Political Commentary
On underestimating Harold
Patrick Cosgrave
Since the last parliamentary vote on the EEC the press, the politicians and miscellaneous others have been happy playing at their favourite and most fateful game, underestimating the Prime Minister. I mention this, not as a prelude to a defence of Mr Wilson as national statesman and peacemaker — rather the reverse — but as a warning to those in either party who are disposed to think that the trifling matter of having against him a majority in his own parliamentary party — and an even larger majority in what he is pleased to call the Labour movement in the country — will at all upset either his disposition or his prospects.
Far too many politicians have come to grief as a result of a too great willingness to count Mr Wilson out in their forward tactical planning for any more to make the same mistake. Mr Edward Heath once tossed a copy of the Daily Mail on the floor of his Albany flat, gazed on its anti-Wilson headline with pleasure and said — after musing aloud on the, to him, incredible fact that Mr Wilson had got a first at Oxford — -He's finished. He's burned out." And look, as they say, at what happened to him. Mr Tony Benn, on a later occasion, just before he was to act as chairman of the Labour Party Conference, regaled friends with accounts of how he was going to out-manoeuvre Mr Wilson at Blackpool, went North, made a hash of the chairmanship, and saw his leader emerging as hero of the hour.
So far Mrs Thatcher has kept her temper. And it must be said that keeping your temper when Mr Wilson is your opponent is not easy. Even if a Leader of the Opposition is determined to keep silent and cool at Prime Minister's Questions, and intervene against the old warrior only if certain of having a cast-iron case, the Prime Minister is still likely to deploy his favourite trick of bouncing questions to the Leader of the Opposition off any other Tory who rises to challenge him. Mr John Peyton, who is usually very good at handling Mr Wilson, had an uncomfortable experience of this trick the other day: it consists essentially of the Prime Minister expressing his wonder either that the Leader herself did not make a statement on the subject under discussion; or at why there is so marked a difference between her views on a given subject and that of whichever unfortunate follower has just risen.
Often, especially to serious-minded politicians, this is more than flesh and blood can stand. Mr Heath, who is nothing if not serious-minded, sometimes found it unbearable during both his stints as Leader of the Opposition and, especially when Mr Wilson was quite flagrantly ignoring the point of a question, or when he was indulging in coattrailing frivolity, would rush in anger into the exchange, only, more often than not, to fall flat on his face. Nor was this because Mr Wilson has more humour than Mr Heath; or because Mr Heath was never particularly good at the cut and thrust of Question Time. It was because Mr Heath, for all his faults, had a fundamentally serious approach to politics, and could not bear to see issues and problems of moment dealt with frivolously. Mr Wilson simply cannot understand that the folksiness and whimsy which come so naturally to him are regarded with such contempt by other people; but he rapidly seizes the advantage of exploiting their anger at him.
Nor is this simply a matter of relations between the Prime Minister and the main Opposition Party. Even when Mr Heath was moving towards the close of his leadership there were many members of his Shadow Cabinet, and of the Parliamentary Conservative Party — and they were often men of ability — utterly devoted to him, and prepared to sing his praises against all criticism. It is rare to hear a senior member of the Labour Party, and especially a Cabinet member, speak with other than a humorous contempt of Mr Wilson. Several have a sincere personal affection for him — and he is, indeed, a most amiable and
agreeable man — and others admire his wiliness, his Machiavellianism, and his political adroitness. No more than a handful, however, express for him that serious respect without which a political leader has never hitherto been able to survive.
And yet, Mr Wilson goes on. The main reason, of course, is that the Labour Party needs him far more than he needs the Labour Party; for without him it is only too likely that its contradictions would force it to fly apart. It is possible that Mr Callaghan would be able to do the same job of staying in office in spite of contradictions; but it is unlikely that Mr Wilson will retire early enough to give Mr Callaghan his chance. Moreover, nothing about Mr Wilson stops the most powerful part of the Labour Party — the left wing — from going ahead with the serious business it has in hand, that of thoroughly socialising the British economy. And whereas the right wing of the Labour Party differs from the left on many things, and especially on the question of our membership of the EEC, it simply does not sufficiently care about any economic and industrial policies, such as those Mr Benn advocates, to make an issue of principle of them, at least as long as Mr Wilson is in power.
I cannot, at the moment, see any difficulty about the various currently opposed elements in the Labour Party lying down together again after the referendum is over, and whichever way it goes. It need hardly be said that the result of the referendum will have absolutely no effect whatever on Mr Wilson. personally: he will simply ignore it so far as it affects his own career.
There has been only one time in Mr Wilson's life as leader of his party when he fought a major battle almost to the end. That was in 1968, over the proposals in the White Paper, In Place of Strife. He lost, and he determined never to find himself in the same position again. As Churchill said of hi S own experience over the Dardanelles, the lesson had sunk into his soul. Throughout his period in opposition Mr Wilson sought to do two things — to conceal all his intentions until the last possible moment, and never to treat any issue on which he might find himself in a minority as a matter of confidence. He waited until the last moment before committing himself to a referendum; and he waited until the last moment before he expressed a desire for Britain to stay in the EEC (it would be wrong to use the word `committed' in this context). Mr Wilson loves international politics, and there is no doubt that he finds (as Mr Callaghan does) the high table of the EEC most congenial. Consequently, it was always likely that he would want to stay in, for he loves belonging to things, and having endless committees and summits and discussions and get-togethers at which, unbriefed, he can hold forth philosophically and at large, puff his pipe, hood his eyes, and produce reminiscences dressed up as weighty generalisations. He has, of course, no great sense of his own or anybody else's dignity 7 a fact most heavily remarked on by the pressmen who attended his press conference after the Dublin summit.
For Mr Wilson has come to believe — as he did not believe in the 'sixties — that action and decision and policy Scarcely matter. With this belief goes another: the highest good is, to him, his own retention of office — thus even his gteat dream of the 'sixties, of making Labour into a natural governing party, has become subsumed in his own wishes and desires. This deep feeling on his part, incidentally, makes him a possible coalition Prime Minister; something that would not have been even thinkable ten years ago. He will bend this way or that on this policy or that, according to his reading of the auspices; and he will hope to carry as many of his colleagues with him as possible. Deep down, however, he does not care very much which policy is adopted; and this the left, who are utterly determined and clear-minded about what they want to do, appreciate. On anything crucial in domestic policy they can be sure of getting their way.
All this is, of course, lamentable; but it is what makes Mr Wilson so formidable. Again and again we have seen political leaders, here and in other countries, worn down by the responsibilities of office, by the seemingly unavoidable contradictions in their own positions, by vituperative criticism. It once happened to Mr Wilson himself; and it happened, in different ways, to Lord Avon, Mr Macmillan, Lord Home and Mr Heath. It simply cannot happen to Mr Wilson, for there is now no way of seriously puncturing his self-esteem. There is nothing more infuriating than facing across the dispatch box an opponent who is simply not concerned about whether you have a point or not. Of course, Mr Wilson can be driven to irritation or anger — and Mrs Thatcher has succeeded in so driving him a couple of times — but it rarely lasts for long, and a new way must be found as soon as he absorbs the last. The man is, unfortunately, perfectly happy in presiding over the further decline in power, prosperity and dignity of his country and his office, and he provides an excellent screen for those of his colleagues who are determined to create a new socialist utopia out of the ruin he will leave behind.
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