What the Liberals must do
Jo Grimond
The season of oratory and brash sterility is upon us, when the discords of the Party conferences will soon be heard over the BBC. This year the jamborees will not be of any outstanding importance. We know pretty well in advance what will happen. Voting in the conferences is not a good guide to opinion in the parties (block voting in the Labour conference is a charade), nor is the course of politics dictated by conference resolutions. But the conferences are convenient milestones on which to rest and consider the way we are going.
Many years ago I suggested that the relevance of politics conducted by parties in the traditional British fashion was on the wane. I received many letters in agreement — most of which ended up by saying that we must have a new party just like the old ones. Politics are a conservative business. It takes a long time to change attitudes and methods, longer than ever now when every dying institution, however unwarranted, is kept alive by the State, Already the Labour Party are the British Leyland of our politics, living on subsidies.
Until this year's general election it looked certain that we should slide on in the familiar way, accepting the inevitability of state socialism, and too conservative to make the Political changes essential to economic improvement. It is much too early to claim that this direction has changed. But at any rate the possibility that it could be altered can be discussed. The windows of the stuffy room, in which bureaucrats have used up all the oxygen, have been opened .a chink. The Party which should have much to gain from this is the Liberal Party. The state socialist Labour party has reached the end of its road. It has nothing new to offer. Indeed nothing that the Tories offer is new. But Sir Keith Joseph and others have brought to bearold truths on current economic Policies, in a way which was novel and to many people stimulating. Inevitably the response of the Labour Party has been entirely negative. The response of the Liberal Party must be positive, by which I mean that, while welcoming the new initiatives, We must explain in detail how Liberals would follow them up. If Liberals believe that values ultimately appertain to individuals, then state direc t not in itself a good thing. ion is Yet the present 'cuts' in government expenditure (usually only a slowing down of expansion 1.11 such expenditure) are nearly always hailed, even by those who accept the necessity for them, as bad news. It seems to be assumed that, if only the resources were available, the government should spend more and more on public transport, housing, the National Health service, the arts, the social services and schools — all on the present pattern. I do not think so. I believe that, even if the resources were available, for the government to spend more on many of the existing public policies would he harmful.
Liberals should proclaim once again what Liberal values are. They should denounce inflation in all its forms (not only monetary inflation but the inflation which leads to the debasement of politics, administration and demand for more of everything) as the enemy of these values. They should therefore dissent from the general attitude of the press, which tends to welcome the settlement of strikes by the granting of higher wages unjustified by productivity. They should be extremely wary, to say the least, about exploiting the Government's troubles by supporting the demands of those who,are out to get all they can for their own organisations. They should be particularly wary when the demands are made in the name of the clients of these organisations. For instance, it would improve many aspects of higher education if the need for economy forced some new thinking on those who run it. There is no reason to suppose that the extension of the post-war housing policies will do anything but harm to those in need of houses.
The danger is not that the Tories will do too much towards reducing the size and powers of government, but that they will do too little. They will be caught up in the bureaucratic attitudes which pervade not only government but big business and politics. Already one result of Mrs Thatcher's appointment of a tycoon to improve the efficiency of government has been yet further demands for more information. It is notoriously true that constant demands for information from government departments drive not only businessmen but local authorities to desperation. But this new Inquisition has led to a further string of questions, for example, from the Scottish Office to the Orkney Islands Council about crofting. Crafting is hardly among the subjects which require urgent attention; In Orkney, itself, where there are few crofters, it is of minimal importance. But it has a whole quango to itself. The files of the Crofters Commission and the Department of Agriculture in Scotland must be stuffed with returns of every kind. Liberals must therefore be alert to the danger that the government does not exchange the bureaucracy of the civil service for the bureaucracy of big business. Then if the Liberal Party is to be true to its principles, it must insist not only on the wider sharing of wealth but also that of ownership and responsibility. There is as yet no sign that the Tories intend to do much in this direction. If the Government decides to let people buy bonds in BNOC, on which the rate of interest is to be fixed not by the profitability of the BNOC but the price of oil, it will be a pretty odd decision — if similar bonds had been issued by, say, the Coal Board we should be in an even greater muddle than we now are. But in any case such bonds will not help to make people feel that they awn BNOC or have any interest in how it is run.
The free enterprise system has fallen a prey to state socialism because it has not offered rewards — rewards not only in money but in the general satisfaction of enough people. It has appeared inhuman, oblivious to the needs of communities and to the need of individuals who wish to feel that they belong to a community in which they share hopes and fears, rewards and set-backs.
State socialism is now being rejected for the same reason as was capitalism. It is as remote and contemptuous of the possibilities and failings of ordinary people as capitalism at its worst — and more inefficient. But the people who reject it are not going to be content with being told that the same bosses are going to have to forego the company car in return for reduced taxes — desirable though that may be.
I had a letter lately from a man in hospital who drove the tank in which I rode for a time during the war. He remarked that the war was the happiest time of his life. Distance may have lent enchahtment, as it does to some people's view of their schooldays, but army life for some people did supply a great deal that is missing in today's world, including, oddly enough, the feeling that even private soldiers and second lieutenants had a part to play which lent them some
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