Political Commentary
Will Harold Hang On?
By ALAN WATKINS
Im's Department, like Jim's Inn (the passing J of which I, for one, regret), is a happy, straight- forward, innocent folk-land where virtue is re- warded, guilt is punished and all is for the best in the end. This week Mr. James Callaghan has given us notice of hardships to be endured in the months ahead; he has assured us that fruit will be borne in two or three years; above all, he has said in definite tones that there will be no early election. Anyone who listened to Mr. Callaghan in the Commons on Monday, or who read the glosses on his remarks, must have been inclined to agree with him about the election. We are, it appears, to be taxed, taxed and taxed again. It is bonanza time for Dr. Nicholas Kaldor, if for no one else. Who, who indeed, would go to the country on such a programme? Certainly not Mr. Callaghan; and he has said as much.
And yet . . . and yet . . . even after the Chan- cellor's declaration of intent, rumours of an early election persist. Observe, in the first place, Sir Alec Douglas-Home. For months and months he has believed that Mr. Harold Wilson would go to the country in May or thereabouts. There is no sign that he has changed his opinion. Moreover, Sir Alec and his lieutenants seem positively anxious to predict that Mr. Wilson will 'scuttle' and 'leave us to clear up the mess.' On the face of it, it is difficult to see the reason for these tactics. Assuming the Conservatives want an early elec- tion, there is nothing more calculated to keep Mr. Wilson in office (or at the helm, as Sir Alec would no doubt put it) than to accuse him of in- tending to desert.
Could it be, however, that this assumption is wrong? Could it be that Sir Alec would like Labour to go to the country, not at an early date of their own choosing, but when they are de- feated in the House of Commons on some issue selected by the Conservatives? In this case the talk of 'scuttle' makes perhaps more sense. Its aim may be not so much to express any precise truth as to create a general atmosphere of confusion; to convey to the public at large the supposedly ephemeral nature of the present Government. Whether this is Sir Alec's intention or not, it is akar that so far the Opposition have not over- exerted themselves to make life difficult for the Government in the Commons. It may be signifi- cant that, on television on Monday, Mr. Callag- han accused Mr. Edward Heath of deliberately keeping Conservatives out of the division lobbies, and to this most serious charge Mr. Heath made no reply.
But what of the Labour side's view as to the timing of the election? It is too simple to talk of a 'split,' either inside the Cabinet or anywhere else. No politician wants to go to the country unless he believes that his party can win. This may be an obvious proposition, but it is worth re-stating. Labour members' views change from week to week, according as they read the political barometer. Before the Leyton by-election, for instance, Mr. Dick Taverne wrote to the Prime Minister urging him to go to the country; since Leyton, Mr. Taverne has changed his opinions.
Yet having said this, it is possible to isolate various Labour views on the election. At least one member of the Cabinet believes that Mr. Wilson should go to the country before the budget : first because one of the major opinion polls still shows a convincing lead in Labour's favour (astonishingly enough, there are many ministers who continue to take polls seriously); secondly because, to be effective, the budget will have to be even more deflationary than the one which Mr. Callaghan is currently planning. According.to this view, a budget that is not pre- ceded by an election will get the worst of all worlds: it will not be tough enough to do its job, nor will it be popular enough to permit an elec- tion in the early summer or the autumn.
Still, this is probably a minority view. There is more support for the idea that, whatever the budget is like, Labour will do best in May or June; and here the Saffron Walden by-election assumes an importance it would not otherwise have had, If Saffron Walden turns out well for Labour, so it is said, Mr. Wilson will seriously consider going to the country. Nor is this quite as fanciful as it may sound. In the late summer of 1963 Mr. Wilson was convinced that the Con- servatives had their eyes fixed on the Stratford by- election : if this went well, he believed, they would go to the country. Temperamentally, Mr. Wilson is inclined to place great faith in the result of one by-election. No doubt Lord Butler is already chuckling about the commotion which his departure to the peerage is causing.
Nevertheless, the majority of ministers would prefer to stay in their jobs, untroubled by talk of elections. The evidence is that at the moment Mr. Wilson agrees with them. When he first took office he fixed the spring of 1967 as his election date; since October he has modified his views slightly; but he still inclines towards hanging on at least until next year. In Mr. Wilson's political make-up there are, so far as election timing is concerned, forces which pull in different direc- tions. There is, first of all, the memory of Lord Attlee, who held an election in 1951 before the Korean war had ended and the terms of trade turned in our favour. Then, opposed to this, is Mr. Wilson's opportunism (I use the word in a non-pejorative sense): his belief that, by clever timing, one can gain an advantage over the other side. And, finally, there is his love of office. These forces will probably resolve themselves along the
line of staying in office, and it is difficult to say that Mr. Wilson will be wrong.
For the fact is that there is a great deal of political damage to undo before Labour can face the country with any confidence. The more one thinks about it, the more one realises that the de- lay in paying the pensions rise, combined with the instantaneous increase in MPs' pay. was a political error of the first magnitude. What is worse, it was an error which was easily avoid- able. It will take a long time to live down.
Apart from this somewhat negative• aspect of things, Mr. Wilson and his colleagues really must start to deliver the goods. It is all very well to appeal to the Dunkirk spirit (an appeal that would have resulted in a howl of derision if it had been made by Sir Alec). Or, rather, it is not all very well. Women no longer wear scarves wound round their heads, 'Roll out the Barrel' is not top of the pops and Miss Vera Lynn is not the forces' sweetheart any more. People are used to prosperity; they demand it as a right; and it is not only profitless but damaging for Mr. Wilson, Mr. Callaghan, Mr. George Brown and the editor of The Times merely to lecture about its having to be 'earned.' The Wilson government, in fact, is in danger of repeating the mistake of the Attlee' government, the mistake of being identified with restrictionism and austerity. It may have been true at one time, though I doubt it, that there was a streak of masochism in the British electorate. It is not true any longer. And unless Mr. Wilson realises this he will find retribution at the polls, whatever the timing.
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