Ivory tower goes into orbit
John Biffen
THATCHERISM Shortly we reach the tenth anniversary of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative gov- ernment. There is a veritable growth indus- try in publications analysing the politics of these years. No book will have more academic ballast than Thatcherism. It com- prises 11 essays written by a gaggle of no less than ten professors. The authors range widely in their diagnosis of the Thatcher years, but are inclined to neglect the disciplines of practical politics in their analysis.
A workmanlike assessment of the 1979 Conservative government has to evaluate three basic factors before turning to a host of lesser considerations. The first is whether the desire for stable money, trade union reform and wider ownership had been established in the years before the Conservative election victory. The second is to determine just what stamp the Prime Minister put upon the government she led: did her authority make government policy ideological rather than empirical? The third judgment concerns the extent to which the policies pursued since 1979 have now been accepted by the opponents of Thatcherism so that a new consensus is emerging that will accept a changed balance in the mixed economy favouring private ownership.
The only contributor with parliamentary experience, Professor David Marquand, effectively makes the point that Labour monetarism preceded the policies of the 1979 Conservative government: 'The first monetarist Chancellor of the Exchequer since the war, apart from the brief inter- lude of Peter Thorneycroft, was Denis Healey'. Other evidence is the Callaghan Party Conference Speech, warning against the illusion of spending one's way to prosperity and also Barbara Castle's earlier frustrated attempts to reform Trade Union law. The Tory task was made significantly easier in 1979 by the actions of the Con- servative government of 1970-74 and the Labour government from 1976 onwards favouring selective aspects of sound money including reduced government borrowing, greater competition, and effective trade union reform. What was distinctive about the Thatcher government was its deter- mination to pursue relentlessly these objectives. There were to be no U-turns. Furthermore, the Thatcher Tories had undertaken massive and detailed work in opposition. From the outset, the govern- ment could present its objectives to the civil service aware of the difficulties and having the political will to discount them. This factor is almost totally ignored by the essayists, who often seem, to think the ministers were on some ideological cru- sade.
Naturally, there is great interest in the personality of the Prime Minister. Certain- ly the decade since 1979 cannot be under- stood without an assessment of her exer- cise of authority and her reaction to events. Professor Patrick Minford helpfully re- minds us that the pursuit of economic policy followed a gradualist course rather than a radical one. The Prime Minister contributed not only a strong sense of self-righteousness but also periodically a powerful element of caution to govern- ment. That circumspection in no way gainsays her puritanical zeal for single- minded hard work. She was and remains an instinctive rather than an intellectual politician. There is often incidental logic connecting the various policies she is espousing. I suspect she would mistrust logic as the ultimate refuge of a passive do-nothing approach to problem-solving. This is bewildering behaviour for the pro- fessors. 'Mrs Thatcher holds economics in contempt', inveighs Professor Hahn. This childish and frustrated reaction is more suitable for the nursery than the Common Room.
I had hoped the essays might give some glimmer of the intellectual renaissance that we are promised from the Left. I was disappointed. Professor Crewe devotes an Its the compromised land'. essay to demonstrating, by opinion sam- pling, that the electorate generally does not share the values of the Prime Minister and her government. It is a challenging proposition, and I am sorry that this academic work does not show the size of the opinion sample and its geographic distribution. I do not make the observation in a carping sense. Professor Crewe is putting forward a fair point. The electoral success of 'Thatcherism has depended upon an Opposition substantially split between Labour and the Democrats. There is a tangled and unresolved relationship be- tween government policies and leadership, the political values of the electorate, and how they actually vote. Doubtless this unclear situation encourages Professor Pimlott to believe that Labour should base its recovery strategy by staying with its traditional areas of working-class support. He argues against compromising with Thatcherism. It is a heroic view but quite blinkered from realities. His essay neglects the challenge to the Labour Party offered by Eric Hammond-style trade unions. It offers no comment on what, if any, should be the relations between Labour and Democrats. Furthermore, Professor Pim- lott, arguing for Labour staying with the poorer working-class voters, does not men- tion how this would be affected by the growing ethnic factor in our city centres. The essay simply falls below the challenge of its title, 'The Future of the Left'. Doubtless Professor Pimlott will turn to these factors when next he tries to signpost an intellectual recovery for Labour.
A number of the essays, particularly that of Professor A. H. Halsey, argue that the Prime Minister and her government have an ultimate objective of scaling down the welfare state. These are essays where I feel the ivory tower has gone into orbit. One has only to look at public spending on welfare services. A Thatcherite politician views the health or education services as much as an administrative challenge as an exercise in ideology. The last ten years have shown that the initial task has been to devote growing resources to these services, and secondly to try to improve the use of these resources. The modest and expand- ing private sector, consistent with a free society, has been peripheral to the public debate.
It is perhaps inevitable that the profes- sors, whatever their distinction, will view politics in terms of intellectual analysis and related values. Thus they dissect the prag- matism which normally sustains the search for political survival and success, for evi- dence of convoluted motive. Thatcherism has been a well directed, practically ap- plied political force resting on around 40 per cent of the popular vote. It is, I think, difficult for the essayists to accept that. Perhaps political comment is too serious a matter to be left to professors, any more than Lloyd George would have left war to the generals.
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