Election Commentary
After the Ball
AND quite a ball it was, too. For my own part, the only moments of absolutely unqualified pleas- ure I had all night were those provided by the results from Lanark and Nottingham West. (The pleasure I got from seeing Sir Oswald Mosley lose his raddled deposit was tempered by the knowledge that Mr. George Rogers had retained the seat—though if he had lost it we should presumably have Mr. Bulbrook to tell us how his early experiences of poverty made him a Tory.) A few of the individual results were indi- vidually distressing : there is surely something basically wrong with a society that can elect Mr. Christopher Chataway to its principal legislative assembly in place of the excellent Mr. Niall MacDermot; and the defeat of Mr. Mark Bonham • Carter (I take it that we can once again dis- pense with the hyphen) is a sad blow not only to the Liberal Party but to Parliament as such, for the place is stiff enough already with party hacks without removing so clear and cool and indepen- dent a man to make way for another. I am sorry, too, that Arthur Blenkinsop was defeated, and if the Labour Party had any sense they would be sorrier still. That Mr. Michael Foot would not recapture Devonport Was clear long before the balloon went up; I hope he will now realise that he has done his duty there, and is free to seek a better 'ole at a by-election. The ghost of Sir Richard Acland walked once again—at Gravesend this time—and that eccentric though admirable baronet can now notch one more to his tally of seats which he finds as safe Labour strongholds and leaves as cast-iron Tory ones; though cer- tainly I could pick Tory incumbents far less agree- able than Mr. Peter Kirk. Anyone dedicated as I am to the abolition of pomposity in public life must regret that Mr. Humphry Berkeley suc- ceeded at Lancaster, though I suppose the elec- torate is not so much to blame as the local Con- servative Association which selected him for this safe seat. That Sir Ian Horobin went down in the Lancashire Counter-Revolution must dismay any- body who thinks as I do that the House of Com- mons—and more particularly the Government— is woefully short of people able and willing to say things like 'There will alWaysbe Socialists as long as there is anything left to steal' and 'Anybody who manages to avoid paying income tax has my admiration.' That Mr. Charles Gibson was tipped out at Clapham caused me a genuine pang; Mr. Gibson was one of the few genuine Cockneys in the House (he was the only man I ever heard use the word 'lavatory' in a debate), and I will miss him as I would miss from the TUC that 'similarly hard-headed and sensible stalwart, Bro. Wiggles- worth.
That Mr. Jeremy Thorpe came home so early in the night was ironically a cruel blow to Liberal hopes; for if North Devon should fall who could stay North Cornwall, Inverness, Tavistock—nay, Rochdale and Hereford? But Mr. Thorpe, pro- vided he does not slip into the elementary fallacy of regarding the House of Commons as a serious place, where his own special brand of comedy would be unseemly, will liven things up no end. (I am not a wealthy man, but I will give £100 to the Liberal funds if Mr. Thorpe will make his maiden speech as an imitation of the Prime Minis- ter—provided he lets me know in good time for me to get to my place. Make that guineas.) And it will be a sad goodbye to Miss Elaine Burton; who now will provide such sun-tanned skin, such dazzling hats, such jangly jewellery—not to men- tion such frequent good sense? (No, not Dr. Edith Summerskill, I fear.) The eloquent Mr. Tom Driberg is back again, and the percentage of Labour MPs who have read a book thus leaps upwards, as does the percentage of Labour MPs on visiting terms with duchesses at the re-entry of Mr. Woodrow Wyatt; but Mr. Wyatt in particular, if he can face the repulsive prospect of doing some hard work, can render incomparable service to the Labour Party at this time. And finally, I must point out with some degree of satisfaction that the only candidate on whose behalf I actually addressed meetings during the campaign lost his deposit by a margin of nearly a thousand; now say I have no influence if you dare.
