Politics
The need for enemies
When the Social Democrats were invented, it was said that one of the good things about them was their opposi- tion to 'adversarial politics'. If you were `sick of the stale party dogfight', the SDP were the people for you. Proportional representation, and even a rearrangement of the Westminster seating plan to get everyone sitting round in a friendly circle, were touted as ways of inducing political parties to abandon 'dogma' and work together to solve Britain's problems. These arguments had some appeal: people dislik- ed the insults that they heard burbling out of the wireless on the BBC's Parliamentary highlights, and perhaps imagined that life would be more pleasant with Mrs Williams and Mr Jenkins and Mr Steel. Perhaps it would have been — we shall never know but what is noticeable about the present House of Commons is that the 'first past the post' electoral system has produced unadversarial politics. What is also noticeable is that no one seems to enjoy it.
These may seem odd descriptions of a Parliament in which abuse is more freely traded than ever (Tuesday's Prime Minister's Questions were taken up with Labour attempts to accuse Mrs Thatcher of lying to the House because she had not revealed that the Government was taking an interest in railwaymen's pay). Certainly, there is no government of national unity, no sinking of party differences in the in- terests of the greater good, but there is none of the symmetry which politics needs to be properly adversarial. The symmetry is for- mally preserved, of course — Labour has a front bench which sits opposite the Conser- vatives, and each cabinet minister has a shadow. The Labour and Tory whips do their best to parcel out Parliamentary time in the traditional manner. But no one's heart is in it. Labour has slipped into ceas- ing to think of itself as the Opposition. It shouts and complains, but it does not ac- tually oppose. The extra-parliamentary at- titudes for which Mr Peter Tatchell got into so much trouble have become habitual — with the Left, deliberately so, with the Right, through force of circumstance.
Being only human (and neither, as so many people seem to imagine, sub- or super-) Mrs Thatcher must at first have been delighted with such an impregnable position. Perhaps she still is, but Conser- vative politicians in general feel rather desperate. Only a small minority of ministers are primarily interested in their administrative work, even in the broader outlines of policy. They like politics because it mixes everything. It involves drudgery, fame, hanging around, praise, blame, gossip, principle, machination. If, for any reason, it fails to provide the mix- ture, politicians become listless. The lack of drama makes them think that their endeavours are pointless.
It is for the same reason, the other way round, that the House of Lords is now en- joying itself so much. Without wishing to be rude to recent creations like Lord Bot- tomley, one can say that there has been no sudden influx of new talent, and no stirring in the shires which has brought peers up to London to speak for England. It is simply that the Lords has the freedom which the present Commons lacks to run the Govern- ment close, a freedom which, once discovered, is enjoyed. Under the Tories, the Lords can be confident that it will escape the reform or abolition which makes it cautious under Labour. Just as MPs are diminished by electoral chance so peers are raised up by it. The spectacle of many members of an hereditary and appointed chamber passionately condemning the abolition of elected bodies becomes diver- ting rather than irritating.
If politics is going well, it throws up its excitements automatically, but if it is not, politicians have to start inventing them. This is dangerous and hard to do. For the easiest way is the most self-destructive foment rows within one's own party, and try to get a few people sacked. There is talk of some ministerial changes soon, but even the most inveterate political gossips are unable to invent anything very dramatic. Apart from the matter of Mr James Prior, nothing much more than the sacking of a few junior ministers is expected. It is said that Mr Patrick Jenkin has decided to leave the Department of the Environment when he has got through his agonising rate and local government legislation (a rumour which, if true, proves him to have been one of the most incomprehensibly self- sacrificial politicians of modern times). The rest is silence.
A better way of getting politics going again would be to alter the relative strengths of the parties. It is how and whether to do this that Conservative politicians now debate. Most Cabinet ministers, including those, like Mr Norman Tebbit, who have never been accused of pinkish sympathies, now say in private that they would prefer that the SDP/Liberal Alliance should replace the Labour party. Until quite recently they believed the opposite, holding that Labour was somehow authentic and strong in a way that social democratic types could never be. Now they do not respect Mr Kinnock; they cannot see how Labour could recover, and they do greatly respect Dr Owen. They want to be opposed by a party which is both formidable in its cam- paigning strength and respectable in its political ambitions.
The difficulty is that the process of tran- sition is very treacherous for the Tories. At the point when, in terms of electoral sup- port, Labour and the Alliance cross ova, the Conservatives might lose disastrouslY- However much they might desire change, (they must, when it comes to an election, work for a repetition of what happened in 1983. Every politician recognises that it is good sometimes to be in opposition, but when he campaigns, he has to work une- quivocally for victory. That is why Mr Pym's remark at the last election about the dangers of a landslide was true but sillY. Mrs Thatcher, always cautious on such questions, is now in a minority in lle,r Cabinet in believing that Labour will an° should continue to be the main enemy NO doubt the Conservatives will be extremely slow to speed the pace of what is probablY a natural evolution in which Labour, n° longer the fittest, fails to survive; but if tilde Alliance starts to win by-elections O Labour sinks in the opinion polls, will the Tories follow the whips' instinct and e00,, tinue to suppress it? There may conte point when Labour's agony is so apPar,e11, that the Conservatives will feel that tn", should put it out of its misery. If these are the trends, then it followds that any non-Tory who wants to 11°I power in the next ten or 15 years must al if aim for a new political grouping. Evenb,s" Labour continues to decline as fast as it "";( done since 1979, and the Alliance to grow the same rate, the distribution of Sete would still favour Labour. Labour could be down to four or five million votes and,je; tain its number of seats in three figures. Alliance could rise another five per cent II' its share of the poll and still have fewer tila:s 50 MPs. If, on the other hand, non-T0r;, struck some pact, or united in a new Par"' then the Conservatives would be beaten r So far Mr Frank Field, the MP f°,0 Birkenhead, has been the only La,,,, , man to point all this out. He has been sPri'-, red to do so by dire necessity. The militanel Tendency wants him out, and if he gues'.th wants to force a by-election and win d s, Alliance support. But there are other Ow some of them well-known figures like Ad Roy Mason, Mr Peter Shore and Mr Ger', Kaufman, who might be forced to folloi; him. Mr Field's difficulty is that the wil°,1 history of Labour and the SDP makes c'",,I; laboration virtually impossible. Dr Ow'tir did not leave Labour to rejoin it. Labrlic. could not find a way of having hirn,1_331f,ke What is needed is yet another breatc that which followed the Wembley c''; ference. A large body of moderate Lab0e, MPs, perhaps retaining the Labour barn d would need to break with the hard Left an make common cause with the MIDI without the indignity of being subsuni! „it it. It would be embarrassing and en for all concerned, but if it does not haq's, it is a poor lookout for adversarial Pot° indeed for any politics at all.
Charles Mom
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