How to make a prime minister paranoid; a page from the bureaucrats' playbook.

• Author: Lynn, Jonathan
• Position: Scams, Hustles, and Boondoggles

How To Make a Prime Minister Paranoid

July 2nd

Dudley Belling, the Employment Secretary, has clearly been thinking hard during Wimbledon. Straight back from the Center Court he came to me with a fascinating proposal.

In a nutshell, his plan is to relocate many of our armed forces to the north of England. He has come to the realization that, although we have 420,000 service personnel, only 20,000 of them are stationed in the north. Almost everything and everyone is here in the south. The navy is in Portsmouth and Plymouth. The Royal Air Force is in Aldershot. There are virtually no troops in Britain north of the Midlands. And yet--here's the rub--virtually all our unemployment is in the north.

Dudley is not concerned about the military personnel themselves. Many of them come from the north anyway. No, what he sees is that if we move two or three hundred thousand servicemen from the south to the north we will create masses of civilian jobs: clerks, suppliers, builders, vehicle maintenance...the possibilities are immense, limitless. Three hundred thousand extra paychecks to be spent in shops.

There is really no good argument against this proposal, and I defy the Civil Service to provide one. They should underestimate me no longer. I'm getting wise to their tricks.

Meeting today at the MOD with Alan Guthrie, the Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Defense, and Geoffrey Howard, the Chief of the Defense Staff.

Geoffrey was late. Not particularly soldierly, I thought, but Alan explained that this proposal by the Employment Secretary has put the whole of the Ministry of Defense into a state of turmoil.

Alan, who's new, was taking it very badly indeed. I tried to explain to him that it was a perfectly reasonable plan, seen from the Prime Minister's point of view. Alan refused to see it from the Prime Minister's point of view, remarking bitterly that this wretched proposal emanated from the Department of Employment, and defense was none of their bloody business. I corrected him: the plan emanated from the Secretary of State for Employment--the Department itself had nothing to do with it.

Furthermore, as I could see civil war between the two departments looming here, I indicated that all work on the proposal was done by the Employment Secretary's political advisers.

I pointed out to Alan that we should all stay quite calm, and that we were only dealing with a relocation proposal, not a Russian invasion. Alan said: "I'd be less worried if it were a Russian invasion--the Ministry of Defense is prepared for that."

We were all more than surprised to hear this. So he clarified the statement: what he meant was that the MOD knows what it would have to do to repel a Russian invasion. I was even more surprised, and asked if we could repel it. He said no, of course not, but at least the MOD didn't have to do any more thinking about it.

It was up to me nominally to defend the Employment Secretary's proposal, since the Prime Minister has publicly supported it, so I reiterated that, although the armed forces contain a lot of men from the north, they are not the ones who are unemployed now. And the Employment Secretary's scheme is designed to help those who are currently unemployed.

Alan felt that we were doing quite enough already. Many of our troops from the north were unemployed, that's why they joined up. This argument won't wash with the PM, who is concerned about jobs in the north, whereas the troops who have joined up in the north are spending all their money in the south where they now are.

Alan said that this was logically inevitable, since there is nothing to spend it on in the north.

Field Marshal Sir Geoffrey Howard joined us. He went straight on to the attack, informing me that this proposal must be stopped. He told me that you can't just move hundreds of thousands of men around the country like that.

I thought that's what you did with armies. It sounds a feeble argument to me. But upon closer examination it was the permanence of the move to which he objected. Quite reasonably.

He conceded that some servicemen could be stationed permanently in the north of England: other ranks perhaps, junior officers possibly. But he made it clear, very properly, that we really cannot ask senior officers to live permanently in the north.

I asked for a list of reasons. He obliged. 1. Their wives wouldn't stand for it. 2. No schools. [There were schools in the north of England at this time, but perhaps Sir Geoffrey meant that suitable fee-paying schools were not accessible--Ed.] 3. Harrods is not in the north. 4. Nor is Wimbledon. 5. Ditto Ascot. 6. And the Henley Regatta. 7. Not to mention the Army and Navy Club.

In short, he argued that civilization generally would be completely remote. This sort of sacrifice is acceptable to the forces in time of war, but if the move were made in these circumstances, morale would undoubtedly plummet.

I was impatient with these arguments. The matter is to be discussed in Cabinet this afternoon, and more serious arguments are required than senior officers being 300 miles from the club, however disturbing, however true!

Geoffrey could think of nothing more serious than that. He remarked indignantly that chaps like him and me might have to move up there.

I pressed him for objective reasons against the plan. He insisted that these were objective reasons. I decided against showing him the dictionary, and enquired if there are any strategic arguments against it.

He said there were. Several. My pencil poised, I asked him to list them. He was unable to do so. He said that he hasn't had time to think about it yet, but that strategic arguments can always be found against anything. He's absolutely correct in that.

So when Alan and Geoffrey have had time to find some strategic arguments, we must ensure that if they cannot stand up to outside scrutiny we will make them top secret. This is in any case customary with all defense matters, and is the way in which we...