Against an unprecedented background of fisticuffs, the singing of the Red Flag and a Conservative attempt to run away with the mace, the Government sneaked home to an unprecedented victory of one vote in its battle to overrule an attempt to destroy its nationalisation plans for the shipbuilding industry.
Nothing like it has been seen in the Commons chamber for more than 40 years. As soon as the whips announced that a Government majority had been achieved by 304 votes to 303, Labour MPs stood up and began to sing the
Red Flag.
As they reached the words ╥We╒ll keep the red flag flying here,╙ Mr Michael Heseltine, Tory spokesman at the conclusion of the debate, jumped up and seized the mace from its rack beneath the Speaker╒s Chair. As he waved it aggressively towards the Labour Benches, his Shadow Cabinet colleague Mr James Prior wrested it from his hands and replaced it in its rack the wrong way round.
While Mr Prior was changing ends, so to speak, a fracas developed in front of the Tory front bench. Mr Geoffrey Rippon, a former Tory Minister, seemed to be in full physical conflict with Mr Dennis Canavan, Labour MP for Stirlingshire West.
Mr Canavan was pulled away by Mr Peter Snape, a Labour Whip. But as the altercation turned into something very like a brawl in the middle of the floor of the Commons, Deputy Speaker, Sir Myer Galpern, rose and declared: ╥The House is suspended for 20 minutes.╙
Normally such a move would have ended the disturbance. But within a matter of moments, as MPs were moving out of the chamber, yet another outbreak of scuffling took place. Mr Tom Swain, a miners╒ MP from Derbyshire, was seen to be fighting with a Tory member, Mr Michael Spicer (Worcestershire South).
There was something close to incredulity on the Tory benches when the result of the key division was announced, with its surprise majority of one for the Government. An immediately preceding vote on a Tory amendment had resulted in a tie of 303 votes to 303. Acting in accordance with precedents established by Mr Speaker Dennison in 1860, Mr Speaker George Thomas declared that he was voting with the noes against the Tory amendment.
Had the second vote turned out to be another tie ╤ and there was every reason to expect that it would be ╤ similar precedents would have required the Speaker to vote against the Government motion, too. He was relieved of this awesome responsibility by the surprise result giving the Government a majority of one.
Tory MPs were last night critical of Mr Heseltine for his impetuous theft of the mace, which they believe deprived the Opposition of headline coverage of what is regarded as a moral victory in the Commons lobbies. They do not understand why he acted as he did, and admit that his threatening gestures with the almost sacred symbol of parliamentary authority provoked the subsequent events.
But the origin of that majority soon turned out to be highly suspect. It was alleged that the Government secured its extra vote only when Mr Tom Pendry, a Labour Whip, deliberately broke a pairing arrangement with a Conservative member in order to go into the Government lobby to save it from defeat.
As soon as that became known to the Conservative Whips, the Tory Chief Whip, Mr Humphrey Atkins, issued what amounted to a declaration of total war for the remainder of the present parliamentary session.
He declared: ╥The Government won the second division by deliberately breaking a pair. It was a deliberate device by the Government, and we are to end all pairing for the remainder of this session, including the Prime Minister.╙
The Government last night flatly denied the Tory allegations that a broken pairing arrangement had provided Labour with its majority of one in the second and most vital division. It insisted that it had discovered that Mr Fred Peart, the Minister of Agriculture, had not been included in a general ministerial pairing deal with the Opposition although he was abroad on departmental business in Denmark.
This discovery, they claim, was made after the shock of the tied vote on the first division and Mr Tom Pendry was therefore released from the obligation which had kept him out of the original vote.
Ministers insist that Mr Pendry would have been entitled to vote in the first division, too, had the Government Whips been aware of this error in the pairing deal. In the event, he only succeeded in voting in the second and most vital decision.
Mr Heseltine, whose mane of golden hair has given him the nickname of Tarzan, apologised for waving the ceremonial mace around his head like a mediaeval battle axe. ╥I was unwarrantably provoked by the singing of the Red Flag,╙ he said. ╥I thought, ╘Here is a neo-Marxist group in the House of Commons.╒ Having cheated over the motion, cheated in the lobbies, I thought that in the circumstances they might as well have the mace as well.
╥I rapidly realised this was a reflection on the authority of the Speaker and the House. I tried to apologise and will do so unreservedly as soon as I can.╙
But the defiant singing of the Red Flag, which had much the same effect on Mr Heseltine as it would have had on a bull, also has no real precedent since the historic electoral victory of the Labour Party in 1945. Attempts have been made more recently to get a chorus or two of Labour╒s anthem going in the chamber, but without success until last night.
