GAITSKELL'S RURAL RIDES
THE Labour Party, we lamented last week, has allowed itself to be sucked into the Establish- ment; and the day our elegy appeared the Manchester Guardian carried a story about Mr. Gaitskell's tour in Kent, confirming the diagnosis.
`One would have thought,' the Guardian cor-
respondent wrote, 'that the droves of directors, admirals and experts of every kind who met him at each port of call had been voting Labour all their lives, to judge by the wreaths of smiles . . . the welcome says something, too, for the achieve- ment of the Labour Party in making itself respect- able with the Establishment--even in endearing itself.'
Precisely; and the wreaths of smiles reflect the directors' and admirals' happy conviction that the Labour Party is no longer to be feared. Even if it did get in, they now feel, it would not seriously disturb their lives; but in any case, praise be! it is not going to get in.
For many years its Left wing, worried about this, has been urging that the party should prise itself loose from respectability by putting forward policies which would so scare the direc- tors and the admirals that they would not go near Mr. Gaitskell except with a horsewhip or a bag of rotten tomatoes. But as everybody, even on the Left, now realises, this cannot be successfully tried until the country's economy shows signs of crack- ing. If it were now adopted as election policy the voters would flock to send the Conservatives back again. What Labour needs is a way to differentiate itself not through measures but through the adop- tion of a new persona—or at least a new mask— one designed to terrify the admirals, but to attract the floating vote.
It is not so very long since we in this country used to scoff at Republicans and Democrats in the US dumming and deeing at each other—par- ticularly at conventions, where the party spirit was stirred up by devices so blatant, so childish even, that no adult could be expected to take them seriously. Can it be, Mr. Gaitskell must now be asking himself (or if he is not, he should be), that some of this Barnum touch might help to save his party from collapse? Admittedly the party system in the US has been given fortuitous stiffening by the personality of Franklin D. Roosevelt—so well loved on his own side, so well hated by Republi- cans, that to this day his memory dictates to millions which way to vote. Possibly the same thing might have happened here if Aneurin Bevan had not left the Government in a huff just before Labour went out of office, thereby helping to dis- qualify himself from the succession to party leader- ship. But in any case the impact of a personality is a risky foundation for a party, as the Conserva- tives found in 1945. No' oubt Roosevelt's shadow would long since have grown less had it been in either the Republican or the Democratic interest to curtail it; both sides have found it useful.
Can Labour find a new dynamic—and if so, where? In his unaccustomed capacity of advocatus dei for the party this week, Taper notes the strength of the party's second and third teams; and to anybody tolerably familiar with the parties at Westminster, the greater strength of Labour on the back benches is very obvious. Here, in its own back room, Labour could find itself—if its abler back-benchers could manage to project themselves as a.serious force.
But they have not yet been able to do so; nor, it must be admitted, has the party made much use of its advantages from them. Exactly why, is hard to say—though undoubtedly the ossification of the two-party structure is largely responsible. What- ever the reason, the failure has been very bad for the party's health : so much so that there are Labour supporters who feel that it would be better for the party if the coming election were lost, if its loss were to give the party the shake-up it so obviously needs.
Previous page
