European Diary, 1977-1981 Part 29

Also Schmidt was further miffed because about three days before the Brussels Council at the end of May, he had a.s.sured Dohnanyi, who told him that he thought he could see his way through, that he (Dohnanyi) was quite wrong, he was deceiving himself, there was no chance of a success, because the gap between the British and French position was too wide to be bridged, and that was why he (Schmidt) was not going to try. Therefore when Dohnanyi brought it off, Schmidt, to say the least, had mixed feelings.

Council from 5.45 to 7.30, which was concerned with enlargement points, and then an hour's meeting with the Spaniards, Calvo Sotelo taking a fairly hard line, before going home to give Gaston Thorn50 dinner. He is keen to stay on as President of the Council as long as he can, certainly until November, which I think is pus.h.i.+ng it a bit, though his position is different from mine in 1976. He knows the Community much better and his Government responsibilities involve him in Community business which mine did not.

In general, he seemed keen enough to be informed and I told him I would give him my opinion on issues and people frankly, provided he did not pa.s.s it on, but that if he did pa.s.s it, I would know pretty quickly, and then could not continue to do so. I hope this bargain sticks. He seemed disinclined to a.s.sert a role in the choice of other Commissioners. He showed great interest in the house on the way out, how had we found it, did it belong to us, costs etc. I later discovered that this was because he was making a big bid with the Belgian Government to get them to do up and put at his disposal an official residence. As they have one spare-a very grand one in the rue Ducale -1 think he may get away with it, but somewhat cynical comments about his intending to live in great pomp are floating around the Belgian Government.

TUESDAY, 22 JULY. Brussels.

Council, and during the morning we satisfactorily disposed of the non-quota Regional Fund issue. The BBQ went less well, rather as I had feared, with the Germans taking an even harder-line position than the French, and Carrington -1 think wisely-made little effort to make a great issue of it, and accepted a compromise which was two-thirds of the way towards the Franco-German position.

WEDNESDAY, 23 JULY. Brussels and London.

Commission for a total of six and a half hours-much the longest Commission day for three or four months. Much of the afternoon was taken up with dealing with the difficult question of the necessary altering of the Commission's contract with ICL for our own computers. We also had Gundelach for a good deal of the time on a packet of agricultural measures, including various settlements he had made with New Zealand and his negotiations with Australia. Then a tricky discussion at the end, everyone being very defensive and even suspicious, about the setting up of a small working group to do preliminary work under this Commission on the mandate for reform of Community finances given us by the Council, but which we will not be able to complete. However, we ended up in quite good temper at 7.15.

Back to my office for some signing and an end-of-term drink with the cabinetbefore the 8.45 plane to London. The last six weeks have been very wearing, not because I have been tremendously hard-worked-no long-distance travel since India, no major issue since the BBQ-but because of long-term exhaustion. I do not feel the normal sense of satisfaction at the end of a summer term and am even beginning to have, partly because of the formidable prospect at home, slight doubts as to how much I am now looking forward to the end of the four years. That may be just natural perverseness.

THURSDAY, 24 JULY. London.

s.h.i.+rley Williams came to see me for an hour at Kensington Park Gardens on the most lovely evening. She was as engaging but elusive as ever, on the whole taking a pessimistic view, thought the (Labour Party) conference would go wrong, certainly on policy issues, very likely on some of the inst.i.tutional issues as well, and then most surprisingly, and in contradiction to what she had been telling me in the spring, said that she was far from certain that, even if Callaghan went, Healey would be elected leader of the party in the autumn. She thought Sh.o.r.e was catching up on him fast, and there was always the possibility of Foot being persuaded to run. So, she regarded everything as being very open, including what she is going to do.

It was nice of her to have come and I wished, as I think she did, that she could have come to our dinner for Crispin's fiftieth birthday which then followed. We had a party of thirty in the River Room of the Savoy: four members of his family, Robert Armstrongs and Michael Pallisers, Plaja, both Davignons and Emile Noel from Brussels, Henri Simonet, who had told me he was in London, Ted Heath, Caroline but not Ian Gilmour as he was attending Seretse Khama's funeral, Ann Fleming, Evangeline Bruce, Janet Morgan (the editor of the Crossman diaries, now in the Cabinet Office), Arthur Schlesingers, Nicholas Gordon Lennox's,51 Thea Elliott, Harlechs and George Weidenfeld. I think that was about the lot. Good food, beautiful evening, nice view from the River Room, adequate speech from me but a better one, well phrased and turned, by Crispin.

