only an introverted and paradoxical man could be called " a monumental bore" by Woodrow Wyatt and, in the same week, be praised most extravagantly by Bernard Levin for producing, in his diary of the years 1965-1970, the indispensable account of the administration of Harold Wilson. Although it is likely that it will be the Crossman diary which, when published, will in fact, when taken in conjunction with Harold Wilson's own already published account, provide the indispensable stuff, the Cecil King Diary is undoubtedly extremely interesting. Levin so extravagantly liked it because of its hostility to Harold Wilson. Wyatt dislikes King because he is capable, on social occasions. of sustaining long periods of silence.

Myself, I am much more bored by talkative than by silent men, and " a bores' is not how I would ever describe King, although undoubtedly he has something monumental about him, which is only partly a question of physical size. He is a very large man, and I think that one of his grounds for considering people to be lightweight is the simple one that they are little. Cecil King tends to loom over people, or did, when he was boss of the International Publishing Corporation, which outfit he had stuck together, out of such bits and pieces as the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Pictorial, Odhams Press, Newnes and so forth. It was an odd conglomeration, but it enabled IPC to call itself the biggest publishing enterprise in the world and King to regard himself as the country's most powerful press man.

It is therefore not at all surprising that Cecil King was able to talk with the politicians of the time. Given his long silences, it is also not surprising (as Tony Crosland has explained) that many of them talked a lot, and occasionally indiscreetly. Many people have expressed surprise that King (Winchester and Christ Church) should behave in so ungentlemanly a fashion as to publish all these indiscretions; but gentlemen often do not behave like gentlemen, and Cecil King was a Northcliffe on his mother's side anyway. We have plenty of discreet gentlemen around. It is a pleasure to find an indiscreet bounder. The trouble with King is not his indiscretions, nor his other ungentlemanly behaviour — he reads books, he likes music, he does not drink — but his judgements.

And if King's judgement of men was irrational, his judgement of matters, and especially of political matters, was appallingly bad, It is this aspect of his Diary which the reviewers have neglected in their natural desire to discuss his indiscretions and the caricature he pens of Wilson. It must be borne constantly in mind that his power was entirely the power of the press. He was a big man; but, stripped of his position at IPC, what stature and what influence did he possess?

Very little indeed. He remains physically large; but all he has done since Hugh Cudlipp, greatly daring, engineered his dismissal from IPC is buzz around like a gnat. His Diary proves that, before his dismissal, too, he was buzzing around the political world like a gnat; but, because of the Daily Mirror and his other papers, this gnat had to be treated deferentially and provided with great access to people and to information. The Diary is not only, or even chiefly, the account of the Wilson administration. It is the account of a conspiracy of men who, however large they may have looked or thought themselves to be at the time, are made, inadvertently, to look extremely small by one of their number, who damns himself far more than he damns the man they tried to usurp. Let the Diary itself (Jonathan Cape 0.00) tell its cautionary tale:

Monday, January 10th, 1966 . . . When I last saw Wilson I suggested a meeting of the really capable industrialists to get suggestions on making British industry more efficient . . . Wilson took it up and arranged a dinner for the 6th . . . Most of them were my suggestions but three I had not met myself — Schon of Marchon, Prichard of Perkins Diesel, and Thorn of Thorn Industries. Tuesday, March 22nd, 1966 Hugh (Cudlipp) had lunch with Callaghan . . . (and) ... suggested Robens as possible minister to negotiate our way into the Common Market and this seemed fairly acceptable.

Sunday, June 26th, 1966 Cudlipp thought it might be an idea if I wrote Wilson a long letter — not in any hope that it would bring about a change of heart, but to have my position on record . . .

Letter from Cecil King to Harold Wilson, dated June 25th: My dear Harold,

You may think we have been drifting apart and that the support you have been having in our papers is less enthusiastic than it used to be. So I am writing this letter to show you how things look to a friendly outsider who wants you to emerge as a great Prime Minister . . . Already people are talking of a British de Gaulle or a National Government. These are counsels of despair and surely show you the urgent need for you to become the man of the hour . . . It is also perhaps hard for you to realise the damage done to your administration by the employment of Mr Kaldor — or the loss of Lord Beeching . . .

