Chapter 21, Parliament, 14 May 1936
“Mr Winston Churchill,” the Speaker announced.
“Could I ask the Right Honourable and Gallant Gentleman,” the old man began, waving his order paper, as if beating time, “whether there has yet been reached, a decision, upon setting up a Ministry of Supply or a Ministry of Munitions in order to secure the punctual execution of the rearmament programmes now presented to Parliament?” There was interest in this, Eden could detect. Eden was not, really, a creature of Parliament. Although capable and comfortable ‘on his feet’, he nevertheless didn’t enjoy the endless gossiping of the lounges and tea rooms and could never really relax there. The Foreign Office had, truly, become his sanctuary, a palatial building that he could work from and in close proximity to the Commons. He found that when he wasn’t there, he missed it.
Eden rose and offered the old man a nod, a nod back the courteous reply in the manner of two knights saluting before battle is joined. “At this stage, no. My Right Honourable Friend the Prime Minister is reserving judgment as to this matter,” he said suavely, forcing himself to supress his nerves, “pending further detailed study of the practicalities of the requirement.”
But Churchill wasn’t daunted. “Are we then to understand that the Government are satisfied that the programmes to which Parliament has assented are, in fact, being punctually executed?
Eden was in difficulty here, and he could see, from the backbenches, the old man’s cheeky grin. His stomach churning, Eden rose slowly to his feet. “I think that the answer which I have given is quite clear.” There was a degree of heckling and jeering at this; Eden was popular, but the House, always a theatre, could sense his nervousness. “If my Right Honourable Friend will remind himself of what the Prime Minister said in the Debate on the ninth of March, he will see that the matter has been closely considered.”
The Speaker spared Eden’s blushes, and moved on to Admiralty Questions. “Could I ask,” Stuart Russell, a bright, young, Conservative MP began, “the Secretary to the Admiralty whether contracts have yet been given for the construction of the two battleships of the 1936 programme, and, if not, when the allocation of these contracts may be expected?”
Kenneth Lindsay, another young man and the Civil Lord and Parliamentary Secretary of the Admiralty, looked bemused at the question; Eden, who was scribbling a note on the end of the Italian campaign in Africa, couldn’t resist a wry smile that it was someone else’s turn to suffer.
Those bloody battleships again, he thought dryly.
Old Monsell will be jittery after this.
Lindsay rose slowly and after a quick glance at his notes, offered what he hoped was a conscientious answer. “The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. As regards the second part, no definite date can be given at present, but it will be several months before the design drawings can be sufficiently advanced for tendering purposes.” Eden looked up, sharply. He remembered, weeks ago, seeing those designs, the final designs, in the First Sea Lord’s office. He couldn’t be certain, but he feared that Lindsay may have misled the House.
Sir Percy Harris, an unimaginative Liberal MP, wanted to pursue this point. “What do the Government propose to do with the four hundred and twenty five thousand pounds which they have asked the House to vote,
if there is to be no contract this year?”
Lindsay rose with less patience with which he had faced Russell. “In order to take some preliminary steps which are necessary before battleships are built.”
Harris wouldn’t be deferred. “Is it suggested that the preliminary steps will cost four hundred thousand and twenty five pounds?” His heavy delivery did not attract the attention that he wanted. Eden was relieved. In the hands of a Churchill or an Amery it could have been dynamite. 425,000?
Lindsay could read the House and knew that he was safe, for today. He rose casually. “Yes,” he said simply.
Eden, his duty done, he made the most of a lull and rose to find the Prime Minister, before returning to his sanctuary. He again felt that he needed respite back as the Foreign Office, which is why he found Baldwin’s long-harnessed habit of ‘working the room’, as Wallis Simpson would no doubt put it, so baffling. Baldwin was a tightly drawn man, even more so than Eden, and yet he so often eschewed Downing Street for the libraries and social areas of both houses. Even now, in his clearly exhausted state, Eden knew that he would find him not in his Downing Street study, but in a tea room somewhere in Parliament. It was just so, as he spotted the PM in a tea room with Lord Halifax.
