[A-List] UK state: changed circumstances

["Michael Keaney" <michael011@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Mullin and others could more carefully examine the events of the
preceding decade, when the IMF effectively overthrew an elected Labour
government in concert with "the establishment".

****

When the threat of a coup seemed more than fiction

In 1982 it looked possible that the establishment would work with the US
to overthrow an elected Labour government

Chris Mullin
Tuesday March 7, 2006
The Guardian

A Very British Coup was conceived in the first week of October 1980. I
was on a train returning from the Labour party conference at Blackpool
with Stuart Holland, the newly elected MP for Lambeth Vauxhall, and Tony
Banks and Peter Hain, both of whom subsequently became MPs. We were
discussing how the establishment would react to the election of a
leftwing Labour government.

In those far-off days the proposition was not as fanciful as it now
seems. Mrs Thatcher was in office, but had yet to consolidate her grip
on power. Labour was high in the opinion polls. There was a real
possibility that, come the election, the Labour party would be led by
Tony Benn. The rightwing press was working itself into a frenzy at the
prospect. "No longer if, but when," screamed a Daily Mail headline over
a full-page picture of Mr Benn. To cap it all, the news that the US was
planning to install cruise missiles in its British bases had given the
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament a new lease of life. "A good subject
for a novel," said one of my companions.

By the time A Very British Coup was published, in 1982, the political
climate was even more propitious. Prompted by the imminent arrival of
cruise missiles, CND demonstrations were attracting crowds in excess of
200,000. The establishment was getting so twitchy that, as we later
learned, Michael Heseltine had set up a special unit in the Ministry of
Defence to counter the impact of CND.

The US was getting twitchy too. When A Very British Coup was published I
was editor of the political weekly Tribune, and we were selling the book
by mail order through the paper. A few days after the first advert
appeared we were intrigued to receive an order from the US embassy. We
duly dispatched a copy and waited to see what would happen next. We did
not have to wait long. An invitation arrived to lunch with the minister,
the most important man at the embassy after the ambassador. He even sent
his bullet-proof Cadillac to Tribune's modest headquarters in Gray's Inn
Road to convey me to his mansion in Kensington.

At first I assumed that I was one of a number of guests, but no: there
was just the minister, two of his colleagues, an Asian butler and
myself.

"Why are you interested in a minnow like me?" I inquired.

"I reckon," he drawled, "that you are among the top 1,000 opinion
formers in the country."

"Well, I must be about number 999."

"The other 999 have been here too."

A year or two later I received from an anonymous source an envelope
posted in Brussels. It contained an internal US state department
memorandum addressed to US diplomats in London listing a number of
questions they were to put to "authorised contacts" in London regarding
the balance of power within the Labour party and opinion regarding the
US bases in general and the impending arrival of cruise missiles in
particular. Although, in retrospect, we can see they had no cause for
concern, there is no doubt that alarm bells were ringing in Washington.

A Very British Coup attracted attention elsewhere too. It was helpfully
denounced in the correspondence columns of the Times, and as a result
sales in Hatchards of Piccadilly almost matched those at the leftwing
bookshop Collets. (When it comes to selling books, a high-profile
denunciation is worth half a dozen friendly reviews and I have always
done my best to organise one).

Thereafter interest might have faded, but for events conspiring to make
it topical. In August 1985 the Observer revealed that an MI5 officer,
Brigadier Ronnie Stoneham, was to be found in room 105 at Broadcasting
House. His job? Stamping upturned Christmas trees on the personnel files
of BBC employees he deemed to be unsuitable for promotion. Students of A
Very British Coup will know that my head of MI5, Sir Peregrine Craddock,
was also vetting BBC employees. What's more, he also had a spy on the
general council of CND - and in due course the MI5 defector Cathy
Massiter revealed that there had indeed been such a spy. His name was
Harry Newton.

Finally, in 1987 Peter Wright, a retired MI5 officer, caused a
sensationwith his claim that he and a group of MI5 colleagues had
plotted to undermine the Wilson government. Suddenly the possibility
that the British establishment might conspire with its friends across
the Atlantic to destabilise the elected government could no longer be
dismissed as leftwing paranoia.

The rest, as they say, is history. In due course the novel was
translated into a brilliant television series. Harry Perkins, my prime
minister, was brought to life by the wonderful actor Ray McAnally, who
tragically died not long afterwards. The TV series was shown in more
than 30 countries and showered with Bafta and Emmy awards. It was a
particularly big hit in the US.

Could it happen today? No, I am afraid not. The political landscape has
changed beyond recognition. Cruise missiles are long gone. MI5 has been
cleared of dead wood such as Peter Wright and his friends. A Labour
government is in power - and on excellent terms with Washington.

· Chris Mullin is a former Foreign Office minister. A Very British Coup
is republished by Politicos at £7.99


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