“The bloody man ought not to have to rely on his clerks, Iain!”
Iain Macleod did not attempt to argue the point or to defend the Speaker further. There had been talk about appointing a new Leader of the House to manage the UAUK’s business in Parliament; but they had never got around to organising it and it had not seemed to be a problem until now. The Angry Widow fulminated as she awaited her turn to take her bow.
One of Enoch Powell’s acolytes had been invited to lodge an early day motion with the Speaker, and now that the game was afoot she wanted to get on with it. It was a peculiarity of the faulty memories of the main protagonists, and symptomatic of the desperate times in which they lived, that nobody on the front benches of the re-called House of Commons recollected, or initially, gave the weight and credence it deserved to the fact that the last — pre-war — Leader of the House of Commons had been none other than the Honourable Member for Enfield West, presently an uninhabitable bomb site, a certain Iain Norman Macleod. The role had been superfluous in the aftermath of the cataclysm. Within days of the October War a provisional government had emerged, which in turn had hastily developed into the United Kingdom Interim Emergency Administration, at which juncture Iain Macleod had ceased to be a member of ‘the Cabinet’ and therefore, technically ceased to be the lawfully appointed Leader of the House of Commons…
However, now that Iain Macleod thought about it — not that anybody had thought over much about it since the Prime Minister’s rash promise to re-open Parliament in such an insanely crashing rush — he was probably still the best candidate for the job. Except he had not thought about and now he felt like an ass! His old One Nation Conservatism partner in crime across the aisle, Enoch Powell, whom he had regarded as a close personal friend in those heady days working together in the Conservative Research Department after the 1945 war was silently laughing at him.
The Speaker, resplendent in his powdered wig and eighteenth century finery leaned towards him.
“The correct procedure is for the Leader of the House of Commons to make himself available to the House for questions after he has made a business statement. This would have enabled the proposer of the EDM — the aforementioned Early Day Motion — the opportunity of mentioning it in the chamber by referring to it by its number in the list of questions to the Leader of the House that day. This would allow the EDM to be printed in Hansard, the record of the proceedings of the House, thus satisfying convention and enabling my clerk to place it on the order paper for this, or an early date thereafter…”
Iain Macleod shook his head in undisguised exasperation.
“Oh, for goodness sake!” He muttered as he rose to his feet. “A point of order, Mr Speaker!”
Everybody agreed Iain Macleod had made a good fist of being Leader of the House of Commons in his two-year stint before the October War. He had brought great energy and a well-honed understanding of the ways and means of Parliament to the post; all in all he had got things done and pushed through the Government’s business. Edward Heath, the Chief Whip, and he had fought a constant uphill battle against the complacency engendered by so many years in power and the somewhat soporific effect of a huge Parliamentary majority. He deserved better than to be lectured by a well-meaning old buffer like Harry Hylton-Foster about what was, and was not the customary ‘normal procedure’ in the good old days before the World tried to blow itself up.
“What is it, Mr Macleod?”
“With respect, Mr Speaker. The House has not been recalled in emergency session. It is my understanding that it is for the House to determine if and when it sits again. It is a thing understood to all members present that the Government has come to this place for one reason, and one reason alone. The matter we are here to debate is one of paramount national concern. The date for this session of the House of Commons was promulgated several weeks ago and we all know why we are here. I say to you respectfully; pray permit the members of this House to get on with it, Mr Speaker!”
Sir Harry Hylton-Foster had proved to be a popular, and in the main, a respected Speaker but when he was first appointed the manner of his appointment had caused a deal of unnecessary bad feeling between the two main parties. The reason for this was that at that time Sir Harry still held the post of Solicitor General for England and Wales and therefore, by definition, could not be and was not the full-time ‘Speaker’ of the House of Commons. Plainly, one could not be a Government Minister and the Speaker at the same time; the roles were mutually incompatible. A Government Minister owed his allegiance to his political master, the Prime Minister. The Speaker of the House of Commons was exactly that, the man who spoke for the whole Commons. What had made it worse was that Harold MacMillan had not troubled to discuss Sir Harry’s appointment, as tradition and common courtesy demanded, with the then Leader of the Opposition, Hugh Gaitskell.
“Am I to deduce from the authority with which you speak,” the frail man in the ceremonial garb inquired, “that you are to be restored to your former office of Leader of the House, Mr Macleod?”
The Minister of Information had not expected the question. He glanced over his shoulder at Margaret Thatcher who assented with an immediate curt nod.
“Yes, Mr Speaker,” he confirmed dryly. “It would seem so.”
“Well, in that case is the Leader of the House ready to deliver his statement as to the business of this place this day?”
Iain Macleod found the grace to smile as he composed his thoughts.
He puffed out his chest and eyed the restless ranks of the unholy alliance hoping against hope that this was its moment to trip up the unstoppable phenomenon that was Margaret Thatcher. He could see it in their eyes that they knew this was their moment; and that if they failed today then power would be beyond their grasp for perhaps a decade.
Iain Macleod cleared his throat.
“It is this Government’s desire to obtain an unequivocal mandate from this House to restore fully ‘normal politics’ to the United Kingdom not later than the autumn of 1965; to vigorously prosecute the war against our enemies in the Eastern Mediterranean and safeguard our people wherever they may be in the World; furthermore, it is this Government’s purpose to commence the generation-long crusade of the reconstruction of our bombed cities. In the present absence of ‘normal politics’ it is the Government’s policy to submit this day to a vote of confidence in this place.”
Chapter 23
In the last United States War Plan Book before the October War Philadelphia was not identified as a ‘viable site for a relocated governmental infrastructure’ because it was assumed that the fifth largest city in the Union would have — probably — been a priority Soviet target. However, in the way of these things contingency planners continually observe real events and modify their plans accordingly over time. After Armageddon Philadelphia became a much more ‘viable’ option if or when the ‘governmental infrastructure’ needed to be ‘relocated’ in future. Unfortunately, the planning process had only just re-commenced by the time of the Battle of Washington; and bald statements of ‘high-level first principles’ were very little use in unravelling the chaos intrinsic in the attempting to create an entirely new Federal administrative hub on top of the much smaller scaffold of Pennsylvania’s State, and Philadelphia City’s existing governmental machinery.