“Good morning Anthony,” Baldwin said, looking terrible but sounding energetic. “I was just discussing the King’s holiday. Was it you?” He sat, ‘holding court’, in a wing-backed leather armchair.
“Was it me what,” Eden said wearily, “Prime Minister.”
“It wasn’t you, was it? That told him to stay here.”
“Certainly not, although, ah, in principle, I agree with it. If he travels around Europe or, worse, America, he would only get himself into the foreign press.”
“Just so,” Halifax said slowly. “I completely agwee.”
“So who is advising him? Lloyd George? Again?” Baldwin turned to Halifax. “Find out for me, would you Edward? Talk to Monckton, talk to Dawson at
The Times. They’re friends of yours. If he is staying here, then what is he up to?” Eden who had taken advantage of the conversation to get himself a tea, flounced into an armchair opposite Baldwin, who now realised that his Foreign Secretary presumably wanted to discuss something. “Something to discuss, Anthony?”
“Ye-es,” Eden said, slowly. “Young Lindsay made an ass of himself over the battleships. I think that all is agreed, but, I’m afraid,” he smiled insincerely, “he suggested that they weren’t.”
Baldwin rolled his eyes. “These self-defeating moments,” he said, real, almost tangible exhaustion in his voice. I’ll talk to Monsell about it. Was it that bad?”
Eden smiled sympathetically, like a doctor, or a bank manager delivering bad news. “Well, if we’re not spending the money on ships, what are we spending them on? That sort of stuff.”
“Thank you, Anthony,” Baldwin said, tired of the subject. “Was that all.”
“No, Prime Minister. The French.”
“
That can wait,” he said, rejecting the subject entirely.
Eden’s fixed expression suggested that it couldn’t. “I’m not
entirely sure about that. The new chaps.”
Baldwin, who had not quite registered that there had been a change of government a few weeks ago, feigned awareness. “Ah yes. Well, Anthony?”
Eden tried, very hard, not to look exasperated. “Well, now that Sarraut’s out and the Front Populaire is in...”
“The Fwont Populaire?” That was Halifax, not knowing what the term meant.
“The left, Edward,” Eden said in a patronising tone. “but not, really, all of the radical left. I think.”
Baldwin, who kept moving to pick up a newspaper, offered a cheery and un-Prime Ministerial wave to a Conservative backbencher. “Delbos?”
“Yvon Delbos,” Eden said grandly, in explanation to Halifax. “He has expressed an invitation for me to go over there at some point.”
“His backgwound?” Halifax, also sensing Baldwin’s exhaustion, was trying to do some of the thinking for him.
“Radical socialist, Edward.” Halifax made a look of distaste.
Baldwin nodded. “What do you want of me, in all of this?” He was too tired to be tactful, so finally gave in to his frustration with Eden’s airy manner.
“I would like to accept the invitation, and go over there,” Eden said with a rare touch of force. “We need the French, and I want to get to know this new chap.”
Halifax nodded his agreement. “A sound enough pwoposal,” he murmured.
Baldwin yawned. “I think, Edward, that I agree, but,” he rubbed his chest, “I would prefer that you stay at home for the moment.”
Eden looked wounded. “May I ask,” he said crisply, “why?”
Something in Baldwin seemed to snap. “Alright, then, I don’t want the papers to lead with yet another Government minister getting himself into difficulty.”
“Thomas?” That was Halifax, in a conspiratorial tone.
Baldwin nodded. “He’s going to have to resign from Cabinet, and probably from the House.”
Halifax, whose private life was the model of Victorian propriety, nodded his approval. Eden, whose private life had been more rambunctious, looked to the ceiling in quiet irritation. “Are we sure, ah, Prime Minister,” he drawled, “that making a few ill-judged quips on a golf course is sufficient ground for destroying him.”
Baldwin looked sharply at his Foreign Secretary. He finally huffed loudly. “If we can keep this nonsense modest and not publicised I would be grateful.”