FRIDAY, 25 JULY. London and East Hendred.

Neville Sandelson52 to see me at his request to tell me that he wanted to give up his seat and concentrate on the Bar because the wearingness of his local dispute had become too great for him. Therefore at any time I wanted it he would resign Hayes and Harlington, which he was sure could be won on a Social Democratic ticket.

To the Rodgers' party in Kentish Town at 9.00, mainly in the garden on a baking hot night. About a hundred people, most of whom I had not seen for four years. Very enjoyable; the natives seemed thoroughly friendly! I suppose there were about fifteen MPs, and the rest academic or journalist figures. Drove to East Hendred, where we arrived with rain beginning (typical end of July weather pattern in a bad summer: a couple of days of great heat dissolving into a great thunderstorm).

TUESDAY, 29 JULY. East Hendred.

The Marquands came late to lunch. However, as it appeared they had driven the whole way from Derbys.h.i.+re, whereas we thought they were coming from London, and had indeed to drive back to Derbys.h.i.+re in the afternoon, they had done very well to come at all. Sat out for two hours or so in the afternoon having a long political discussion, David and I being very much of the same, not over-sanguine, mind. David's judgement I think is now more sensible, and his tactical approach closer to mine, than that of almost any other member of the group.

WEDNESDAY, 30 JULY. East Hendred.

Robert Maclennan to lunch. His position was totally sympathetic, and interesting in his reports on a number of other people, though he tends to operate in a lonely way. He would like to break, he thinks he could carry Caithness and Sutherland as an independent or Social Democratic candidate or almost anything. But he does not want to do it as the only MP, though he would do it with a very small group of two, three or four, and thought that if we had Bill Rodgers we could get many more than this. But there was a possibility even without Bill.

FRIDAY, 1 AUGUST. East Hendred, Rome and Bussento.

8.50 plane to Rome. 1.30 train (late) to Sapri (to where the Italian police insisted on accompanying us). Bussento at 8.15.

The house looked much as I remembered it, with the trees grown up somewhat. The new apartment blocks at the back do not make as much difference as had been feared. The house was full of people (twenty-two); Jane and Virginia Bonham Carter53 there with lots of friends.

TUESDAY, 5 AUGUST. Bussento.

After dinner got Mark (Bonham Carter) to describe in detail the story of his capture in Tunis in 1943, subsequent escape from the prison camp at Modena, and five-hundred-mile month's walk down the spine of Italy before he crossed the Allied lines near Bari. Although I had known the vague outline before, I had never known a lot of the details and had never got him to tell it, which he was reluctant to do, but then did fascinatingly well.

WEDNESDAY, 6 AUGUST. Bussento.

Slightly racked by conscience that I ought to have gone to the state funeral which the Italians had organized for the seventy-nine victims of the previous Sat.u.r.day's bomb outrage at Bologna station. However, tormented myself quite unnecessarily as no foreigners were present, and the Italians clearly would not have welcomed them for it was an extremely awkward occasion politically, with only the Communist Mayor of Bologna, Berlinguer and Pertini, the old Socialist President of the Republic, being well received.

Weather continuing absolutely perfect. I have never known it so good in Italy.

MONDAY, 11 AUGUST. Bussento.

Claus and Mary Moser and the David Fosters54 had arrived to stay in the early evening. Claus very bouncy-almost too bouncy, I thought, to begin with-but after dinner I found him extremely agreeable, talking very sensibly and interestingly about a lot of things: partly about music because David Foster is a great expert on its organization, Covent Garden, the Met, Salzburg, etc., but partly also about English politics, and partly about his life at N. M. Rothschilds'. A nice infusion and I am sorry that we are with them for such a short time.

