Political Commentary
Goderich rides again?
Patrick Cosgrave
Mr Joe Rogaly of the Financial Times described Mr Enoch Powell's speech on inflation (delivered last Wednesday to the Merridale Conservative Ladies) as his best ever; and the bpclY of his article made it clear that no faint Praise was intended. Mr Rogaly's more emitient colleague, Mr Samuel Brittan, went on the wireless on Friday morning, not merely to agree, but to defend Mr Powell against attacks launched on him by such as Mr Reginald Maudling; and various commentators, w,.ith more or less unease according to their oispositions and prejudices, accorded his address an unusual degree of respect. All this is interesting in so far as it indicates certain subtle., and perhaps consequential, shifts in.political and economic opinion; but it was not the most interesting thing about reaction to the speech — that was, as any honest person must surely, if regretfully confess, the singular intellectual barrenness of the Government's replies, and the replies of its si-IPPorters, to Mr Powell. And further, associated with any appreciation of that barren
Comes news of a potentially significant forming of the ranks of the right wing of Lhe Conservative Party, in the shape of a
4 known as the Selsdon Group, in deliberate echo of the weekend meeting at the S,elsdon Park Hotel, from which thundered the strains of the new Toryism. There is just (),ne other thing to be said before examining tnese • interesting phenomena — no critic can ever again accuse Mr Powell of pandering to his audiences, or offering them easy solutions to the nation's problems. A politician who gLiite honourably and openly yearns for Power, and who tells his country that it can (Inly be saved at the cost of accepting mka:ures repugnant to its comfort, and who dog rer, explicitly and openly, cannot be a pandet,,Wir Powell believes that inflation, which is ue country's main economic problem is not caused by trade unions; not caused by certain g°°ds becoming scarcer, and therefore dear(1; and not caused "by what goes on in other countries 1,1ation IS caused by one thing and one thing rIslY. It is caused by our own government, who ist on spending more but taxing less and are tl en money, obliged to fill the gap by creating extra He ving attacked incomes policies as a solution to the problem, Mr Powell went on: 'here is one answer and one answer only: cut the growth of public expenditure, or increase ation, or do both at the same time. There are i)plentY of people, inside and outside the governWho know just as well as I do that this is the r"IY answer; but who keep quiet, because they are raid of being accused of wanting higher taxation. t believe things are now too serious for individuals c° be thinking about their own skins. I hate in-, otceased taxation more than most, and a great part mY political life has been devoted to advocating wer taxation — lower taxation honestly based on °I3ristinWer growth in public expenditure. But what ain needs now in the national interest is an aputurnn budget , drastic revision of estimates of prublie SPending and a drastic increase in taxation, eferably direct taxation, Thus the case. M P ell describes what he , believes row to be the cause of inflation, and prescribes a cure. He has, so far, had two replies, ape from Mr Peter Walker, and one from Mr men.
6Inaid Maulding. Mr Maudling is, of FOurse, now a backbencher; but he has three 'lines recently appeared on,,the wireless as a defender of the Government's economic policies, once in reply to Mr Roy Jenkins. One can hardly believe, therefore, that he is looked upon other than benignly by the Prime Minister and the Chancellor as the purveyor of their views: it recalls, indeed, the time, when Mr Wilson launched an attack on what he called Selsdon Man, and Mr Maudling was put up to say, in his blandest and most delightful fashion, that no interviewer could suppose him to be the kind of savage creature Mr Wilson was describing. It was a great success, and attempts, it seems, are now being made to repeat it against Mr Powell. However, that is by-the-by. What did Mr Maudling say? He said that Mr Powell was talking nonsense" and "I don't think he understands the causes of inflation." He said, "The trouble with Mr Powell is he thinks that whenever he asserts something it must inevitably be true." Alas, Mr Maudling omitted to say what he thought did cause inflation. He suggested that Mr Powell's policy would make no difference to world food prices — but then, Mr Powell said as much in his own speech. The truth of the matter is that Mr Maudling did not refute Mr Powell's argument at any point: he merely denied that it was true.
Then there was Mr Walker. I confess (as I said the other week) to finding the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry's various analyses of the nature of the boom the country is enjoying endlessly fascinating. I am never sure whether we are in the middle of a boom, about to enjoy a boom if only our nerves hold steady, or likely to enjoy a boom if only we all work hard enough and ignore people like Mr Powell. Last weekend we had to work hard, "Britain is poised," said Mr Walker, employing a rhetoric which, since he is a very young man, he must have learned from the history books, "on the brink of a unique opportunity, but needs a national effort to grasp it." And, "We must not go the way of increasing unemployment and a return to stagnation. We must speedily invest in more modern machinery behind each pair of hands." (Actually, it is more convenient to have machinery in front of one's hands.) And, " We must ask for an all-out effort from the skilled and the unskilled to work more overtime. We must encourage more women to give of their time to meet the strong labour demands throughout industry and commerce."
And there is more like that. Not to put too fine a point on it, it is piffle; and particularly it is piffle when considered as a reply to Mr Powell. What causes inflation? What is the Government doing about inflation? These are the political questions of moment: on the answer to them the result of its next election will depend. What Mr Maudling and Mr Walker are doing is responding to the questions with rhetoric. It matters not a hoot whether you agree with Mr Powell or not: his probes deserve more considered replies than that. Mr Maudling and Mr Walker may yet be in the position of the nineteenth century Prime Minister; Goderich, who was called Prosperity Goderich,' because he said " Prosperity is just around the corner," just before an economic crash.
' One of Mr Maudling's defences of the Government attracted this riposte: "We must assume that the fact that these policies are closely related to those which he himself was pursuing up to the Labourvictory of 1964 has clouded his judgement. The present govern'ment's policies have failed, are continuing to fail, will prove unsuccessful in the extreme, and are, incidentally, totally contrary to specific and unambiguous pledges given in the 1970 manifesto and subsequently."
Thus the cheekily-named Selsdon Group. The group is cheekily named because of its deliberate invocation of the name of the hotel which Mr Heath chose as the site of that famous pre-election briefing to which I already referred; and because of the implication clear in its existence that the Prime Minister has reneged on the philosophy then espoused, a philosophy of free enterprise, individual freedom, freedom under the law, and other traditional Tory, credos.
In the present context, of course, the most crucial of the group's beliefs are those relating to economic management. These are distinctly representative of the right wing of the party, and distinctly better argued than those of the now dominant centre, What is interesting about the group — led from Swinton Conservative College—in the general context of politics is its effective dissociation from the preoccupation of dr Tory right with race relations. That preoccupation on the part of the Monday Club, together with its singular inability to advance anything that might remotely be called an economic policy, has led directly to its present stricken state of strife. The Selsdon Group has two distinct advantages in creating a general appeal to any Tories who are prepared to consider the various sides of the economic argument objectively. It has been attacked by the Hampstead Young Conservatives, which is virtually a certificate of respectability. And it is incorporating in its declaration of principles a statement of belief in racial equality. It has the incidental tactical advantage that Mr Powell has declined to accept an invitation " from it this year, and the no doubt incidental fun that, first, Central Office is struggling to find excuses to deny it a stall at the party conference this October, and second, that its first dinner is to be held in the Selsdon Park Hotel addressed by Mr Nicholas Ridley. Though the Group is in the early stages of its formation, my own reckoning is that about twenty-five members in the HoOse will spring instantly to its aid; and of those about eighteen would be men arid women of real ability. It seems just possible that Mr Walker and Mr Maudling will be forced to do something considered about meeting the arguments of more than Mr Powell,
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