Halifax was intrigued. “But why, Pwime Minister? If the man has twansgwessed…”
“…there might be other battles, Edward, coming over the horizon. So, I have a dilemma: expend political capital to keep an idiot in the Commons, but avoid a minor scandal, knowing that there’s an even bigger one down the line, or sacrifice him in the hope that the press focusses on the smaller scandal and misses the larger one.”
“It would help, ah, Prime Minister,” Eden said, softly, “if we knew what the greater scandal was. I can surmise…”
“…don’t, Anthony,” Baldwin snapped. “Don’t make assumptions. Let’s just say that it’s the of the greatest magnitude.”
Halifax, who in this instance was in Baldwin’s confidence and understood to whom Baldwin was referring, looked sad. “Do you think, Pwime Minister,” Halifax probed gently, “that this particular calamity can be circumvented?” He thought back to their meeting with Archbishop Lang.
“I still hope to persuade him to see things as we do,” Baldwin said, heavily, repeating his ‘line’ of so many discussions.
Eden knew that they were talking of the King, but did not know, yet, that the Simpson marriage was being discussed. “Prime Minister, if there are domestic matters, then of course I will support you, but foreign affairs…”
“…might be effected by this situation,” Baldwin finished for him. “I do not want you to fly off and sign any bloody treaties, we can’t have another Hoare-Laval.” He gestured around him. “But I can hardly spend time charming our members and not let you do the same with your international colleagues. Do you think that you can work with this Delbos chap?”
“I must,” Eden said dramatically, “much will rest upon it.” Halifax rolled his eyes at Eden’s arrogance and presumption.
“Alright. Agree in principle to meet him, but give no dates. When we know how the domestic scene looks, we can decide how we use you.”
Halifax looked from Eden to Baldwin. “Perhaps I can assist.”
“You will, Edward, and more than you think. If this matter detonates as I fear it might, then we will all be needed,” he said ominously. “I have decided that Thomas is out of Cabinet, but for him to lose his seat, and risk a byelection in which the name of the Monarch could be an issue…”
“…unthinkable,” Halifax hissed.
Baldwin thanked his Cabinet colleagues and strode through the wandering passages of the Commons to another room, this one the office of the Conservative Chief Whip.
“Prime Minister,” Margesson, a lean, mean, figure, who seemed, to the avuncular Baldwin to carry a permanent air of menace, perched on his desk as Baldwin traipsed into his lair. He offered Baldwin a cigarette. Baldwin twitched and shook his head. “This is a rare honour.”
Baldwin smiled at the quip; he needed Margesson, a wily operator and reader of people who was, after five years, a highly experienced Chief Whip. His role was to administer the whipping system in the party, ensuring that members attended and voted in Parliament when the party leadership required a vote. He was also the guardian of MPs’ little secrets, transgressions, and other personal problems. It made him, as more than wit had recorded, something of the ‘Head Boy’ or Prefect of the Parliamentary Party. It was a job he did well and had steered the Tory MPs through the India debates, Ethiopia, Hoare-Laval and now, Baldwin hoped, whatever would come of the King’s intent to marry.
“Chief Whip,” Baldwin said formally, for his easy approachability had never really worked with Margesson, he knew the tricks better than anyone, “could you take the temperature please, on three issues.”
“Of course, Prime Minister,” Margesson agreed easily. He straightened his angular frame and began jotting in a notebook. “Might I ask how overt I need to be?”
Baldwin nodded. “Reasonably, Margesson, reasonably. I would like open soundings on Jimmy Thomas losing position and then his seat.”
“Thomas is, of course, a National Labour MP,” Margesson offered, “but I will take the temperature of our members. Do I reach across to the National Labour types”?
“Yes, and overtly. If we hang Thomas out to dry then I want the bloody Press to know that we consulted widely.”
“Of course.”
Baldwin closed his eyes, sadly. He leaned in to Margesson. “The second and third soundings must be more discreet. I would like a view on a change of the Leadership.” Margesson, who had been scribbling, looked up in surprise. “An arranged one, and not rushed.”