TUESDAY, 12 AUGUST. Bussento, Naples and East Hendred.

10.38 train from Sapri to Naples. This Italian holiday was marked (i) by most exceptional weather-it never faltered throughout the eleven days we were there; (ii) by varying health, but a significant improvement on what had been the case before; (iii) by a phenomenal amount of reading-partly because I was not trying to do any other work I got through nine or ten books, including some semi-serious Roosevelt reading-the last half of James MacGregor Burns's second volume, Roosevelt the Soldier of Freedom) a hostile book by John T. Flynn called The Roosevelt Myth;) and Francis Perkins's The Roosevelt I Knew. In addition to that I read several novels-some of them in proof brought out by John or Miriam Gross: Iris Murdoch's Nuns and Soldiers, which I did not think nearly as good as The Sea, the Sea, although it has a certain attraction. I was easily able to get through it, long though it is; Barbara Pym's A Few Green Leaves, which I thought a little pale and lacking in substance despite its elegant writing; Graham Greene's Ways of Escape, which is a fragment of autobiography, not very long, built around the writing of a number of his books and rather good. Also Angus Wilson's new novel Setting the World on Fire, which I did not think good at all but nonetheless got through. Also a book by Leslie Benson's friend Jane d.i.c.k ent.i.tled Volunteers in Politics, which was an interesting, well-written description of the Stevenson campaign in 1952, about which she knew a great deal by direct experience, the Wilkie campaign in 1940, about which she also knew a certain amount from direct experience, and the Eisenhower campaign of 1952, which was based only on research but well done even so.

In addition I read Misia, a high-cla.s.s schmalz biography by two American pianists of Misia Sert, who was painted by Vuillard, Bonnard, Toulouse-Lautrec and Renoir, who was generally a fairly tiresome woman but who made quite an interesting subject. The last night I read three Lytton Strachey essays, on Gibbon, Macaulay and Froude. We were lucky to have stayed at Bussento and not to have moved up and down the peninsula as we had originally intended. The Bonham Carters were extremely welcoming and the Gross' agreeable companions.

Brief lunch in Naples on the roof terrace of the Vesuvio Hotel, with a very good view of the bay. East Hendred in pouring rain at 8.30.

THURSDAY, 14 AUGUST. East Hendred, London and East Hendred.

George Brown to lunch at Brooks's. He was on remarkably good form, drinking a moderate quant.i.ty of wine, which seemed to me rather better than the absolute abstention of our last previous encounter. He was extremely keen to play a role (in a new party) and I believe on the whole he could be effective as I think he still has a hold on people's affections, though quite how much influence I find difficult to judge. I arranged to have some discussions which he would set up with trade union leaders and possibly to appear on a joint platform in the New Year.

Then my dreaded visit to the Hadey Street gastroenterologist. I had discovered at the end of lunch that he was George Brown's doctor; not sure whether I find this rea.s.suring. Saw him for three-quarters of an hour. Really rather an anti-climax. One of these visits which are very satisfactory at the time, but a little less so subsequently. At first you are suffused with the relief of a negative diagnosis, but after a bit realize that you have not been cured.

FRIDAY, 15 AUGUST. East Hendred.

Hendersons to lunch. Nicko not vastly informed about American politics, and in a sense I think not terribly interested in them, though interested in America as a place.

SUNDAY, 17 AUGUST. East Hendred.

Rodgers' to lunch from 1.15 to 4.30. Not a great deal of political conversation with Bill, and not very easy to get a grip on his position even when we did. He described the operations of the Gang of Three55 and expressed himself very pleased with the result. He was perfectly amiable but I did not feel as close to him as I have on most occasions in the past.

TUESDAY, 19 AUGUST. East Hendred.

Bradleys to lunch (the garden was just possible) from 1.10 to 6.30(!). I like them both immensely. Tom very resolute and I really feel closer to him than to any other of my old political friends. Despite Tom's professional pessimism, they cheered me up.

FRIDAY, 22 AUGUST. East Hendred.

Worked on the Baldwin ma.n.u.script getting it into a shape in which it could be retyped, the top copy having been lost. Had a satisfactory talk with David Steel on the telephone about 7.00. He is a remarkably buoyant young man.

