GREATER BRITAIN?

It has sunk deep into our consciousness that, as a nation, we have been and remain exhausted by two great wars. We look back to a time before 1914 when we were truly great, still ruling an empire over which the sun never set. The twenty years between the wars were difficult: they are now acquiring a nostalgic flavour, a kind of period charm, but they were years of failure to deal with slump and unemployment at home and of failure to prevent the rise of the disgusting Third Reich abroad. We muddled our way into the first war and blundered our way into the second. In 1945 we again ended on the winning side, thanks to the American alliance; but we had not power to control, and little power to influence, the Americans. Roosevelt had been outwitted by Stalin, and the post-war maps, their boundaries and their colourings, surrounded Russia with satrapates. Britain looked inwards, knowing itself to be exhausted.

During the Attlee administration the 'country gritted its teeth and made a final effort, giving up empire and settling for the Welfare State, a mixed economy and an end to foreign adventures. With hindsight, the Labour electoral victory of 1945 and the first two or three decisive years of Attlee's administration were the just and necessary conclusion, delayed and interrupted but not otherwise greatly affected by the disruption of war, of the barren politics of the empty men of the inter-war years. Before the 'forties were ended, Attlee's great and necessary job was done.

The last couple of years of Attlee's premiership were wasted years; the thirteen years of Conservative governments which followed were, with much justification, called by Harold Wilson the thirteen wasted years; and the subsequent six, years of Wilson administrations, with equal justification, may be labelled wasted years. During these twenty, or so wasted years, the wealth of the nation has increased, but not as swiftly as the wealth of other nations. The power of the nation thus has constantly declined; the sense of exhaustion has persisted; and 'the English disease' which enervates, destroys self-confidence and removes all sense of purpose has gripped the country in a seemingly permanent epidemic. Churchill's feeble and fuddled government was succeeded by Eden's and the Suez catastrophe.; Eden' refused the chance to deter mine the shape of western Europe, and Macmillan, unable to chose in which historical role to cast himself, dilly dallied with de Gaulle's France and with Kennedy's America and shilly shallied with a 'wind of change' whose nature and direction he could or would not grasp; Macmillan held together the Conservative party, but otherwise it was a shabby inheritance he passed on to Sir Alec Douglas-Home; Sir Alec — and this must be _counted against him — gave himself insufficient time to impress events and so allowed Labour and Wilson to scrape back into power; Wilson's first weak Labour administration yielded only a general election; next came a commanding Wilson majority, and all that bright promise too: but Wilson's governments in their events provided still more years wasted with efforts to make-do and mend, and to patch up, so that, as with the previous Tory rules, getting and begetting and propping up the pound, we laid waste our years. More than two decades was wasted. An entire generation was born into political frustration. We now confront a New Year. Will it prove to be yet another wasted one?

We are due for a change of mood. It is more than a quarter of a century since the end of the war. Other countries have recovered from a far greater physical and moral exhaustion than we have suffered. There are intimations of a new mood. There is a new vigour in our politics. The deep, indeed fundamental, conspiracy between the two parties which, by 1950, went without saying, and which, said and unsaid, dominated the politics of the next two decades (during which the most characteristic politician was R. A. Butler) is now ended. Except on specific issues (such as, for instance, Northern Ireland), there is no desire on the part of the Prime Minister or of the Leader of the Opposition for a cosy consensus. The Conservative party, in preferring Heath to Maudling as its leader, may have imagined it was picking its own Wilson; but Heath has not turned out as expected. He proposes rather than opposes. He has set his sights high. True, his rhetoric has not matched his ambition, nor has he discovered the language to fit his vision, and his popularity has remained persistently low: but he is venturing. Wilson, too, from opposition, begins to look the statesman. The two

men, each enlarging the other, grapple not only with each other but with their respective parties, and with the political opportunities this time presents. It is too early, but possibly not too much too early, to see in their grapplings a parallel with the contests between Gladstone and Disraeli. Looking into 1972, we may anticipate potentous excitement.

Those who believe that this country has a great deal to contribute to the ordering of the affairs of the world have been silent, and silenced, too long. It has become clear that the days of the ' super-powers ' have been brief indeed, and are now over. The United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics can be looked at in the face and talked to straight. Their weight' remains huge but is no longer overbearing. Much of the one's weaponry is useful only to trigger off that of the other in murderous and suicidal nuclear exchanges which neither side can or will, except insanely, initiate. China and India have swiftly emerged as principal characters on the world's stage, and Japan must surely follow them soon, or sink into the role of rich but profligate and disregarded Asian manufacturer, profiteer and spoliator, West Germany begins to use much of itS due weight. France still flings around more than its due weight, despite that de Gaulle is dead. It is time for Great Britain to exert . itself, to forget about lost empire and the jibe about not finding a subsequent role, and to put on again the mantle of leadership. Several international leaders are needed, and the world is not so wellendowed with them for this country any longer to stand aside. We have nothing to fear but fear; and we are exhausted bY nothing more than the false conviction of our exhaustion.

The politics of the world is too serious business to be left any longer to foreigners. It is time to bestir ourselves. We may well possess the right Prime Minister to do it and the right Leader of the Opposition to goad and prod and to be ready to succeed' The country is prepared to be led and to lead. There are men at its head whose patriotism is not in doubt. Let the defeat' ism of the post-war and of the inter-war years be pronounced dead. There is need at home and abroad, and there will be waral welcome at home and abroad, for Britait) to be great again; and all that prevents this is the fear of saying, and being, so. Dom Mintoff's final demand, or an extra £41 millions a year over and above the settlement already reached, has proved to be the last straw. The British attachment to Malta had become much more sentimental than strategic. With a Russian trade mission ready to cough up, the Maltese Prime Minister may have felt well-placed to deliver an ultimatum to the British cabinet. But his bluff, if bluff it was, has been called.