Sunday, July 24th, 1966 Had lunch at Much Hadham with Mark Norman. Among other guests was Louis Franck, chairman of Samuel Montagu . . . He seemed to know a lot about me, and said that some future government would have to have a large business element. In such a government he foresaw prominent places for Robens and myself.

Tuesday, November 8th, 1966 Quite a burst of activity these last few days — Louis Franck to lunch on Friday, the Lord Chancellor, Lord Gardiner, to dinner yesterday, Crossman to lunch today, and a brief word with George Brown at the Russian reception yesterday evening.

Louis Franck was very pessimistic . . . thinks we shall have to end up with a government mainly of technocrats. Wednesday, February 22nd, 1967 Roy Jenkins came to lunch — in good form as usual. After lunch I gave him one of my political forecasts: this government is too bad, Wilson is no P.M., our problems are not being solved, things cannot go on like this, at some point the Daily Mirror will have to move into open attack . . . I thought a break would necessarily come, or could be created, after which there would have to be a fresh start. with new faces, some of them not politicians: Robens, Beeching, Shawcross and Sainsbury, for instance. It would be a National Government under some other name.

Sunday, August 12th, 1967

Cudlipp had some talk a few weeks ago with Mountbatten at some dinner. Hugh asked him if it has been suggested to him that our present style of government might be in for a change. He said it had. Hugh then asked if it has been suggested that he might have some r art to play in such a new regime. Mountbatten said it had been suggested, but that he was far too old (sixty-seven, I think).

Monday, September 18th, 1967

Had lunch with Jim Callaghan — alone, at his request, at 11 Downing St. .. . So would I join the Government? He had no authority for making the suggestion (is this true?). I said when the Government was formed I thought Robens, Sainsbury and (possibly) myself were inevitable

Tuesday, September 26th, 1967 Ted Heath for lunch . . . He wouldn't agree that Parliament and the parties were held in low esteem; or that we were heading for a National Government . . . What emerged was (I) that Ted is deeply hurt by all the criticisms, and (2) that he seems to have no understanding of the political atmosphere as I see it.

Sunday, November 12th 1967

Had Marsh to dinner on Thursday; Joe Hyman of Viyella to lunch yesterday . .. Joe Hyman is very able, forceful and rich . . . He foresees a National Government, which will not be a success, and thinks his best way to power is by constituting himself the Opposition to the National Government, using the Liberal Party as a platform. I wished him well, while declining any idea of joining or sponsoring art•V group he may gather round him.

Wednesday, November 29th, 1967

Cromer to lunch . . . I urged him to consider himself as a very possible 'outside' minister to come in a National Government. He is evidently not keen, but quite easily envisages a situation when it would be his patriotic duty to stand up and be counted. He will be seeing Oliver Poole for advice and Alf Robens as the most promising of all the possible 'outside' ministers.

Thursday, January 4th, 1968 At the Bank . . It is increasingly being said -even at the Bank — that confidence cannot be restored without a change at No. 10.

Thursday, January 25th, 1968 On Tuesday we dined with the Rothermeres, where Ted Heath was one of the guests . . • He thinks in purely conventional party terms . . • It still seems to me that some kind of a National Government is inevitable. Wilson . went out of his way this evening to describe the idea as 'fatuous.'