MONDAY, 25 AUGUST. Talsarnau.

On a most beautiful morning I drove the three miles into Harlech at 8.00 to get the newspapers and then drove down to the beach near Glyn and sat looking across the estuary towards Portmeirion and reading them for an hour. Two sets of tennis with David and Pamela (Harlech). Walked along the beach on the south side of the estuary for an hour in the early evening. Perfect day.

TUESDAY, 26 AUGUST. Talsarnau.

An equally good day. Tennis for an hour at noon but only one, very long, satisfactory set. At about 5.30 we drove down to the sea and half walked and half waded across to the island of Ynys where there is a small deserted cottage. Then down once again, the evening being so perfect, with Jennifer to see the sun set over the Lleyn peninsula.

SUNDAY, 31 AUGUST. East Hendred.

The last day of the holidays. The David Owens to lunch in weather just good enough to be able to eat in the garden. A remarkable change in him since the last time I had talked to him, almost exactly a year ago, at East Hendred. Then it had been a slightly stiff occasion, he very much the ex-Foreign Secretary, a little defensive about his position and certainly not very open to me. In the intervening twelve months he had disapproved strongly of the Dimbleby Lecture although much less, curiously, of the Press Gallery speech in June. I suppose this was partly because he had begun to move. However, the events of this summer, particularly perhaps the Labour Party Special Conference, at which he had been booed for a multilateralist speech, had clearly left a deep impression on him and he had stiffened and toughened a lot, and also become in my view a great deal more agreeable than he had been since before he became Foreign Secretary. Very anxious to keep in touch for the future, and by no means certain what he was going to do if the Labour Party Conference went wrong, about which he was definitely pessimistic.

A good holiday on the whole, with my health considerably improving towards the end, although not yet perfect. The weather for us remarkably good in what was generally a bad summer in Northern Europe. I read a lot, mainly about Roosevelt, whom I was endeavouring to see whether I could write something about to match with my long Baldwin essay. Apart from the books I read in Italy, I read Grace Tully's Roosevelt, My Boss, Jim Farley's The Roosevelt Years and, slightly more peripherally, reread Arthur Schlesinger's The Imperial Presidency. Reluctantly, however, I decided that there was nothing very new to say about this tremendously written-about man, and therefore turned to considering Eisenhower as an alternative and started to read his Mandate for Change, 19536. I also reread Irwin Ross's The Loneliest Campaign, again with a thought of writing something about Truman. Rather deliberately I did much less Brussels work than in previous summers.

MONDAY, 1 SEPTEMBER. East Hendred and London.

Motored to London and lunched in the City with the senior partner of Deloittes (John Rae Smith) and one or two others. They wished me to consider joining them (after Brussels) in roughly the capacity of a non-executive director of a joint stock bank.

Later to Whitehall Court, where I had a meeting with Tom Taylor (Lord Taylor of Gryfe) and Christopher Reeves, the chief executive, of Morgan Grenf ell. They were anxious for me to come to them on a much more substantial basis than Deloittes. I said I would consider this and arranged to have another meeting in a few months' time.

Then to St John's Wood where we dined with the Annans for the first time in their new (to us) house, together with the Gross' and the Bonham Carters. Very good evening, Noel giving us his best wine.

TUESDAY, 2 SEPTEMBER. London and Brussels.

I walked on a beautiful morning to buy the newspapers at the lower end of Ladbroke Grove. Met T. Benn in the shop. I thought I had seen him going in but was not quite sure because he looked surprisingly older and slightly puffy. However, when I came in, it clearly was him, so I seized the initiative and said, 'Tony, how are you?' Then about three minutes of rather agreeable conversation. Tony always has good manners, and we expressed dismay at our not having seen each other for so long and almost, though not quite firmly, arranged to dine a quatre as soon as I got back.

3.45 plane to Brussels and into the office: the old Berlaymont looking much as usual, although with an air of late summer calm still over it.

THURSDAY, 4 SEPTEMBER. Brussels.

