for workers, obstensibly hoping to secure a fifty per cent increase and extra holiday time. Smith is an asset of American intelligence, having secured his loyalty through paid lecture tours, and is opposed to Perkins' policies of abolishing the House of Lords and the honours system due to his personal desire for a peerage. With newspaper magnate Sir George Fison and BBC editor Jonathan Alford, amongst others, ensuring media support for Smith's case (which they depict as comparable to Lech Wałęsa's and Solidarity's), the resultant blackouts and Perkins' refusal to deploy soldiers as strike-breakers seriously damages the government's approval rating. Smith calls off the work-to-rule once enthusiasm amongst his members wains. At a Chequers conference held to discuss Perkins' defence policies, the General Staff attempt to misinform the Perkins Cabinet about the extent to which nuclear disarmament and the removal of American bases could be achieved, and the military capabilities of NATO and the Warsaw Pact. The only civil servant supportive of Perkins' policies is Sir Montague Kowalski, Chief Scientific Adviser to the Ministry of Defence. At this conference, Home Secretary Joan Cook overhears Chancellor of the Exchequer Lawrence Wainwright conspiring with Sir Peregrine Craddock, the Director General of DI5. Conspiratorial opposition to Perkins' defence policies also includes Smith's creation of Trade Unions for Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament (TUM), aggressive media campaigns accusing Perkins of leaving Britain defenceless against Soviet invasion, and the organisation of civil disruption by police at a Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament demonstration at which Perkins himself was speaking. Perkins' premiership is brought to an end by an accident at the experimental Windermere nuclear power station, which threatened to contaminate an area including Blackpool and Liverpool with radiation. Although Perkins approved the station as Secretary of State for the Public Sector to save British manufacturing jobs, DI5 utilise Perkins' affair with Molly Spence, then the mistress and now the wife of Michael Jarvis, the managing director of British Insulated, the firm which built Windermere's reactors, to imply that his support had been brought. Believing that Molly was threatening to leak the story, Perkins' agrees to DI5's recommendation that he resign on grounds of ill health. Following Perkins' resignation, a disputed leadership selection process results in Wainwright being elected leader by a majority of Labour MPs and Leader of the Commons Jock Steeples being selected as leader by Labour's National Executive Committee. With the King appointing the former as