“The likely candidates, Prime Minister?” He was giving nothing, nothing at all, away in the delivery. For all that Margesson reacted, Baldwin could have asked if the members liked jam or marmalade on their toast.
Baldwin sighed. “Neville as the favourite, and then either Eden or, God forbid, Sam Hoare,” he saw Margesson shaking his head. “You disagree?”
Margesson was too canny to say anything so solid as outright disagreement. “Let us say,” he said patiently, “that Hoare has limited appeal to the backbenchers. After last year…”
“…so Neville, or Anthony.” Baldwin cut across. “I’ll talk to them, both, soon.”
“Prime Minister,” Margesson said, closing his notebook, “if you are in need of a rest,” he said this speculatively but accurately, and Baldwin’s lack of response must have confirmed his suspicion, “then might I suggest we focus on you having a spell of recuperative absence.”
Baldwin was tired of circumlocutory converations. “D’you mean a holiday?”
“Yes I do. Or at least you getting out of London. A change of leadership would be, unfortunate if it was unnecessary.”
Baldwin nodded. “I’ll think on it,” he agreed.
“There was,” Margesson said, focussed, “a third sounding?”
“I must beg your discretion. I want you to look out for criticism, or salacious comment, on the Monarchy.”
“
That,” Margesson said, “will be difficult.” He looked, to Baldwin, as if he knew much (and given the closeness between some of his MPs and the King Baldwin hoped that he did). “But I will ask the Whips to report back anything,
anything?”
“Anything,” Baldwin confirmed.
“Is His Majesty jeopardising the Government?”
Baldwin paused and thought. “Some, Chief Whip, would argue that he is endangering more than the Government.”
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
GAME EFFECT
While normal Government business ploughs on, the chaos of the Simpson affair begins to ‘trickle down’ from Baldwin and into the rest of Whitehall.
To Parliamentary matters first, and I have merged two separate question sessions to give a flavour of some of the state of Defence debate in early ’36. The Churchill question is precisely as put, given Baldwin’s increasing weakness I have put the stronger performer Eden in (instead of the already hated Sir John Simon) to answer. The truth is that the Minister of Supply (or Munitions) proposals were not, despite my admiration for Churchill, anything more (at this stage) than a sideshow. I am anticipating the usual flurry of ‘you’re wrong’ responses but there are frankly far greater questions needing attention in ’36 than the Ministries of Supply, Munitions, Food and Information and I have, to show that the old man was fallible, given the biting question (why the hell the Admiralty is ‘dragging ass’ on the KGVs) to a backbencher. To cause further mirth, I’ve followed (more or less) reality and had the follow up questioner completely fluff his lines. The additional ministries were important, but the greater need is surely to sort out the Whitehall apparatus first. The UK has an odd record with ministerial readjustments in peacetime (the DEA, anybody?) and expect nothing to happen for some time. But I hope that it shows a flavour of the debates swirling around Parliament in the mid ‘30s. There was a lot of it – the one thing that HANSARD reveals is the level (if not the standard) of questioning on international and Defence matters; it was weighty and must have consumed much of an MP’s (or minister’s) time; I am not sure that we do that today. Of course, that level of debate didn’t always translate into action by the Government…
The Thomas scandal blows itself out, and here the King has had an effect, with Baldwin much more alert to the effects on the Government as he was in reality. I won’t mention this weird little fiasco any further; it was a tawdry little matter that won’t have much more of an impact, but in reality he lost his Cabinet position and then (via the convoluted way in which this is managed) lost his seat. Here, with Baldwin (in my view prematurely) fearing that that the King could be an election issue (it won’t, if he gets Thomas out quickly enough), Thomas will be quietly moved to the backbenches having publicly resigned his Cabinet position. Anything, at this stage, to prevent scandal.
