POLITICAL COMMENTARY Hugh Macpherson

A distinguished psychiatrist once warned me of the dangers of institutional neurosis. He explained that there were people in his mental hospital who had arrived perfectly sane, by accident, but had become very disturbed during their stay. It is sad to report that the senators at Westminster are suffering from some form of this unfortunate malady, and at the risk of being locked in the Clock Tower for telling them so, the sooner they go home for a break, to the misletoe and mince pies, then the better for the nation.

To consider the present afflictions of the denizens of Westminster: the chronic nature of the disturbance came to me walking down the committee corridor on Tuesday in company with a former Cabinet minister. " There's a strange lull about this place, don't you think?" said he. and I found myself agreeing. But later it struck me that only the day before the House had heard grave statements about the Indian-Pakistan war, and that almost at the very moment of our conversation Mr Willie Hamilton was saying some of the rudest things about the Royal family since Cromwell was driving his horses up Westminster hall to stable them in St Stephen's Chapel as a mark of his contempt. Mr Geoffrey Rippon. had also been indulging in Walter Mitty fantasies about his alleged diplomatic triumphs, on behalf of inshore fishermen, at Brussels.

Mr Kevin MacNamara was allowed to bring in a Bill to abolish Gazumping (sic): the Home Secretary was being conducted about a sector of the UK in a helicopter in case he was murdered in the streets; and the House had just heard about a political assassination in Ulster. Yet the Commons apparently was going through a lull. What stirred it to great excitement, to demands for emergency debates, to cries of " breach of privilege " and finally the establishment of the splendid analgesic for political pain, a Select Committee, was the allegation that Mr Peter Walker's men had planted questions on the Order Paper with the aid of the civil service. Institutional neurosis is now firmly established.

Elsewhere, Mr P. C. discusses the use of the Parliamentary Question, and whilst I could not go all the way with him about the inefficiency of questioning a wellbriefed Minister (what about Sidney Silverman's damaging simple question to Sir Anthony Eden at the time of Suez about whether British soldiers were covered by the Geneva Convention as prisoners of war?) there is no doubt that almost exactly the same practices took place when Labour held office.

For example a little group of MPs, including Miss Renee Short and Mr Will Hamling would meet regularly to discuss he ways that Ministers could be assisted by friendly questions. The only contract they had with ministers was through their PPSs, and they are so professional that they would deeply resent being handed questions already drafted. But there would have been nothing in Holy Writ or even Erskine May to stop a minister instructing c:vil servants to draw up a list of all the bull points in his favour and then hand it over to his PPS to hand it over to his backbenchers. For all I know it might well have happened.

The only point which Mr Walker should ponder during those inevitable lulls at his dreaded working breakfasts, whilst those who have been summoned strive towards consciousness, is why his own backbenchers are so stupid or indolent that they appear to be unable to write their own questions from a brief. And why his civil servants could be so gauche as to place such a thing on record (for they, above all human beings on the face of the earth, know the value of hypocrisy and the fact that the only sin in British politics is being found out.)

But whilst Mr Walker ponders such irritating questions (and strong men have turned pale at the thought of the Skipper's reaction when he lifted his Sunday papers) the Commons itself might well ponder the absurdity of its own position in seeing the very fabric of .democracy threatened by the allegations made against Mr Walker. Did Mr Crosland, for example, as he upbraided the Prime Minister on his, admittedly tiresome, lectures on integrity and open government, spare a moment's thought for the way the Cabinet, of which he was a member, refused to implement the findings of the independent Boundaries Commission by using Parliamentary devices to stave off the evil day beyond general election?

More immediately, Mr Thorpe's in ignation about question planting which 1 d him to seek an emergency debate on t e matter because of its "grave constitutional importance" sounded rather strained when considered against the recent threats of his own parliamentary party. As I understand it, because they are displeased with the proposals for a settlement with the illegal regime in Rhodesia they are threatening to use their votes against the government's subsequent legislation on entry to the EEC — a curious constitutional doctrine.

This is a sad case of institutional neurosis for it is only two months since Mr Thorpe was saying in the course of the debate on entry to Europe as an encouragement to an unofficial free yote in the Labour party:

Nothing to me symbolises more the rights and integrity of free men in free Parliament. I hope that those who have this courage and this integrity so to do will be enabled to carry on, having willed the end to help provide the means . .

I believe that those Hon and Rt. Hon gentlemen will have a higher place in parliamentary history than those 101 MPs who said in a much-publitised letter to their Deputy Leader 'We do not ask you to change your convictions between now and Thursday but merely to vote against it.'

But the saddest case of parliamentary neurosis came from the ranks of the government itself. Mr Rippon's statement on the fishing negotiations revealed that the government had simply blocked any attempt by the Commons to discuss the politically inconvenient question of fishing rights during the 'great debate' last October. It is necessary to quote Mr Rippon's words from the October 25:

There is a clear understanding that we must do one of two things. Either we must have an agreement on a new regulation whicn is satisfactory to all the members — that is all the applicants as well as the existing members of the Community — or, if we cannot achieve that, we have suggested that the Community will have to accept that we must maintain the staus quo. If we do that, any question of a negotiation after enlargement would again be dependent, if the status quo was to be changed, on agreement by all the parties concerned."

And what did Mr Rippon say to Westminster on Monday of this week when returning from one of the most striking engagements since Don Quixote laid down his valiant sword:

In substance what we have achieved can fairly be described for the most part as a maintenance of the status quo for a decade followed by a fair and open-ended review taking account of all the circumstances of the time. I am confident that when that review takes place Her Majesty's Government will continue to safeguard this vital national interest."

The italics are mine; the deception is Mr Rippon's; the neurosis belongs to Parliament itself. For it is Mr Rippon wino should have been in the dock for misleading Parliament on a vital constitutional question, not Mr Walker. Indeed Parliamentary neurosis is a deadly ailment. Let us hope that the plum duff has some therapeutic effect.