Gundelach to lunch rue de Praetere. He is not at all well, poor man, his bronchitis of the summer having developed into some more or less serious heart trouble which is not altogether surprising in view of the way in which he totally exhausts himself.

Saw Ortoli briefly at 5.30, found him on good and friendly form, equivocal about whether he is going to stay on into the next Commission, perhaps for a year or so he is inclined to say, which in my guess means that he will certainly but mistakenly agree to be reappointed. Cheysson at 5.45, he in very bouncy form as usual. Had a substantial talk at a dinner of Leon Lambert's with Simonet, who is clearly drifting more and more away from Belgian politics.

SUNDAY, 7 SEPTEMBER. East Hendred.

George and Hilda Canning to lunch. George on extremely friendly and agreeable form. He thinks I should not get myself into too isolated a position and is above all extremely anxious that I should not be too close with Colin Phipps, who he said had done a lot of harm in the West Midlands. He spoke in tems curiously reminiscent of Woodrow (Wyatt), from a different point of view, more or less saying, 'Don't mess up a great career at its end.'

MONDAY, 8 SEPTEMBER. East Hendred and London.

To a luncheon meeting of the Jewish Board of Deputies in Tavistock Square. A most curious occasion. Out of a total audience of perhaps 120, there were about six MPs, mostly but not exclusively Jewish, and five amba.s.sadors, the French, the German, the Irish, the Luxembourgeois, the Canadian-but not the Israeli. Presided over by Greville Janner,56 self-confidently rather than professionally. A fair speech by me, certainly not better than that. However, I managed to avoid any of the deep pitfalls of Middle Eastern politics.

Read and worked in the early evening in Kensington Park Gardens until we had the Gilmours to dinner at a Notting Hill restaurant. Ian very depressed about the balance of power in the Government and its economic policy.

THURSDAY, 11 SEPTEMBER. Brussels.

William Rees-Mogg to dine alone rue de Praetere. William on very smoggish form, in a sense I suppose deeply worried about The Times, but at the same time bland, almost complacent. He certainly seemed to have no awareness of the fact that, as Louis Heren57 had told me at the Jewish lunch on Monday, he had done very badly at the staff meeting which he had addressed following the strike. He said that he would like to stay as editor for, maybe, another two or three years, but thought that that would be long enough: certainly no thought of immediate retirement.

On politics he did not have a great deal to say. He was reasonably friendly to my position, though still slightly sceptical, mainly I think on the ground that he did not believe that the Liberals offered anything to build upon or even alongside, because he is convinced there are only two hard resolute reservoirs of opinion in British politics-one the left centre of the Conservative Party, and the other the right wing, the working-cla.s.s right wing to a substantial extent, of the Labour Party. The Liberals had none of the bottom of either of these groups and would therefore, whatever Steel's personal qualities, be a particularly ineffective support for decision-making in a Government. Maybe there is something in this.

SAt.u.r.dAY, 13 SEPTEMBER. Brussels.

Rue de Praetere dinner party of the Tom Enders' (American Amba.s.sador to the Community), Tugendhats and the Michael Jenkins', etc. Enders, as usual, interesting in his intelligent, detached, and perhaps slightly self-seeking way. Said that he thought he would not stay very much longer in Brussels, nor indeed in the US foreign service. What he really wanted to do was to become a Cabinet officer, which he thought he could manage in some future administration. The question he had to consider was what was the best route to that. He was rather tempted by business, but I said I thought that would not have great attraction for him except that of making money and giving complete financial independence. 'Oh, I can a.s.sure you I have that already,' he said, so I said that in that case I did not see a great deal of point in business. Perhaps he would go into politics in Connecticut, he then suggested. Maybe it would be a little difficult to become a Senator, but perhaps he could at least become a Congressman. Perhaps he wished he had gone into politics earlier, etc.

SUNDAY, 14 SEPTEMBER. Brussels.

I had spent a good deal of the weekend rereading Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead in a remarkable first edition. Crispin had brought it on the Friday evening, it being a privately printed pre-publication edition which Waugh had sent 'with the compliments of Captain Evelyn Waugh' to his (Crispin's) uncle, E. S. P. Haynes, a literary gent of the period. I found it rather better than I remembered.