The French shift to the left gets a mention; Eden and Delbos actually did exchange chummy letters and would eventually meet in person, where they hit it off quite well. Of course in this AAR Baldwin is terrified of anything likely to prove controversial, so frankly fobs Eden off for a bit. Whether Eden can get to France will be left for a couple of months.
And then we get Baldwin, increasingly weary, palpably ill, seeking counsel from the Chief Whip. Opinion seems to divide (in many directions) on Margesson; I have gone for what I think he was, actually quite efficient at his job (his longevity would clearly support his not being incompetent) with a beguiling blend of the menacing and charming (some sources attest to him being devastatingly suave, others make him out to be a thug). His advice an counsel to Baldwin is adequate (if coolly delivered), but Baldwin is worried – to approach the Chief Whip on this is tantamount to “let me go, God, let me go.” It also risks further Royal revelations…
@stnylan: York will feature (Halifax will call on him soonish); you’re right, of course, all of this talk of Royal change (and we are, already, thinking of that as a course of action) has completely no regard for the poor schmuck they’re about to give it to.
@Captured Joe: Well, his ‘Royal’ Prerogative is actually wielded largely (almost entirely) by Baldwin and his Cabinet so no, unless you get a PM closely in step with the King (but he wouldn’t last long if he couldn’t command Parliament).
@DylanMultiverse: Thankfully not. I will test the constitution, but I won’t be too unrealistic.
@TheButterflyComposer: Thanks for adding the religious bits that I ignored in my legal response to
@Captured Joe above.
@Cromwell: ‘Contained chaos’ sort of continues here, although with each new person brought into the debate it is more chaotic, and less contained, by the hour.
@Specialist290: Thank you for the nomination, again. And I’m glad that you found Lang as I do.
@El Pip: I’m going to say 'no' to the charge of being harsh on Lang. I’m actually rarely passionate about anything (ask the missus), but he was a truly unpalatable figure. Everything I have read on his dealing with KGV, Edward and George VI was that he was objectionable. Edward VIII was wrong, Lordy was he wrong, on a lot, but Lang attempted to bully, humiliate and cower him. Nope – he’s an arse. Can I ask that he be put on the Hindenburg, please,
@the Butterfly ?
@TheButterflyComposer: It wasn’t until I read a bit about the subject for this AAR that I realised what a mess was made of the Catherine of Aragon marriage – crikey it was bad…
@El Pip: Weird legal issues? Welcome to my day job. My maddest adventure was a government paid flight to Spain for precisely 30 mins of work.
@TheButterflyComposer: I’m deliberately not going to tell you what I did until I need to – which is not for a bit!
@El Pip: I’d put money on a decent Government that isn’t absorbed with endless crises putting a ‘no fault’ divorce bill to Parliament, prenups as well come to think of it.
@DensleyBlair: Bugger, yes you’re correct.
@Captured Joe: God no, it’ll take a lot for that.
@DensleyBlair: I’m not yet including him.
@TheButterflyComposer: As I indicated, I may not strictly follow any chain.
@DensleyBlair: 
@TheButterflyComposer: As a Dunelm graduate and a proud Northumbrian, I’m firmly of the view that County Durham as an entity has, under the Prince Bishops, wielded more autonomy than the Welsh for much of its history.
@DensleyBlair and @TheButterflyComposer: I’m really torn on devolution, really torn. For one, I am not satisfied that national identity goes with regional autonomy, and it is too easy to tie one to the other for short-term gain.
@Bullfilter: I know what you mean, and I am less scathing of Baldwin as a politician and as a man. He was woeful on foreign and defence affairs (kinda a drawback for a British PM in the 30s) but with the Abdication Crisis I am increasingly respectful of his efforts; he was treated contemptuously by Edward VIII.
@TheButterflyComposer: Er, no.
@Bullfilter: That should be my tagline…hang on…
@TheButterflyComposer: My list of people to put on that dammed zeppelin is growing with each update…
@Jape: Thank you, mon brave. When a forum character with talent such as yours comments, that means a lot.
@Specialist290: Remind me to post on it, if I can drag this creaking production to 1939!
