Centrepiece
Tits and politicometers
Colin Welch
Not long ago in these pages Mr Ferdi- nand Mount charmingly likened Mr Francis Pym to some tit or nuthatch, 'one of those small bright-eyed birds that dart here and there and draw their little round heads back into their hunched bodies', making noises like tsk, tsk, chirruck, chir- ruck (Books, 30 June). A happy image, though in conflict with my own superficial impression of Mr Pym as looking rather like a horse-dealer, sly, affable, foxy and disparaging.
Neither encompasses the possibility that Mr Pym may actually represent, in the political field, a dramatic new break- through in advanced British information technology. if the claims of his designers (and of himself, for this scientific prodigy has produced his own descriptive brochure, The Politics of Consent, Hamish Hamilton, £8.95) are to be credited, he is a subtle and complex device which with great sensitivity and accuracy measures and Interrelates time, opposed forces, weights and masses, and is then capable of posi- tioning itself in political time and space at exactly the optimum point where all these factors are in balance. The politicometer, as it is called, thus incorporates within itself the attributes of incredibly sophisti- cated clocks, of various magnetic fields and of electronic weighing machines. Indeed, if its calculations are accurate, political scien- tists should be able, by noting its position at any time, unprecedently to deduce the relative strengths of all the factors operat- ing upon it.
In order to achieve scientific precision, the inventors had first to strive to purge the device of all measurable opinions and prejudices of its own, to rid it of all those lingering biases which might make its reading suspect. For instance, data relating to the ordination of women were recently fed into the device. If it had acquired or retained any views on the subject, it might have indicated that the time for such ordination was either ripe or never would be: As it was, it successfully found the Point of neutral balance, and extruded verbal material to the effect that the time was 'not yet ripe'. It may yet be: the internal clocks will in that event tell us When it is.
Yet in fact the task of eliminating all opinion seems to have proved beyond the scientists' reach. The resultant problems have been solved by inserting opposed circuits of weakly opposed contradictory opinions, which are intended to cancel each other out, thus producing in effect the desired tabula rasa. Thus, as Mr Mount noted, opinions about Mrs Thatcher's character and achievements, about Victo-
rian values, inflation and taxation, about unemployment benefits and a shorter working week, are not suppressed but deftly neutralised by their opposites.
Further, the device has built into it a damper which removes all force from every conceivable opinion. The politicometer is programmed to regard every 'positive characteristic' as indissolubly linked with 'an opposite dimension' or negative char- acteristic, like the two sides of a coin. Thus reduced to 'value-free' semi-nullity are not only all other characteristics, opinions and favoured courses of action, but its own too, all half-right, half-wrong, all thus of equal weight, leaving the device free to position itself wherever objective external forces may decree.
In order to position itself correctly the politicometer has been equipped with extra-sensitive listening and monitoring equipment, capable of registering not only bodies and movements of opinion invisible to the human eye but also emotions, even if these are contrary to reason. In order to render the device accessible and responsive to such emotions, an elaborate system of reason-supression has been built in too. If it works perfectly, political scientists should be able to detect minute shifts of opinion, and the birth of tiny new groupus- cules on the remote Left or Right, merely by noting consequent adjustments in the politicometer's position, just as the exist- ence of Pluto was deduced from a slight kink in Uranus's orbit.
One problem the boffins faced was how to insulate a device otherwise so sensitive to outside forces from the overwhelming gravitational pull normally exercised by the two great parties, which would, unless checked, tug the politicometer right off centre, now one way, now another. This has been achieved by the installation of magnetic circuits which render them both relatively repellent rather than attractive, and which enable the politicometer to seek always the point of balance between them, as between everything else. In the brochure the system is illustrated by a rather clumsy seesaw metaphor. 'The balance of politics' is described as 'the balance of the seesaw. The degree and direction of the tilt depends on the bulk and position of the riders. There are times when a heavy weight at one end is needed to counteract a heavy weight at the other. But neither end of the seesaw can remain forever on the ground, as nature abhors imbalance.' Does she? If a very fat man (or woman) is on one end and a tit or nuthatch on the other, nature will keep the first end securely grounded. It is only where chance or design places equally fat people at both ends that, if the seesaw doesn't break, the balancing power is conferred on the central tit, nuthatch or politicometer, which, by always 'edging slowly towards the pivot', and placing its tiny weight now here, now there, achieves by art what nature is said to demand. The politicometer is programmed to move always against the greater weight or, if the weights are equal, against the prevailing momentum. Its position and movements should thus indicate the point of balance and which way it is shifting.
Does the politicometer work? It if does, the precise centre of British politics is on the third Government bench, just below the gangway. Yet even the designers admit to 'teething troubles' and 'gremlins'.
Does it in fact pick up signals from the whole of British politics, legitimate and illegitimate, or just from the Tory party, or only from a few rich 'Wets', who do indeed claim to contain, like a Mahler symphony, the whole world? The fact that it picks up signals from Mr Scargill is obvious and interesting; but does it pick up signals from nearer at hand? Or is it like my wireless, which hears Albania better than Radio 3? If Mrs Thatcher lost her national or party pre-eminence, would it find it easier to hear her signals than she has found it to hear the tsks and chirrucks of her detrac- tors? If the balance suddenly shifted sharp- ly towards the left, would the politicometer in fact be capable of edging even slowly towards the pivot to redress it? Or would it, lacking as it does the brakes usually supplied by settled opinions and pre- judices, find itself sliding helplessly as the tilt increases towards a new and unaccept- able centre point between new and un- acceptable forces? Measurement cannot avert dangers nor passivity give a lead.
May I speak to Mr Beaumont, please?' 'I'm putting you through now', says the switchboard lady. Brrr-brrr, brrr-brrr,
brrr-brrr . . . The ringing continues for minutes which seem hours. Beaumont's office is a modest one. It cannot take him, if there, so long to reach the telephone, unless — unless what? Suspense breeds dire imaginings. Has he been stricken by some sudden incapacitating paralysis, which arrests his arm halfway to the telephone? Brr-brr, click. 'Trying to connect you.' Click, brrr-brrr. Is he running vainly along infinite corridors towards the ringing, like a man in a dream or slow-motion film, his steps as it were clogged by glue or treacle? Brrr-brrr. Is he perhaps literally 'tied-up', as so many are said by their secretaries to be? Or is he already bawling down in- numerable telephones clapped to his mouth, held there by hands, forearms, crooked elbows and hunched shoulders, like so many wild cats leaping at his throat?
Fletcher in fact could answer my query just as readily as Beaumont. Brrr-brrr. Click. 'Still trying to connect you'. 'Could you please' — Click. Brrr-brrr — 'transfer me to . . Brrr-brrr, brrr-brrr. Is the poor man perhaps dead? Brrr-brrr . . .
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