Wednesday, February 7th, 1968

There was a lunch yesterday, or Monday, at which Norman Collins had as guests Eric Fletcher (Deputy Speaker), Shawcross, Renwick, Ellis Birk and Beeching. They were agreed that the country is in a mess and that Wilson won't do. What, however, should theY do? What abotu a joint letter to The Times? This did not find favour, so what about a deputation — but who to? Eventually they decided to see if they could get Roy Jenkins tO dine. It was agreed that the Tory Party is in such a mess that a purely Tory administration is no answer. But what about an Emergency Government? I thought this a good name for a National Government . . . A piece appeared in The Director the organ of the Institute of Directors, this morning. Who should form a businessmen's government of fifteen men? The answer is Robens for P.M. and me for Education and Science! Other colleagues would be Paul Chambers, Lockwood and Kearton. Billy Butlin is a dear, but 1 hardly see him as Home Secretary!

Thursday, February 22nd, 1968 Among others to dinner last night, Cromer, Eccles and Hyman . . . I said that I think there will be some form of coalition government . . . This led Eccles, whom I like and admire, into a long tirade on the futility of. businessmen thinking they could be ministers . . . He said a coalition was an absurd idea . . . It is curious that such ideas, which are widely accepted by all and sundry, are repudiated only by politicians.

Thursday, February 22nd 1968

. . . While I was away the Guardian had a big piece on the front page suggesting I was trying to organise a coalition. They also said I had sought office in 1964 and 1966. So I published a denial.

Monday, April 1st, 1968

I did a broadcast with Robin Day . . . I was pretty evasive, but did say it was hard to see how the Labour Party could make a fresh start or the country get 'a fresh infusion of leadership without a new face at No. 10 . . . Cudlipp says this is a new departure, snapping our last links with the Labour Party . . . Saturday, May 11th, 1968 Some two or three weeks ago I said to Hugh Cudlipp I thought the time had come to step out and launch an all-out attack on Wilson . . . Hugh thought the matter over and agreed. So tomorrow there will be a piece signed by me on the front page of the Mirror and quoted in full in the Sun and the Glasgow Record Friday, May 17th, 1968

The big blast went off yesterday.

Monday, May 13th, 1968

Stacks of letters this morning — mostly hostile, but an encouraging letter from Robens and a word of praise on the telephone from Garfield Weston

Friday May 17th, 1968 At dinner last night with Joe Hyman. He is full of energy and ambition but has no political sense.

Saturday, June 8th, 1968

The gap in my diary has been due to my totally unexpected dismissal from the board of I.P.C.

I am not at all sure how funny Cecil King's Diary is supposed to be; but funny it certainly is. It is also candid, as a not very devious child can be. The line between innocence and ignorance is blurred, and it is betwixt and between the two that King, the newspaper boss dreaming of political power, wandered and stumbled. After his "totally unexpected dismissal " he records his opinion that his article, the big blast, which was called Enough is enough,' "must have counted for something [in the dismissal]. But even In this matter Cudlipp had approved the Idea and the timing some two or three Weeks earlier, and on the evening of the 10th I happened, to be entertaining to dinner the various newspaper editors, and Cudlipp, on his own initiative, had asked each editor whether he approved the line taken — and the answer was yes."

The answer may have been yes, but if so those answers were not candid. I remember very well the shock within IPC When the article was published, and the general conclusion in and around 33 Holborn was that the chairman's political iUdgement must have become temporarily unbalanced. King had happened to entertain his editors, and some others, including Cudlipp, Sidney Jacobsen, John Beavan and myself, to dinner about two months previously. On this occasion he outlined his views about setting up a government of businessmen and he asked us for our views. I recall launching into a strong attack, saying that the idea was foolish, that a government required the ability to sustain a Parliamentary majority and so on — elementary stuff, but apparently necessary — and I ended up by asking King how he proposed to engineer his coup d'etat, and did he propose collecting Alf Robens, Lord Beeching, Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all into a charabanc and driving to the Palace and saying to the Queen, "Ma'am, here we are, your new Government of National Reconstruction "? My contribution to the discussion was received rather coolly, King finally -snubbing and silencing me with: "Well, now that we have heard all that from Mr Gale, what has our political adviser got to say?" Whereupon up spoke stout John Beavan now Lord Ardwick saying nothing much. Nobody said much. King was surrounded by Yes-men; and t'his was his trouble.