THE SPECTATOR
SURVIVING THE SEEDINESS
Monday's debate on the Westland affair demonstrated one of the most impor- tant and abiding facts of British politics - the ruthlessness of the Conservative Party. The Conservatives frequently panic, but if they really believe that their hold on power is threatened, they respond with extraor- dinary discipline and skill. After all that has passed, it was eerie to see Mr Heseltine congratulating Mrs Thatcher, Mr Brittan taking the blame, the Prime Minister vir- tually apologising and not a single Tory making a critical speech. Against this, Labour's lack of lust for power could make no impression. There was indignation in Mr Kinnock's speech, but no direction. No Labour frontbencher had mastered the details of the scandal or, if he had, he had not understood their importance (if Dr Owen had been Leader of the Opposition, it would have been a very different mat- ter). So it was that the Conservatives unquestionably 'won', and, in winning, proved once again their superior skill and tenacity.
But the Government's parliamentary success, although essential to its survival, cannot fully restore its standing. It is clear that the Government had managed to become so hysterical over Mr Heseltine's equally hysterical behaviour that many of its members and servants were prepared to use tactics which were not only underhand but also absurdly risky. The opinions of the law officers are taken seriously and are expected to be untouched by political considerations, not least because the law officers will find their way to judicial preferment barred if they are suspected of mixing their legal opinions with politics (a fate which befell Mr Sam Silkin because of his attitude to the rebel Clay Cross council- lors).
It was almost inconceivable that Sir Patrick Mayhew, the Solicitor-General, would not have protested about the leaking of his letter, and if he had resigned in protest Mrs Thatcher would surely have fallen. It is probable, as Ferdinand Mount Points out in his political column this week, that Mrs Thatcher did not ask Mr Brittan about his involvement in the leak, but the fact she did not only confirms the suspicion of complicity. She did not need to ask. This is not the first, although it is the leading example of the Prime Minister's association with leaks. She uses leaks before all reshuffles to test the strength of party feeling (there were months of tumours, for instance, about the departure of Messrs Rees and Jenkin); she used them to counter similar, almost Heseltine-like tactics by Mr Peter Walker during the coal strike; she used them, most strangely, when Mr Ian Gow, her then PPS, went round the House of Commons hinting that Tories who voted against Mr James Prior's Northern Ireland Bill could expect prefer- ment. The mistake of her servants on the present occasion was to be far too specific and to leave too many clues — the leak was of an important document, it was done with great speed and with careful selection. It was asking for trouble.
The Government's conduct was there- fore seedy and silly, and Mrs Thatcher does not deserve to get away with her presentation of the events of recent weeks as a chapter of regrettable accidents. She should still be harried — with some defer- ence, however, to the boredom threshold of the average voter.
But it does not follow that she and her Government deserve to fall. They are not guilty of sins which cry out to heaven for vengeance, but of faults all too characteris- tic of all administrations. They only had to fall if they could no longer command confidence, and on Monday Mrs Thatch- er's command was obeyed. Two senior resignations and a month of political agony are punishment enough.
It is the political climacteric, rather than the strictly moral question, which matters most. Such has been the rooted hostility of many to Mrs Thatcher that for years now journalists and politicans have identified numerous moments as the beginning of the end, the turning of the tide, the moment when Mrs Thatcher became a liability.
These people particularly took the GCHQ affair as their moment, forgetting that there is almost no act against trade unions which the British public will not accept.
All these previous moments were chosen through wishful thinking. This one is diffe- rent. Not because it has revealed Mrs Thatcher as ruthless, unpleasant, strident — millions of people have long believed her to be these things — but because it has made her look like a scurvy politician, with an eye looking so hard for the main chance that it starts squinting and seeing double.
This, and the consequent shock to her party, puts Mrs Thatcher in a new, weak position. Those within her party who have always opposed her, and even many of her supporters, will treat her as remaining only on sufferance. They will be much readier than before to rein her in, to curtail her more ambitious plans, to insist on policies less likely to give offence. They will be alert to signs of unpopularity, hypersensi- tive to press criticism. They will argue that the only way left to win the next election is to play safe and bring forward bland and respectable men. Fewer Norman Tebbits, and more Paul Channons, will be the wisdom.
The effects of these changes will be almost wholly bad. They will be bad because Mrs Thatcher is a person singular- ly unsuited to the new role allotted to her. Cabined, cribbed, confined, she becomes restive, and her attempts at emollience only make her audience cringe.
The effects will also be bad because they will not make it easier for the Tories to win the election — a last-minute effort to make Mrs Thatcher into a Stanley Baldwin will be neither convincing nor attractive. Above all, they will be bad because they will pander to the myth that all that is needed for Britain's future prosperity is a period of 'consolidation' and an end to `divisiveness'.
If this is the trend, it might appear to follow that Mrs Thatcher should go at once. What is the point of a consensual policy led by someone who despises the consensus? What is the political purpose or the electoral advantage in putting Mrs Thatcher in a straitjacket and keeping her on view when she could be led off to the padded cell? These arguments have force. What counts against them is the opportun- ity in the longer term. If Mrs Thatcher does manage to overcome her new constrictions and to win the next election, she will then be in a position to establish the Tory Party almost for the next generation. If she were to go now, she would certainly be replaced either by someone too safe, like Sir Geof- frey Howe, or too consensual, like Mr Douglas Hurd. `Thatcherism' would be written off as a weird experiment which failed. This would be disastrous, for what Mrs Thatcher is about is neither esoteric, nor doctrinaire. For all her faults and limitations, she is working for things which are simply and sorely needed — a less government-centred way of life, a freer market and the extension of choice in matters such as health and education, a reduction in the political power of trade unions and the assertion of the rights of union members over leaders. Except in the matters of the trade unions, she has not been decisively successful. It is by no means certain that she will succeed, even if undeflected. But it is certain that a compla- cent, 'moderate' Tory administration would fail. The Westland affair has inti- mated Mrs Thatcher's mortality, but it should not be allowed to cause her prema- ture political death.
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