Where did it all go wrong?. Where we entrail- readers went wrong is not, I think, difficult to dis- cover. (May I say in passing, particularly to the small Labour gentleman who actually went so far as to threaten me with an umbrella on Friday afternoon and the Tory character who wrote to me from a rather second-rate club to suggest that I put my prognostications in my pipe and smoke them, that I am not personally responsible for the Conservative victory?) We were misled by the clear success of the Labour Party campaign, as a campaign. into thinking that it was also being elec- torally effective; we underrated the slow, steady drip of Conservative propaganda over the preced- ing years, and the length of time necessary to dislodge from the public mind the image it had created. That the election was fought throughout on the Labour programme was to some extent made inevitable by the fact that there was no Tory programme; but this again contributed to the false impression of a Labour advance. And the air of confidence radiating from the Labour Party really did seem genuine; though in fact it could hardly have been. A prominent defeatee told me on Friday that he knew more than a week before polling day that he was going to lose, and the canvass-returns in most of the marginals must have been telling the same story. Of course, the Labour Party could not announce in advance that they had lost the election, but some prophylaxis should surely have been distributed; the heart- break of many of the party workers who were not in the know must have been appalling.
It was, cruelly enough, their very enthusiasm that added yet another brick to the edifice of error; that Labour Party workers were turning up at the committee rooms in larger numbers and better heart than at any time since 1945 was un- doubtedly true. Unfortunately, we tended to ignore the fact that workers at the Tory centres were equally numerous and euphorious. But, finally, we fell into the ancient human error of taking I would it were for it will be. To me, this election was a judgment on Suez, Cyprus, Hola and Nyasaland, and I cast my vote accordingly. But between those who cared less about such things than about never having had it so good, and those who were actually in favour of those enter- prises, I found myself in a minority. As one who would surely have been a Minister if it had not been so wrote to me, `I suppose that enough washing-machines on 'HP can still a nation's conscience.'
And now? Mr. Gaitskell was never so impres- sive as when, dignified and deeply moved, he conceded defeat (and remember that he had just faced, on the steps of Leeds Town Hall, the scum who chanted 'We want Gaitskell shot') and de- clared that 'the ideals of democratic Socialism shine as brightly as ever.' But shine the ideals of democratic Socialism never so brightly, he would be a bold man who declared that its electoral fortunes had not been somewhat dimmed. Where do they go from here? What form must the promised 're-thinking' take? Who should do it? And how? What, in short, shall they do to be saved?
First, I take it, they must trim their sails. Nationalisation (before Mr. Grimond gets all the credit for saying that the albatross of nationalisa- tion was hanging round Mr. Gaitskell's neck, could I, with a modest cough, point out that it was I who coined the phrase?), I take it, will be dropped, and much else of a like kidney with it. But there has already arisen a tendency to talk as though the only thing wrong with the Labour Party was the fact that it wanted to nationalise steel and road haulage and any industry that Mr. Harold Wilson happened to think was failing the nation (When we say failing the nation, we mean failing the nation.' Did Mr. Harold Wilson never see Slasher Green teaching the late Sid Field to play golf?). To imagine that by dropping national- isation and promising not to lay a finger on the grammar schools the party can present itself anew to the electorate would be to make as big a mistake as those who are (already) saying that what the Labour Party needs is a thundering great dose of more socialism and more nationalisation.
Obviously the trouble goes a lot deeper than that. A glance at Saturday's map shows that, with the exception of a few freak results here and there, the tide flowed against the Labour Party every- where except in Lancashire and the industrial areas of Scotland—the two areas where they have had it better in the past than they are having it now. if the Labour Party can face with equanimity the prospect of being permanently out of office except when there is a slump, then the Labour Party is a good deal more philosophical than it looks. (Of course, as I have said before, there is an element in the party which really does believe that office is sinful, that a party conceived in pro- test must for ever remain in that womb; but Mr. Gaitskell is not of their way of thinking.) But if the Labour Party is not to remain out of office permanently unless there is a slump, something drastic needs doing. The first thing, I take it, is to meet the Left head-on—presumably at whatever form of conference they decide to have—and smash it to pieces. A few Victory for Socialism boys will leave (though I would guess not more than the tiniest handful) and the course can then be charted in peace and quiet. But something violent must he done at once, if only to convince everybody within earshot that business is meant. It is now no use at all Mr. Gaitskell's trying to compromise with anybody; his power is paradoxi- cally much strengthened now, and he can do as he pleases. If he has any life-peerages to dispose of he must button one firmly round Mr. Griffiths's neck for a start; if he hasn't he must simply tell Mr. Griffiths, as Mr. Attlee told Mr. Arthur Greenwood, that the long day is done, and he is for the dark. (Though I trust he will not tell Jim, as Mr. Attlee told Mr. Greenwood, that he wanted him to make way for a younger man and then appoint a man seven years older in his place.) He must be equally ruthless with anybody or anything that gets, by accident or design, in the way of the job to be done. He can do it; only he can do it; he must do it; and he must do it at once.