TUESDAY, 16 SEPTEMBER. Brussels and Strasbourg.

A rather bad session of the Foreign Affairs Council from 12.00 to 2.30, which got bogged down on what we thought was une chose acquise about the financial mechanism running on for the third year in relation to the BBQ. This however was opposed by the French and Germans, and the British gave way with almost too good a grace. I hope these tactics are right, but I have a little doubt. Then lunch with the Council late and back for a resumed session from 4.30 to 6.30, mainly on the BBQ once again. Then an avion taxi to Strasbourg.

WEDNESDAY, 17 SEPTEMBER. Strasbourg.

Took David Wood of The Times to lunch at La Wantzenau. Nice day and agreeable lunch with him, mainly about British politics and arguing round his various bits of friendly opposition to my views on realignment. He was a pa.s.sionate supporter of Hugh Gaitskell, almost dazzled by him, to an extent which I had not previously realized.

SAt.u.r.dAY, 20 SEPTEMBER. Garderen (Holland).

A curious buffet Dutch breakfast in the large dining room of the Hotel Spielenboss in the middle of Holland, to which we had driven the evening before with Michael and Maxine Jenkins for a touristic weekend, full of elderly, nonetheless boisterous Dutch (two of them were singing, but quietly). Took enough ham and cheese for our luncheon picnic and drove north to Geithorn, very much a sort of Bourton-on-the-Water of Holland. I think it actually describes itself as the Venice of the Netherlands, built along a series of ca.n.a.ls all very neatly and elegantly kept up and with a certain dolls'-house charm. Picnic in very warm weather on the pebbles of the Zuider Zee near Urk.

SUNDAY, 21 SEPTEMBER. Garderen and Brussels.

Morning visit to the Krller-Mueller Museum which is in a small national park, looks slightly like part of a crematorium, but has a most remarkable collection, particularly of Van Goghs but of other French impressionists and other schools too. Successful and enjoyable weekend.

MONDAY, 22 SEPTEMBER. Brussels.

A meeting with Calvo Sotelo at noon, mostly devoted to discussing my visit in ten days' time to Madrid. He has become deputy Prime Minister and brought with him his replacement as Minister for European Affairs, Punset.58 Punset very anglophone having spent a lot of time working for the BBC and the Economist, and is a bright little LSE-type Catalan in contrast with Calvo Sotelo's Madrileno dignity.

WEDNESDAY, 24 SEPTEMBER. Brussels.

Lunch with Davignon, Ortoli and Haferkamp at the Fondation Universitaire, which is an agreeable old Belgian club in the Quartier Leopold. The reason it was Haferkamp and not Gundelach on this occasion was that the discussion was supposed to be about steel, and the lunch had been urgently requested by Stevy Davignon for this reason. The reason why it was at the Fondation Universitaire was that I had told Crispin rather to insist that Davignon gave us lunch for once and he had floored him by asking his Chef de Cabinet, 'And where does Monsieur Davignon propose to invite his guests?' First Stevy said he would take us out to the Royal Golf Club, but then the weather having deteriorated he switched to this perhaps more economical but thoroughly agreeable club!

THURSDAY, 25 SEPTEMBER. Brussels.

The group of Brussels British journalists to lunch rue de Praetere. About half the conversation was on British political affairs. I tried to play for time by saying they should not think in terms of the launch of a political party on 6 January,59 but rather in terms of some intellectual groundwork leading, I hoped, to my making a number of significant speeches. This line was subsequently reported -remarkably fairlyby John Palmer in the Guardian. n.o.body else took it in, or perhaps did not believe it.

FRIDAY, 26 SEPTEMBER. Brussels, London and East Hendred.

Plane to London and Frank Chapple60 to lunch at Brooks's. He had recently been excluded from key committees of the TUC, but was nonetheless in a c.o.c.ky, aggressive, agreeable mood. He agrees with me on absolutely every aspect of policy, but still does not want to contemplate a break, not out of weakness, but rather out of ill-informed confidence in the strength of his case. He believes that everything can be won by a tough battle from within, including committing the Labour Party almost to a nuclear missile in everybody's back garden. Curious that he should have this element of political unrealism. It was nonetheless well worth seeing him, probably a pity I did not do so earlier.

