Who will succeed?

John Grigg

Now that Roy Jenkins's impending move to Brussels has been officially confirmed, the question of his successor as Home Secretary is of immediate and topical interest. The Home Office is a key post in the Government, quite apart from its seniority and prestige. Mr Callaghan knows that he cannot afford to make a wrong appointment.

The likeliest choice, according to many, is the Northern Ireland Secretary, Merlyn Rees, who was Mr Callaghan's PPS during part of his time as Chancellor, his UnderSecretary when he was Home Secretary, and his chief supporter in the recent leadership contest. Mr Rees is a sensible, sensitive and -thoroughly decent man, whose objective claims to the post would be worth considering even if he had no claims upon the Prime Minister's gratitude.

But there are arguments against appointing him. One is that he would be very hard to replace in Northern Ireland. Though he has achieved no spectacular results during his two years in the Province, at least he knows his way around and is personally liked and trusted by most of the people he has to deal with.

Whatever its status in the official hierarchy, the Northern Ireland job is one of the most important that any Minister could have. It was not regarded as demotion when William Whitelaw was transferred there from the Lord Presidency and Leadership of the House of Commons, and if Mr Rees were kept on there for the time being he would have some reason to feel complimented rather than snubbed. He could, at any rate, be asked to see it that way.

Another argument against sending him to the Home Office is that Mr Callaghan would thereby miss an opportunity to correct the balance between overt and crypto-moderates in the higher reaches of his Cabinet. Mr Rees is an overt moderate, as are Mr Healey (now), Mr Crosland and the Prime Minister himself. Only Mr Foot, who in reality is no extremist, preserves the reputation of being a left-winger.

If the Cabinet holds together through the present critical week, it would be expedient to appoint another ostensible left-winger to the Home Office. This would provide a partial smokescreen to cover the Government's retreat from ideological socialism. It might also help to avert a resignation which would give the left wing in Parliament what it most conspicuously lacks, an effective leader.

The person who comes to mind is, of course, Anthony Wedgwood Benn. I will not repeat my reasons (outlined in this commentary on 22 May) for not taking him too seriously as a revolutionary. But he has to be taken very seriously as a politican who might be tempted to lead a rebellion of the Labour Left with the support of some trade unions. If there were no trade union support the exercise would be pointless, but the spending cuts now being discussed, to say nothing of more drastic cuts that may become necessary, could break the monolithic compact between government and unions.

On the whole I do not expect such a breach to occur, but it is clearly a possibility and Mr Callaghan has to ensure that all the available heavy artillery is on his side—that is to say, most of the big unions and every major politician.

Yet it is not only for defensive reasons that he might be well advised to make the appointment. Mr Benn also has notable qualifications for the job. In particular he would tackle the problem of immigration, and the related menace of the National Front, with a suitable combination of intelligence and eloquence.

The National Front must now be seen as a cloud slightly larger than a man's hand, and the new Home Secretary needs to have powers of healthy demagoguery that will make him more than a match for the sinister demagogues now at work. Mr Rees has plenty of good feeling, but lacks lucidity in exposition and debate. Mr Benn is lucid as well as fervid.

There is also much to be said for giving him responsibility for law and order. No Home Secretary can hope to make a favourable impression upon the public unless he shows appreciation of the police and a general willingness to help them. Mr Benn has little sympathy with criminals or anarchists, and the details of police work would fascinate him.

Another Minister well qualified to be Home Secretary is Shirley Williams, but Mr Callaghan will be careful not to promote her over Mr Benn's head, remembering that it was Attlee's promotion of Gaitskell over Bevan's head that precipitated the Bevanite schism in the 1950s. Mrs Williams is not only typecast as a right-winger; she is also five years younger than Mr Benn.

If, however, he were appointed Home Secretary, it would be quite in order for her to receive considerable advancement. When Mr Callaghan took over from Sir Harold Wilson, he added the job of PaymasterGeneral, involving the chairmanship of a number of Cabinet committees, to her post of Secretary for Prices and Consumer Protection. But she deserves still wider scope.

Mrs Williams is not an efficient administrator, but she has almost every other quality required in a political leader. She is intelligent, honest and brave. She speaks well. Above all, she is just about the most popular figure in contemporary British politics, regardless of party.

The right task for her, surely, would he that of working out the Government's devolution package and then carrying it through Parliament. This will be the most difficult and contentious business of the next session, and it is hard to see how Mr Foot, at present responsible for devolution, could combine it successfully with leading the House of Commons.

The Minister in charge of devolution should be free to give the matter his or her whole mind. Yet it is notoriously dangerous to be a senior Minister without the backing of a department. How can that circle he squared? The solution might be for Mrs *Williams to be given the Civil Service Department, of which the Prime Minister is nominally head but over which, under him, Lord Shepherd now presides.

It is quite unnecessary for Lord Shepherd, as Leader of the House of Lords, to have department, but Mrs Williams would he greatly assisted by the support of one in her work as Mrs Devolution. And she would need all the help she could get.

Incidentally, there has been a rumour that she will stand for the deputy leadershiP of the Labour Party, but the rumour is premature because there is no evidence that Edward Short, the present deputy leader, has any intention of retiring. The matter would anyway not arise until the beginning of next session, and might be influenced bY voting for the national executive at the party conference.

It is very difficult to comment on the present Labour Party crisis while the denouement is still unknown. But one thing seems certain, that Mr Healey will not emerge from it with enhanced credit and authority.

Throughout this year he has been appallingly complacent about the economy, never preparing either the trade unions or the country as a whole for the tough measures that would be needed. If his complacena was due to misjudgment, it is a grave reflection upon his competence as a finance minister. If it was flue to disingenuousness, it reflects upon his character and was anY" way a psychological error.

Opposition to the cuts within the Cabinet has not been a simple matter of Left versus Right. Mr Crosland is understood to be opposed to them, and the burden of his criticism is likely to be that the Chancellor has created a loss of foreign confidence hiY his bland talk, and then restricted the Government's options by demanding 3 particular total of cuts at short notice.

Mr Crosland is a very significant figure, because unlike Mr Healey he is an economist, and foreigners must know that he is fur from being a Marxist ideologue. It would not be surprising if the anticipated exchange of posts between him and Mr Healey were brought forward as a result of this week's events.