And the job to be done? It is nothing less than stamping a new image on the party—and making sure that the acid in which the lines are etched eats right down through the surface. One symbolic example will make clear what I mean; if Mr. Gaitskell had got up on Tuesday and said, loud and clear, that the Bolton councillors who boy- cotted the lunch given for Lord Montgomery were contemptible fools he would, as well as saying a true thing. have gone far towards getting back some of those missing votes. But nothing less will do. It will not do for him to say that perhaps, speaking with the utmost possible regret, it would have been wiser for them not to do it. You cannot make an omelette without breaking dregs.
Of course, this is only a beginning. Mr. Gaitskell must consult with the most learned sort of men in all sorts of walks of life. It would do him no harm to sit for a time at Mr. Hoggart's feet, for a start, and if he cannot bring himself to do that—well, Jolly Jack. Priestley is not dead yet. 'The party of conscience and reform' he called it; but the elec- torate heeded not, preferring to regard it as the party of licences, restrictions, nationalisation, narrowness, doctrine and Mr. Douglas Jay. It no longer matters whether the picture was a true or a false onc;.what counts now is to paint an entirely new one—and it must be genuine, not a mask. 'We have a job to do; let us get on with it.' With those words Mr. Driberg ended his chairman's address at the last conference, and he spoke more prophetically than he knew.
As for Mr. Grimond, he can sec a church by daylight. His swift suggestion of a born-in-the- vestry wedding with Mr. Gaitskell knocked some of his party endways; but he knows, for all his talk of replacing the Labour Party as a radical alterna- tive to Conservatives, that he will be too old to enjoy it by the time it comes, and so will his grand- children. The trouble is, the only thing Mr. Grimond has to offer the Labour Party is 1,600,000 votes—and there he cannot deliver. Not, at any rate, until the image of the Labour Party is changed sufficiently to avoid frightening the mass of Liberal voters back into the Tories' outstretched arms. So, in a sense, the two Mr. G.'s sink or swim together. It is up to Mr. Gaitskell to decide which it shall be.
Meanwhile, we are faced with five more years of these people. As far as I can see, the only exciting, or indeed remotely interesting, moment in all that time is going to be next Tuesday, when the new Speaker is elected. For it is customary on these occasions for the Father of the House to add a few words; and the Father of the House is now none other than the Member for Woodford. Sir Winston must either break a tradition or his long silence; I hope it will be the latter. But that is not going to last even me until 1964 (1 wrote 1984 first; absit omen). Henceforward a familiar figure will be missing from its seat high above the battle, except on special occasions or until the next Suez; at the certain cost of laying three hundred thousand readers of the Spectator prostrate on the carpet, I have now to announce my imminent retirement from the day-to-day reporting of the political scene in Britain. It is all very well for you to say that I was never more needed; the fact is, you don't have to sit and listen to Mr. Macmillan (let alone look at him) for five years. (Not to mention Mr. Creech Jones.) I do; and if you will pardon my Irish, I won't. You will not, of course, be losing my services entirely; if Burke 'to party gave up what was meant for mankind,' I shall be doing the opposite. My horizon is widening, not narrowing. To tell the truth, politics in this country --even from the sidelines—has ceased to be an occupation for a gentleman. So who goes home? I do.
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