Labour's morning after
POLITICAL COMMENTARY AUBERON WAUGH
That Labour backbenchers should be more in- terested in a great economic affairs debate than their Conservative opposite numbers is only to be expected. The whole science of economics is calculated to appeal to the school-teacher syn- drome which is such a strong feature of the socialist make-up. At one moment in Tuesday's debate, when Mr John Hall was speaking, there were only two people seated on the Opposition benches, while the Government side was packed with a restive, muttering mob. Perhaps it is something about the worthy member for Wycombe which empties his own benches so miraculously. As he stood proudly to attention, holding his lapels and regretting the prevalent disenchantment with politicians (would it be possible for such disenchantment to exist under his benign rule?) someone pointed out that all the benches behind him were empty. Sadly, Mr Hall conceded this fact. It was because Oppo- sition members felt that they were intervening in a private debate between the Government and its own backbenchers, he said, and sat down heavily in solitary splendour.
There was no doubt that the great mass of the Labour party was in a state of gloom amounting to total despondency, and irritation with the implausible panaceas of the left—they include the confiscation of British investments abroad—added to them. Curiously enough, while the left is having a field day in its attacks on the Chancellor most of the party continues to lay the blame squarely on the Prime Minister. If Mr Wilson's involvement with the Depart- ment of Economic Affairs successfully discredits that institution in the eyes of his backbenchers, we shall finally be able to look forward to years of uneventful conservative rule before the next general election brings Ted and all his modern tools to disturb us.
SnOrcilious observers who claim to see no purpose in the House of Commons these days should realise its vital function in keeping Government backbenchers happy. There was nice young David Marquand, the most articulate of Labour's new right, looking exactly like Alan Bennett imitating a keen young schoolmaster. In answer to John Biffen—the most eloquent Tory speaker of the evening—he assured the House that intelligent Government management was the only answer to our problems, and produced what he described as a slogan for the future: 'Micro-economic intervention is not a substitute for macro-economic management.' That should send us all running to the barricades.
I Indeed, the only debate which occurred at all was between backbenchers, with Mr Biffen, from the Opposition side, defending the Chan- cellor, Mr James Dickens, the evening's leader of the left, attacking him, and Mr Marquand counselling moderation at least until this freeze could be clearly seen as a failure. It was a debate between the Bright Young Things. Mr Biffen is
the Only Opposition backbencher to whom the rowdy and—since Hamilton—truculent left wing Claque around Mr Dickens and Mr John Mendelsohn are prepared to listen. This is prob- ably because he does not pander to their discon- tents but cheerfully contradicts everything they hold nacred. Jim is doing a splendid job, has made all the right decisions and will eventually- Pull us through, provided he can keep Mr Wilson and the DEA from mucking him up. Mr Biffen certainly made a much better job of it
than Mr Callaghan himself, who after one opening paragraph on Mr Macleod addressed all his remarks rather petulantly to his own backbenchers. Since the Tories by and large agree on the two major points at issue—that the time for reflation has not yet arrived, and that devaluation will solve nothing—there was no other opposition to address.
Rank and file spirits in both parties might have been depressed by the full extent of the consensus, if Mr Crossman, in winding up, had not taken it upon himself to invent a Conserva- tive Alternative, choosing Mr Heath's speech to his party—`the poor boobs in Brighton'—to show that the Tories are dedicated, now as ever, to grinding the faces of the poor. His jokes were seldom as funny as the House, at that late hour, chose to believe—it was rather sad to see Ted Heath heaving with laughter like a sea elephant and fain Macleod doubled up, clutching his sides, to show what good sports they are, while the hectoring Wykehamist voice pulled out every stale chestnut from the fire in ham surprise. But the less bright old things on the Government side certainly enjoyed it, and even the forty-six signatories of Mr Dickens's warning letter to the Prime Minister may have walked into the division lobby with lighter steps. It was only on the morning after that they began to realise quite the extent to which they had again been led up the garden path.
Morale in the Cabinet itself seems to be undergoing one of those periodic uplifts, amounting at times almost to euphoria, which accompany any possibility of a major change at the top. Loyalty to Mr Brown, despite his much- vaunted amiability, is in short supply. but so, of course, is loyalty to Mr Wilson. That Mr Brown has few close friends—and no dedicated supporters—left in the Government may be a further insight into his fascinating character. He described himself over the weekend as 'a man of caution, with a great sense of decorum,' and also as one of 'some perspicacity and never-failing tact,' but the truth may well be that his flamboy- ant character is more fun to read about than to live with. In the Foreign Office, where be is seldom at his most extravagant, underlings talk about him without much affection as a bully and a show-off.
Another reason for this lack of personal loyalty may be that Mr Brown, like Prince Hal in Henry IV, Part H, omitted to secure the appointment of any intimate or close supporters in the government of October 1964. And loyalty to Mr Wilson, much frayed by his protean manoeuvres in public, and further undermined by the personal ambitions of his underlings, has been almost extinguished (except as a reflection of some greater loyalty to the Labour movement) by his apparent inability to trust any of his subordinates. Dislike of George Wigg's activities, which are rightly or wrongly suspected of including political surveil- lance, is one aspect of this; another is the Prime Minister's apparent obsession with the subject of his ministers' relations with the press.
That this Government does leak like a sieve is apparent to anyone who opens a news- paper. It could be argued that these leaks, far from doing harm, are actually a useful thing from the point of view of any government which occasionally proposes drastic measures. This week the heat was on Mrs Castle, accused of leaking the greater part of her plans for the railways. Last week, I referred to the leaks about the House of Lords before the Queen's Speech. In fact, I may have maligned the Lord President of the Council in this, since further in- quiries reveal that the most recent inspired stories emanated from other quarters. But in any event the routine of this government as a whole, like that of a good strip-tease dancer, to lift a little of its skirt in preparation for the shock of full exposure, is surely a sensible one, and the Prime Minister's witch-hunts each time a leak occurs merely demonstrate the state of his relations with both his colleagues and the press..
So it was in the context of a resentful and dis- enchanted Cabinet that the disastrous by-elec- tion news came as something in the nature of a tonic. Now they can watch Mr Brown and Mr Wilson, like two goldfish in a bowl, circling end- lessly around each other with no apparent means of escape for either. It would be a great mistake to suppose that there is now—or ever has been —much love lost between them; their relation- ship is rather like that between the whites and blacks in South Africa—a reluctant acceptance of reciprocal dependence amounting to a form of mutual blackmail. Harold Wilson's hold over George Brown at present includes at least two violent outbursts in public and the Foreign Secretary's growing unpopularity with the press. Brown's hold over Wilson embraces the present low ebb of the Prime Minister's fortunes and the unspoken threat of what Brown could do as a backbencher. Had Brown's position been . stronger he might have been able to demand Lord Chalfont's resignation. Had Wilson's been stronger, he might have been able to get rid of George for good, last weekend. As things are, they are shackled together like a disillusioned husband and wife who have been dropped by all the neighbours.
Mr Wilson is adept at rallying his rank and file. Indeed, as their laughter at Mr Crossman's performance shows, they are still only too anxious to be rallied. So long as there is a House of Commons to have fun in, and so long as the Prime Minister can produce an illusion of activity, there is little chance of their deserting him. But when gloom settles back in the Cabinet, as it must in the course of the next few weeks, he will have a much more difficult job. Far from being drawn together by the general odium from outside, they are all still busily rowing in differ- ent directions. Perhaps it is time for Mr Wilson to reintroduce yet another Tory secret weapon: the country-house weekend. Nothing is likely to make the Cabinet pull together until they learn to sit around over the brandy and discuss . racing together.
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