MONDAY, 29 SEPTEMBER. East Hendred and London.

An hour's meeting with Michael Palliser at Brooks's from 5.30 to 6.30, partly about the new British Commissioner, mainly about the future of Crispin. Mexico looks increasingly settled for him which is, I think, satisfactory. His knighthood rather less settled. Also discussed the future of Michael Jenkins. In addition, I put to Palliser my dilemma about the grand honour the Spanish Government were proposing to bestow upon me at the end of the week. He sensibly more or less invited me to accept it on the run, as it were.61 Dined at home and watched a lot of television, first Panorama, a programme on the state of the Labour Party, and then reports from Blackpool which showed Benn madder than ever, the conference in an ugly mood, s.h.i.+rley in great fighting spirit, orating very successfully even if occasionally a little incoherently at I think a Campaign for Labour Victory meeting. Altogether well worth seeing-a full evening's conference television. No great tugs upon the heart strings, but great interest. The conference looks as though it is going worse even than I thought it would.

TUESDAY, 30 SEPTEMBER. London and Brussels.

In the afternoon a series of meetings, first with Ian MacGregor,62 the new Chairman of British Steel, who has been hired at such vast cost, not so much in salary as in compensation to Lazard Freres. Thought him quite a tough Scotsman, no doubt very shrewd, but he did not seem to me the most dominant personality in the world, or the most dominant brain. He must be better than he looks.

Later saw Vredeling on his paper for increased worker consultation etc., which is causing a lot of trouble with UNICE and the employers generally. But I think that he has now concerted it well with Davignon. It has gone through the various processes of consultation and should be supported. I told him that I would do so in the Commission the next day.63 THURSDAY, 2 OCTOBER. Brussels and Madrid.

Early plane to Madrid. Met by Punset, the new Minister described earlier, and drove in with him to the Ritz Hotel, finding him very bright indeed. He raised two serious points of discussion, of exactly the right level, on the way in. It was a beautiful day in Madrid, quite different from when we were last there, clear suns.h.i.+ne and very hot for October, I think 85 during the afternoon, though cool at night. A 2 o'clock lunch (specially early in our honour) with Calvo Sotelo and Punset at the Palacia de la Trinidad.

Then an hour with Punset alone. Back at the hotel, I had a visit from Simonet, who had rung up saying he was there learning Spanish. I said, 'Even for you, Henri, the Ritz Hotel, Madrid, strikes me as a rather grand educational pension.'

I had a one-and-a-quarter-hour meeting at the Moncloa Palace with Suarez, the Prime Minister. Curiously, most of the conversation was about what we would call devolution, what the Spaniards call decentralization, the Basque and Catalan problems and their impact on the structure of the Government. He had been meeting the Basques all day and was obviously greatly preoccupied by that, Suarez still seems to me an impressive personality, and an agreeable one too. He remains very determined on European members.h.i.+p, even though his mind is much on internal Spanish questions.

At 9.30 in the same building he gave me a dinner, and also the Grand Cross of the Order of Charles III. Spanish political conversation with Suarezthrough an interpreter even at dinner because he is absolutely monolingual. Very good food.

FRIDAY, 3 OCTOBER. Madrid and East Hendred.

Crispin and I went to the Prado for half an hour, concentrating on the Goyas which are an extraordinary mixture (I had seen them once before) of styles and approach, but seen in sum are quite remarkable. Then the Community amba.s.sadors for half an hour, they perfectly agreeable, particularly Bobbie de Margerie, the Frenchman who clearly hopes to come to London.

Then a slow drive to Zarazuela, interrupted by a brief walk in a hot, sun-baked countryside looking as though we were still at the height of summer, for an audience with the King at noon. I saw him alone. He expressed strong continuing commitment to Europe, some dismay at the fact that decentralization was dismantling the state to the extent even that it might not be possible to hold it together, but at the same time fair confidence about what had been achieved politically. He has come to look older in the past two years; I still much like him.