It is not a particularly pleasant way to end a British connection, and I am sure that in no time at all the Maltese will regret the policies of Mr Mintoff. The future of British residents enjoying the Maltese climate and tax concessions must now be considered doubtful. Irritating though many of these expatriates may have been to the Maltese sense of their own importance, the departure of the residents will impoverish the island. Russia possesses no equivalent class of people.

An ugly year

The United States' resumption of bombing of North Vietnam struck a typically ugly note on which to end an ugly year. President Nixon's response to Hanoi's success in shooting down five Phantoms last weekend and the victories of the North Vietnamese forces in Laos has an ill-tempered edge about it. And there was nothing very welcome in the news that the Americans have now plugged a gap in their armoury With a ' Super' bomb which is bigger and better than any other bomb apart, of course, from nuclear ones. Nixon seems to have lost his touch — or is it Henry Kissinger who has lost his? I fully expect 1972, presidential election year, Common Market legislation year, possible General Election year, to give us all a pretty bumpy ride.

Channel Four

It is being said that Christopher Chataway has had second thoughts about the fourth channel. This encourages those who thought he had not had any first thoughts. It does not encourage me, for I liked neither his reputed first thoughts nor his presumed second set either. His first idea, I think, was to give the fourth channel to the existing commercial television companies. This was, and is, and will forever be, a lousy idea appealing only to those with shares in the existing companies (we at The Spectator have shares in London Weekend, but it is still a lousy idea). It means that Sir Lew Grade, so help us all, will become almost as powerful as Huw Wheldon (who already has two channels to play with, which is at least one too much, even for a nice Welshman). The Minister of Posts and Telecommunications has, it seems, had a second idea, which is to have no fourth channel at all. This is a very smart idea, advanced by Milton Shulman and others who think that television ought to be a cultural influence, or at any rate unpopular. It is a thoroughly bad idea. I do not easily understand why my own views are not more widely held, or at any rate propagated. We need freedom of broadcast speech almost (but not quite) as much as we need freedom of the press. Therefore, BBC 1 and BBC 2 should be separated for a start (and preferably hived off from BBC Radios 1, 2, 3 and 4). Even if some marginal economies are derived from the BBC's monopoly, such advantage is hugely outweighed by the potentially corrupting concentration of power. The para-governmental and quasi-monopolistic British Broadcasting Corporation, although and because it has worked so far well enough in practice, is an hegemonic monster requiring dismemberment. This is a matter of urgent public moment, which means that nothing whatever will be done about it.

Altogether less urgent is the fourth channel. But the same ground rules ought to apply. It will be a political scandal if the existing companies are given the new channel. But it will be not much less of a scandal if no fourth channel is permitted: for then the existing companies will have their monopoly in television advertising extended indefinitely. The public interest requires the destruction of the BBC monopoly in nationalised broadcasting and of the present ITV monopoly in profitmaking television. I hope that Chris Chataway smashes both monopolies in the same spirit as that displayed by his chief, Ted Heath, in forcing through his Resale Price Maintenance legislation against a different batch of vested interests.

Many expert architects

The Evening Standard and Simon Jenkins have between them performed a useful service in suggesting that Somerset House be opened to the public and not wasted on a government department which could as well be housed in Bognor Regis or Middlesbrough. A Mr Jim Finley, honorary secretary of the Taxes Section of the Inland Revenue Staff Federation, who I presume works in Somerset House, says that "in the view of many it (Somerset House) is architecturally inferior to Euston Station." Who are these ' many '?

Scotch dialectic

I note that we are exporting rabbits to Russia so that they may breed there, and feed the Russians. Last summer in Scotland I talked with an hotel-keeper who was complaining that stags had got into his field the previous night and had eaten the lettuce. He then told me that he had had to introduce dogs in order to keep down the cats he had introduced to keep down the rabbits which ate the grazing of the deer. All the deer in the area were exported to Germany under some contractual arrangement which precluded the hotel from serving venison. I therefore suggested it would make sense for the hotel to serve rabbit pie. I then developed the argument, saying that since rabbits were the only things that grew readily and easily in that part of the Highlands, and required neither labour nor skill for their production, Scotland ought to concentrate on rabbits. The argument proved unpopular, and I departed for my bed. In the morning, instead of fresh bread, we had packeted bread and package porridge. I envy the Siberians their rabbit pies. Since I dislike venison, I do not object to the Germans cornering the Scottish deer trade. Were I Scotch I would not have written these rabbity words.

Men from Moscow

At last year's Christmas party given by Bill Hardcastle and the World at One team, the proceedings were improved by a fine belly-dancer. This year's party, in a series of commodious basement rooms at Broadcasting House, did without a belly-dancer. They had a man from Moscow, however, who was also very interesting. He told me that Britain was certain to join the Common Market, in which inevitable case we would drop to sixth, seventh or eighth in the world's rankings.

I said to him "What is your Irish policy?" He replied: "We support Senator Kennedy. He is the right man." I said "If you Russians say you support the Catholic Irishman, Senator Kennedy, you will destroy him." He said "I don't think so."

I said "So Russia supports the Pope."

He said "You could put it like that."

He was most amiable, reeked of garlic, and only showed anger when we discussed the case of the Russian spy expulsions. I complained that no Russian had ever tried to bribe me, and he said he would see what could be done to rectify the matter. He advanced the sound if obvious proposition that when Russia's top man in London, Ambassador Mikhail Smirnovsky, returned to London (he has been having a diplomatic holiday for the past four months), relations would then have returned to normal. The ambassador is now back.