Political Commentary
The Liberal dilemma
Patrick Cosgrave
The general political significance of Mr Jeremy Thorpe's troubles has been missed. It does not lie in the personal embarrassment he has suffered in recent weeks— though I will return to that later—nor simply in the fact that he is a victim of Mr Jo Grimond's ten-year rule, according to which a Liberal leader who has not really got on after a decade should get out.
It is, of course, perfectly natural and reasonable that his parliamentary colleagues, or some of them, should feel that, since their party is not strategically any better off than it was when his leadership began, the time has come for a change. A combination of despair and rather desperate hope thus underlies their present discontent, and the affairs, whether of London and County Securities or of Mr Scott, merely provide the occasion for crisis. But disputes about the leadership of any political party are commonly, and usefully, opportunities for discussion about the nature of the party and about the direction in which it should go. That point seems to have escaped the Liberals, preoccupied as they are with their current shenanigans; for nobody has yet faced the fact that Mr Edward Heath has already destroyed their prospects as a party functioning effectively, within the existing political system.
Now, it may seem unfair to blame Mr Heath—who has been blamed for so much, sometimes rightly and sometimes wrongly —for the troubles of the Liberals, and before I explain what it is I believe he did to them it is necessary to describe their recent history.
Despite the bright hopes of 1962 and 1973 the big Liberal pushes have always failed to produce really substantial numbers of Liberal members in the House of Commons. But the fact remains that each post-war Liberal revival has left a tidemark slightly higher up the beach: when the tide has receded they are nearly always to be found in a marginally better position than when it began to flow. Even if this trend continued, however, it would probably be the middle of the next century, given the present electoral system, before they were represented in Parliament in large numbers.
The last revival, however, was built on the efforts of a considerable body of political crusaders, of whom Mr Trevor Jones is merely the most famous, who were discontented with the two major ,parties, angry with the whole business of traditional politics, and zealous for radical change. The Liberal establishment was able to contain and outmanoeuvre these pavement politicians (as they were called by their critics) especially because Mr Jones was himself unable to win a parliamentary seat. The two wings of the party worked together, albeit with some unease, until Mr Heath popped a fateful question to Mr Thorpe: he asked him tojoin a government.
From that moment Mr Thorpe was ruined. Probably half of those who had voted for him in the February 1974 election did so not only because he was fresh and appealing and promised a new start in British politics, but also because, while dismayed at Mr Heath's failures, they feared Socialism. Being pragmatic, moderate, middle-class people they saw the Liberals as more moderate, more compassionate, more agreeable Tories: they also wanted to see Mr Thorpe and some of his colleagues both gain experience of office and extract from Mr Heath some sort of commitment to electoral reform, thus paving the way for a steady infiltration of the power of the two main parties. Mr Jones and the crusaders, on the other hand, were Simon Pure about the whole thing: they wanted no truck with Mr Heath or his like; they were sickened at the prospect of Mr Thorpe being drawn into the Conservative maw (and sensibly remembered the ability of the Tory party to digest coalition partners); and they wanted one more great Liberal heave which would smash the existing configuration of politics.
In the nature of things the unfortunate Mr Thorpe could not satisfy both sides. By taking so much time over his decision, indeed, he probably alienated at least some of the crusaders, especially as his own eagerness for the Home Office was all too patent. The first instalment of the penalty for failing to answer an impossible question was paid in October 1974, The Liberal dilemma being, therefore— for a long time at least—insoluble, it scarcely matters politically who leads what is left of it. But, though they may have failed to address themselves to their central problem Mr Thorpe and his colleagues have, throughout their troubles, shown a pretty exact and worthy sense of what is required of a political leader. Shorn of Mr Cyril Smith's curious and inconsistent rhetoric—and particularly his unwarranted and unfair attack on Mr Thorpe's Conservative rival in South Devon, Mr Tim Keigwin, who very properly declined to make any political use whatever of Mr Scott's allegations—and of the various obfuscations in the press, their judgment amounts to this: that if Mr Scott's allegations were true, Mr Thorpe would not be a fit person to lead his party.
There are further aspects of the moral climate of British politics which that proposition suggests, and which deserve some attempt at exploration. Of course, as happens on every occasion when there is an alleged scandal in British politics some critics will suggest that the real sin of the figure at its centre lies in being found out, and they will usually garnish their argument with that hackneyed, imperceptive, and pseudo-lofty quotation from Macaulay which I decline to reprint. The point is illogical, since it suggests that, say, a murderer or a burglar is guilty only if he is caught, which is manifest nonsense. Others —and on this occasion the argument is strongly supported in the ranks of what have called the Liberal crusaders—say that a man's private life is not relevant.
But, whatever the depth of conviction, or with however many variations, these positions are held are invalid.
Nor is the undesirability of public scandal—on which a number of newspapers thrive—relevant. In a celebrated essay on the Profumo affair, most of which consisted of a searing attack on Mr Harold Wilson and Lord Wigg fOr the manner in which they exploited the issue—an attack which. I believe, was justified—Mr John Sparrow suggested that his colleagues should, in the public interest, conceal as far as possible the fact that a politician practised a disabling vice, just as Asquith's colleagues (in both parties) concealed the fact that he was so often drunk. But Asquith's drinking, symbolised by the unpleasant nickname "Squiffy", did prevent him from carrying out his duties properly—as, indeed, did his attachment to Venetia Stanley.
It is displeasing to have to rehearse all this in the case of Mr Thorpe, who has stoutly and regularly denied the allegations levelled at him by a certainly unstable accuser. He is a man of very considerable personal charm, wit and humanity, and he has done better for his party electorallY than any Liberal leader since the war. However, it has to be said that he has never shown consistently sound political judg' ment : his involvement with Mr Caplan was, as he has confessed, unwise. But so was his proposal to bomb Rhodesia, and the accusations of accepting Russian bribes, which he was compelled to withdraw, that he made against an unnamed African leader. The difficulty he has faced throughout his career is the same as the difficulty facing any Liberal politician who declines to join a coalition: whereas, in the two major parties, an able man will receive, through holding junior office, or being in regular contact with senior ministers, some training in the uses of power, a Liberal will not. To reverse Acton's dictum, lack of power tends•to corrupt, and absolute WI( of power corrupts absolutely. The Liberals I are unable to achieve power on their own' and they felt compelled to reject, whether, I rightly or wrongly, the one prospect 01 office held out to them in recent years' They are, for that reason, very largelY discounted. But this is where we came in.
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