Post by Diarist on Sept 17, 2016 18:36:02 GMT 1
I took them to Schmidt's Restaurant in Charlotte Street. It's owned by a German and he serves an excellent Wiener Schnitzel and is renowned for its rude waiters and the long waiting time for food. It was fairly early so we easily found a vacant table.
"Have you ever been here before?" Both said they hadn't. I ordered three schnitzels in German. The waiter looked at me for a moment then remembered me. He said that my German is still 'beschißen'. I asked in Swabian if the 'alte Fritz' is still alive. "The owner is like Irvine from Swabia," I explained. "He became a British citizen and served in the war as an army cook but don't mention the war here."
To Anthony Eden I started to explain this morning but he stopped me saying that he understood and there are no hard feelings. The Foreign Office also has secrets which would be extremely damaging if made public. "I make decisions every day without asking Winston first. If he needs to know I send him a memorandum. If he doesn't I write one to myself."
"On Friday he mentioned that he'd given orders to our units in Africa to do this, that and the other. I told him that it hadn't been decided yet. He reminded me that I'd delegated force readiness to him so he had decided it. He put me in my place in front of the others at the Club."
"I hear that John Simon is no longer your deputy."
"He's now at the Home Office. The Home Secretary to be exact."
"Well, that is a promotion."
"Rab Butler is in the Ministry of Labour. I believe he's the Parliamentary Under-Secretary."
"Winston, I have absolutely no idea what that is and don't want to know. Is he happy?"
"I believe so. It's an important position because of the employment program you and Keynes put together."
"You had your finger in that too?" Eden asked.
"It's a good plan because it not only reduces unemployment by two million it also produces two million trained soldiers with a trade under their belt. They pay taxes too. Winston, we need to talk about how we increase taxes to pay for the expansion of the armed forces. I have another paper which John Keynes polished up for me."
"What's in it? In simple terms please."
"Basically we need to avoid direct taxation and introduce indirect taxes instead. Direct taxes are poison for growth. They take money out of the economy and give it to the government which is notoriously inefficient when spending taxpayer's money."
"You're now in the government too, Bob. How much do you waste?"
"Anthony, it is so refreshing to realize how little, if anything, you know about what I do. I mean that positively. If you, in a key government position, don't know then I doubt very much that the Germans know. I'm saving the MoD's budget tens of millions by reducing waste and increasing efficiency. I've got industry paying half of the cost of the mobilization of our armed forces. In return they are getting workers at half-price. That saves millions per month, Anthony. Most of the guns being planned for the Army of 1940 are refurbished guns and howitzers from the last war. That way we get two guns for the price of one new gun. To return to today's talk at number 10, a small group of us are putting together a plan to defeat Germany without a shot being fired. Think of how many tens of BILLIONS that will save let alone millions of lives. I see our lunch is finally arriving. By the way, the cutlery is real silver."
"This is excellent. Well worth the wait."
"I agree. The waiters are self-employed."
"That is unusual. How does that work?" Winston inquired.
"They buy the food from the kitchen then sell it to the customers. Seriously!"
"Is that common practice in Germany?"
"I don't believe so. It was new to Sally as well."
After lunch I drove them both back to their ministries then left the car with Sally. I caught the train to Edgware to meet Geoffrey.