The British Radical in 1959

Untapped Resources

By LORD ALTRINCHAM

RADICALISM is an approach to politics, not a way of life. Certainly, it has more to do with temperament than with party, but the term should be used with reference to political ideas, aims and methods, rather than to psychological states or social environments.

A radical should have a soul, but he need not bare it to the world. He is not obliged to write thus: 'The True Radical regards drunkenness as one of the most ancient and corrupting of human vices, so he is against drunkenness. This does not, however, mean that he is incapable of getting drunk himself. Far from it. But when he gets drunk he despises his own lack of restraint and never for one moment loses sight of the principle of sobriety. At the same time he deplores the puritan out- look and seeks to avoid an excessively earnest demeanour.' The distinction be- tween 'true' and 'false' is anyway bogus in this context. Different radicals may have different values and priorities, and they may be more or less admirable as human beings; but they remain radicals. Gandhi and Hitler were both genuinely radical, though one was good, the other bad, one right, the other wrong.

It is a mistake to identify radicalism with any particular class. Classes as such are lumpish and slow even to fight for their own rights until somebody gives them a lead. Radicals may turn up anywhere—in a cottage, a cobbled street, a semi-detached house or a stately home—but, if we have to employ the Marxist idiom, it is probably fair to say that the largest reservoir of intelligent and purposeful discontent is still, as in the past, the much-abused bourgeoisie. Farmworkers and industrial wage-earners (the 'working class') are not, as a group, conspicuously go-ahead, and the myth of upper-class eccentricity, ably propagated in recent years by Evelyn Waugh, Nancy Mitford and others, has taken in too many innocents. Whatever the Labour tradi- tionalist and the sub-feudal Tory romantic may think, radicalism is not necessarily a by-product of either proletarian hardship or aristocratic privilege. It is important, too, not to exaggerate the connection be- tween political and financial independence: poor men arc often brave, rich men are often cowards. Private wealth is, however, a valuable, if at times indirect, reinforce- ment to the nonconformist in politics, as in other fields. Economic equality is an

obsolete doctrine, like laissez-faire, but it still has its stern, unbending advocates.

What should the British radical be working for in 1959? First he should aim at making his compatriots believe in, and practise, democracy. A hundred years ago the United Kingdom was still governed by a capitalist oligarchy: though it has since acquired a democratic constitution it has not yet acquired an entirely democratic mood, and it is most reluctant to make immediate democratic concessions to terri- tories still subject to its rule. A radical must therefore set himself the following main targets (stated telegraphically, for reasons of space): To establish the idea that universal suffrage and the two-party system are basic conditions for a healthy democracy.

To counteract boss control in the two main British parties and make them democratic internally.

To expose the undemocratic fallacy that some categories of people are more 'fit' to vote than others.

To extend the franchise at least to eighteen-year-olds and so encourage younger people to take an interest in politics.

To remove the hereditary element from the House of Lords and abolish what remains of its suspensory veto.

To make the honours system non- political or, if this is impossible, to get rid of it.

To introduce universal suffrage at once in every British colony and transfer power as soon as the bare minimum of indigenous personnel are available for the tasks of government.

At home, the radical must turn his attention to what is called the public sector. He should support high, though not penal, taxation and should seek to increase the efficiency, without diminishing the re- sponsibility, of the State. All nationalised industries should be run by Ministers, directly answerable to Parliament. What Mr. Marples is doing for the Post Office should be done for the fuel industry, the railways, the air corporations, the forests and every other publicly-owned concern. If the right men for such high-powered executive work cannot be found among the existing body of MPs they must be brought in from the outside; and if it takes them a few years to perfect their 'House of Com- mons manner' this need not cause the nation as a whole any serious distress. Above all, education must be given a seismic boost. We are still devoting to it the same proportion of our national income that it received twenty years ago. We are spending per head of the population less than half what the Americans, and less than one-seventh what the Russians, are spend- ing on education. There is still too much

bumbling talk about teaching being a vocation rather than a profession, so that teachers' pay remains niggardly. Moreover, British education is still dominated by the bogy of class. The fee-paying 'prepara- tory' schools must be eliminated, the 'pub- lic' schools must be merged with the State system to the same extent that Oxford and Cambridge have been, and the Iron Curtain between secondary grammar and secondary modern must be broken down.

Britain has been going through a jingo- istic phase, compounded of imperial frustration, xenophobia and a touch of racialism. The radical must fight the Jingoes for all he is worth, but he must be careful not to oversimplify the problem. For in- stance, he must be prepared to find many of the worst 'wog-bashers' among the rank and file of the Labour Party. He must also look out for the Disraelian-Churchillian type of Tory, who is radical in home affairs, reactionary in his attitude towards the Commonwealth and nostalgic for the fading vision of Empire. He must insist that the greatness of Britain is inseparable from the maintenance of certain standards, which were violated at the time of Suez and will not be restored until the turpitude of what was then done has been openly acknowledged. A nation which allows such dishonesty and hypocrisy to pass un- punished is in a state of mediocrity, how- ever loudly it may proclaim its own excellence.

The radical would like to see the present simulacrum of a Commonwealth converted into a living reality. There can be no question of this so long as the United Kingdom is intent upon doubling its al- ready enviable standard of life within twenty-five years, without a thought for the tens of millions, ostensibly our partners, who are leading a frail existence on the edge of starvation. We must set aside at least five per cent. of our national income for help to underdeveloped countries of the Commonwealth, or the word will remain, as it is now, a mockery.

Radicals are always a minority, in any party, in any nation. It might seem, there- fore, that they are doomed to impotence under a democratic system of government, but this is fortunately not altogether true. The going is sure to be hard for them, but they can achieve results if they learn the art of mobilising mass opinion. Very often a radical movement can best be launched on a relatively narrow front. The public mind may be stirred by a single, simple, concrete— preferably human—issue, when it would fail to respond to an elaborate and theore- tical programme. Britons, like other people, are conservative in the mass, but they have subterranean resources of idealism and righteous indignation ever waiting to be tapped. Moreover they are willing to accept quite drastic changes if these do not in- volve an absolute break with the past. The close relationship between tradition and change is better understood by the 'man in the street' than by 'top people' who have a vested interest in things as they are. That is why Tory Radicalism has such a long and respectable pedigree.