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Friday, 3 October, 1980
Dear Diary,
A very bad day.
It all goes back to the National Inheritance, I suppose.
The idea was simplicity itself. Much of the class basis of our society
comes from inherited wealth, inherited capital. Give the proletariat the
same birthright as the exploiter classes and you break the nexus between
birth and privilege.
The idea was fundamentally fair, too. To get a good start in life, the best
time to get an inheritance is at age 18. Yet some people, through no fault
of their own, have to wait years before their parents die. To give everyone
an equal inheritance at 18 overcomes both accidents of birth and death.
So, all inheritances go into a pool. After deducting administrative costs
and taxes at the end of the year the pool is divided among all those who
have attained their majority: lower- middle- and upper-class alike. Of
course, there are safeguards to prevent smarties 'taking it with them' by
gifting money to others in the years immediately preceding their deaths.
But all this fairness is just seen by critics as 'intrusive' and
'demoralising' and, strangest of all, 'double taxation'. It's not a tax,
it's a redistribution. But it doesn't stop the campaign of dishonesty from
the nay-sayers, who even have the gall to call this working-class benefiting
scheme 'the Prole Tax'.
I have to say that our side didn't play their cards as well as they might.
Michael, whose responsibility this was originally, didn't take the fight up
to the other side as he should. In fairness, he did try. But his shadow,
Lawson, just laughed at his donkey jacket and joshed that an attack by
Michael was like being savaged by a dead donkey.
Of course Peggy moved Michael to the Foreign Office and promoted Neil. But
Neil has not lived up to his earlier promise and has been surprisingly
ineffectual.
The riots and suchlike had a number of people in the party jittery,
especially with next year being an election year. It wasn't just softies
but a number in the Programme, too. But what shocked me was Michael's
speech in the Commons. He accused Peggy of being dictatorial, manipulative
and, of all things, undemocratic! It wasn't just the unfairness of the
attack that astounded me but the ingratitude.
Although Denis advised against it, Peggy - being Peggy - decided to put her
leadership to a vote of the parliamentary party. If Jennie had still been
around she would have argued against it too and maybe the two would have
dissuaded her.
The result was tragic. The rump of the Callaghanites, those that haven't
gone Liberal, voted against her. After Michael's speech it was inevitable
the softies would go too. But Neil turned traitor too, taking a substantial
minority of the Programme with him also.
I was all for fighting on but Denis told Peggy, regretfully, that with the
split in the Programme itself any supra-parliamentary action was doomed.
Peggy accepted the inevitable, dried her eyes, and went out to give one of
the best and bravest press conferences I'd ever seen. Couldn't bear to
question her myself, left that to Ludo.
The Party picks a new leader tomorrow. I'm packing up Number 10 now. I'll
start with our books.
[If you'll just let me continue.]
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