More Equal Than Others
FAIRLIE By HENRY
THE illness of Mr. Hugh Gaitskell—and one has to talk about these things in public terms --has dramatically confirmed what every political and constitutional writer has known for some time: that the importance of the party leader has increased and is still increasing; that he is now much more than primes inter pares; and that his power, when his party is in office, has become so. great that it is almost an anach- ronism to talk of Cabinet government.
This fashionable line of thought reaches its most extreme form in the suggestion that Cabinet government in Britain is evolving into presi- dential government. Mr. Peregrine Wors- thorne was, I believe, the first to put forward this thesis, in the Sunday Telegraph of March 12, 1961, when he wrote that 'there seems to be something about modern conditions that imposes on the Prime Minister an almost inescapable need to adopt a near-Presidential status.'
The idea has been lent academic status, if not respectability, by Professor Max Beloff. But it is always well to remember that Professor Beloff is (as far as I know) the only political observer in recent years who has suggested that universal suffrage may not be an adequate way of dealing with the problems of modern society. (That, for the record, was in the Fortnightly of January, 1953.) It may be (indeed, is) a healthy Liberal attitude, but it also suggests that Professor Beloff 1s not the most relevant of guides to political problems. Lord Boothby, in a recent letter to The Times, agreed that we were moving towards a presidential system. and Mr. Richard Crossman has flirted with the idea more than once.
Mr. R. T. McKenzie did not go as far as this In the Observer on Sunday. but he stated never- theless that 'there would seem to be real ground for concern about the relative decline in the im- portance of those around the party leaders on both sides of the House of Commons. as well as to Paris, Bonn, Washington and most of the democratic capitals.' Finally. the authoritative work of Mr. John P. Mackintosh, The British Cabinet, while plainly rejecting the idea that the British system is becoming a presidential system, has nevertheless destroyed the idea that anything which deserves the name of Cabinet government no longer exists.
All of this may seem far removed from the Problems of Polaris and unemployment: but in fact, it is central to them and to every other Political problem, What those of us who are con- cerned with this question are desperately trying to find out is where political power now rests in the British system of government. Most of the prevailing dissatisfaction with the working of politics in this country derives from the inability to answer this question clearly.
I think it will help if we drop the misleading tag about presidential government. In spite of all his real and apparent power, a Prime Minister today could still be removed by a com- bination of his senior colleagues.
There is little doubt that, if Macmillan had not been ready to make the government changes on July 13 last year, both Mr. Butler and Mr. Macleod (who had discussed with him through the summer the need for a government recon- struction) would have begun to consider methods of removing him. Not even Macmillan could have dismissed their resignations as 'little local difficulties.' Equally, Attlee's security as Prime Minister depended greatly on Bevin's loyalty But even more important is the fact that the presidential system assumes that the legislature. as well as the president, receives its authority independently from the electors: the legislature 'Count La Matte says the new frame doesn't fit his windows, and urges you to dispose of it elsewhere, M. Guillotine.' and the executive, in other words, as in America. both derive their power independently from the same source. Nothing like this can happen in this country. If the power of the head of the executive is now increasing, it is increasing with- out the check of an independently elected legis- lature, having an independent role.
We are in danger, in other words, of creating even greater executive power than exists in a presidential system. We should not be surprised: the English have always had a passion for strong central government. Nor should we be surprised that, while rejecting Jacobinical theory, we in fact live by it, and exalt the will of the people (in the form of a powerful executive which they elect) to such an extent that foreign observers are almost breathless at its power.
For this is the fundamental factor in the system which observers like Mr McKenzie and Mr. Crossman seem to me to ignore. Democracy is triumphant in this country. and has created the instruments which alone make it possible for it to exercise the one power which it considers real : the power to choose one of two alternative governments and to hold it accountable at the following general election.
All the rest follows from this one simple principle: only candidates who have a party label are acceptable to the electors; power is therefore transferred (by the electors) to the party organisations. both local and central, which decide who shall wear the party label; since the electors are interested only in govern- ments and alternative governments, power in the party organisations lies with the leaders between whom the electors choose by an almost direct popular vote at a general election.
In only one respect—an important one—do the elected representatives in Parliament still play an important and independent constitutional role. They select (or nominate) the leaders be- tween whom the electors choose.
But, once they have done this, their power has virtually vanished since the leader becomes almost indispensable as the image of the party which the electors recognise. It is. in these cir- cumstances, pointless to talk, as Mr. McKenzie did on Sunday, of a change in the style of demo- cratic leadership. What we now have is demo- cratic leadership. General elections are plebis- cites—and the leader of the government (or alternative government) rests supreme on the vote of the people,
It is possible to accept this system without complaint. Mr. John Strachey, for example, points out in Contemporary Capitalism that complaints against the power of the executive today are at the bottom complaints against the power of the people—`the control of the State apparatus by the wage-earning majority.'
I only wish some others would face the prob- lem as honestly. If you accept the power of democracy you must accept the power of demo- cratically destined leadership. Liberals like Mr. Crossman, especially, should by now have made up their minds. The benefit is that even a Con- servative Government must panic at a not un- reasonably high level of unemployment. The disadvantage is that representative government —government controlled by the debate of free and almost equal representatives—must die.. It has died in Britain,
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