A Very British Coup Read Online Free PDF Page A

comes to the worst.”
    The President paused, took a deep breath, and looked in turn at each man. “Let’s be clear. The election of HarryPerkins could be the biggest threat to the stability of the Free World since Joe Stalin. We have to do everything possible to keep him in his place. Everything short of landing the Marines at Dover.”

2
    Harry Perkins did not intend to become a Labour MP. Having left school at fifteen he followed his father into Firth Brown, the Sheffield special steels plant. From the start he was active in the union, first as assistant branch secretary and later as treasurer.
    After five years at Firth’s the union paid for him to go on a scholarship to Ruskin College, where he gained a first class honours degree in politics and economics before returning to Sheffield. Before long he was elected convener for the whole plant, which made him chief negotiator for the union side in all dealings with the Firth management. His relations with management were cordial, but not matey. The managing director once remarked, “If I stepped under a bus tomorrow the mills would still be rolling the next day, but if Harry went under a bus the whole place would grind to a halt.”
    â€œSo long as you realise,” Perkins had responded cheerfully.
    One evening after he had been back from Ruskin for four years, there came a knock on the front door. It was the secretary of a constituency Labour party on the other side of Sheffield, where a by-election was pending. “We want someone local, someone who knows about steel and who’s on the left. So far all we’ve got applying are bleeding London barristers and sociology lecturers. Some of the lads thought you might be interested.”
    Perkins was not keen. His father had been dead twelve years and his mother was getting on in life. Who was going to look after her if he was running up and down to London all the time? But Mrs Perkins, when consulted, said she rather fancied the idea of her Harry being an MP.
    Then there was the union, what about the union? They hadn’t wasted all that precious money sending him to Ruskin just so he could be a Labour MP. But a phone call to thedistrict secretary confirmed that this was exactly what they had in mind.
    Perkins said he’d think about it. He thought for two days before agreeing to let his name go forward. The selection was a walkover; as for the election itself, in Sheffield they weigh the Labour votes. His majority was massive. Next morning his workmates from Firth’s turned out in force at the station to see him off to London.
    Like many working men who find themselves catapulted into Parliament, Harry Perkins let the place go to his head a little. Although he stayed out of the bars and ate mainly in the Strangers’ cafeteria the House of Commons brought out a streak of vanity which had hitherto lain dormant. As time passed he lost the ability to concentrate on what other people were saying. His appreciation of events began to revolve around the part he had played in them. His eyes would start to wander during conversation or he would butt in before the other person had finished speaking.
    By parliamentary standards it was nothing serious. Indeed, the trait was almost invisible to anyone who did not know Perkins well, but in Sheffield some of his old friends did remark quietly that Parliament seemed to be going to Harry’s head. Even so, no one questioned that Perkins was doing a splendid job of shaking up the parliamentary establishment. For a while he became the scourge of the Tory front bench at question time and on occasion did not hesitate to tear a strip off the Labour front bench as well.
    Like many before him, however, Perkins soon realised that wherever power lies in Great Britain it is not in the chamber of the House of Commons. Thus he began to concentrate on leading the fight outside Parliament. For three years there was hardly an invitation to speak which he