VIEW FROM THE GALLERY SALLY VINCENT
Parliamentary Privilege is one of the little bonuses you get when you become an MP.
It means, crudely, that your freedom of speech, while being the same as everybody else's, is more—well—more free, as it were; that while we all have liberty, you are entitled to take it. It means you may, if you wish, impugn a fellow's professional capa- bilities and suggest he be relieved of his employment, home and livelihood and not expect a writ to be slapped across your palm. You may (and indeed you must) hold up your colleague to the hatred, ridicule and contempt of right-minded folk and get away with it—all this, of course, assuming you express your common slanders in the mystifyingly mealy-mouthed phrases known as correct parliamentary language.
As godly men in monasteries live their spiritual lives on our behalf, politicians in Parliament may be said to do our vituperat- ing for us. It is their duty as well as their privilege. The martial brood, accustomed to fight, become inured to the violence they do to each other. Scratch a front-bench man and he does not bleed; stab him to the heart and you discover the hide .goes right through; he wears the serene smile of the congenitally insensitive, selects his cudgel and waits his chance. More commonplace and squeamish souls observing the battle may either absorb shock waves and store psychic injury or enjoy, as one suspects is the intention, the sort of vicarious stimula- tion familiar to those who attend heavy- weight boxing contests. To be present, for instance, at a censure debate and to wafeh grown men fulminating against each other in cold blood and without the comprehen- sible lodestone of alcohol, is rather like find- ing oneself at a cock-fight in a foreign coun- try; not only is the spectacle horrible, it is also (to all familiar standards) illegal.
The prize cockerels in this particular skirmish, masquerading as a vote of no con- fidence in Government economic and indus- trial policies, are, to our right, the Chancel- lor of the Exchequer, the Rt Hon Anthony Perrinott Lysberg Barber and to our left, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Rt Hon Roy Harris Jenkins, each for and on behalf of his own Leader, to make it all even more vicarious.
Striking the first blow, Mr Jenkins of the silver tongue and golden intellect, delivers splendid guidance in how to trounce a Prime Minister according to the rules. While, for his part, the Prime Minister gives a note- worthy performance, up for imitations, of how to be on the receiving end without really trying. Mr Jenkins winds himself into a state of controlled obloquy and Mr Heath poses as a man with a great deal of clerical work to catch up on. In his place, Mr Barber hunches his shoulders against the tirade directed at his master, but Mr Heath con- cerns himself with a sheaf of papers, to which, from time to time, he adds fastidious marks with his fountain pen. He makes little, attentive popping movements with his mouth, engrossed in the letters and memos he has brought with him while the rest of the House attends to the fact that Mr Jenkins is calling him a liar. In correct parliamentary language, of course. Which is to say he is a man given to all sorts of twisted convolu- tions in order to pretend that black is white and white is black. Mr Jenkins is calling him a self-righteous liar. Or more correctly, that whatever distortions he may have to get
into, he must prove not only that he is right now but that he has always been right in the past. Mr Heath crosses a dainty T. He may well, too, be dotting an elegant i while Mr Jenkins denounces him as a person whose stubborn partisanship will not allow him to be fair or balanced. Only when he hears the word 'childish' levelled against him does he raise his head from his papers to smile and nod placidly across the chamber, as if in absentminded acknowledgment of a cheery good morning from the milkman.
Mr Jenkins is a powerful fellow when his mouth is open. It is not just the grace of his oratory, the completeness of his sentiments, the judicious table-thumping, the well-cal- culated arm-extending, the habit of turning his body full circle to give the full house the benefit of his persuasion; it is the ambitious- ness of his intentions. He is not merely preaching to the converted. His design is to break new ground, to which end no ally, however improbable, is called upon in his quest to isolate Heath as the sole scapegoat for the misfortunes of his party. The late Jain Macleod lends support and so, in his absence, does Mr Enoch Powell. When the mood is suitable for a bombshell, he drops one. The Prime Minister, he alleges, cannot trust or tolerate an independent mind. He has no sense of persuasion and no sense of fair play. He is expert only at demolition and division. He is barren. He is incapable of understanding the minds of those who do not agree with him or have a different back- ground of experience. He is like a surly shop- keeper. Hard words, received in a quiet that, if not acquiescent, is at least respectful. Mr Jenkins sits down to the cheers of his follow- ers and Mr Heath readjusts his mask of sere- nity and lays aside his papers in order to give polite attention to the efforts his henchman is to make on his behalf.
But our Chancellor is not a man to return the thunder of his predecessor and after the lion's roar his introductory cavilling is pitiful to hear. Why didn't the Opposition bring up this motion in its own and not Government time, he whimpers, and why did they have to bring it up at all just when the Budget was nearly upon us? The motion is a sham, he suggests, and should be rejected as such. Farmyard noises throughout the House re- assure him that, if he ever had such hopes, his complaints are unlikely to gain any sym- pathy. From the first he is up and down like a dog at the fair. When he is up he is talking over the mutterings and jeering of the Opposition and when down he droops miser- ably in his seat, his long, sad nose pointing between shoes that do not seem to reach the ground.
Mr Barber's concept of debate is a com- mon enough one in this Chamber. Always blame the other side and never forget that where political carping differs from nursery prattle, two wrongs do make a right. Steer clear of positive contention and never attend to the last gasp of a dying man when there's a skeleton you can drag from a cupboard and rattle instead.
Inflation and unemployment are evils that must be laid squarely at the door of the pre- vious government, according to Mr Barber; hen-pecking ground that has just been torn asunder. He is on shifting sand accelerating to landslide proportions as he thrashes around for scapegoats. There are the trade union bogeymen 'almost forcing their mem- bers to price themselves out of work'. The rest of his account is barely audible against scornful groans from the left. Like a nervous schoolmaster who cannot control an unruly class, Barber soldiers on, seemingly oblivious, but for the deepening pink of his ears, of the hopelessness of his position. He cannot con- trol his adversaries and, worse, cannot choose his supporters. A militant lady of his own persuasion insists ,on contributing her two penn'orth, for which he might justifiably have slaughtered her.
'Has my friend heard', she trills, 'what a well known trade union leader said?'—and goes on to read aloud one of Frank Cousins's more adventurous sallies. This, she suggests, is one of the major causes of the present lamentable unemployment situation. Her fine intentions provoke a round of merry applause from the Opposition, who flap their hands at her to encourage her to remain on her feet. Don't go, they hoot. Give us more! Lovely, lovely. Wonderful woman. Look under your chair, there's a communist.
Our Chancellor, thus supported, doesn't stand a dog's chance. His voice gets weaker, his ideas more and more pathetically con- fused until Jeremy Thorpe suggests the Chan- cellor simplifies matters for himself and understands that all the House wants to hear about are his ,intentions for improving the present condition of the country.
But it's too late. The last Government .', Mr Barber begins again and the uproar is upon him once more, never to subside. In vain does Captain Walter Elliot (Con, Car- shalton) appeal to the Speaker to stop what he describes as 'the series of primordial noises, grunts, shouts and cries of all sorts from the opposition benches'. Primordial noises, however, grunts, shouts and cries of all sorts pursue the Chancellor wherever he turns. 'We were right and they were wrong', may be heard struggling from his lips. And 'they can't make their criticisms stick unless they are able to establish they could have done better'. At last, so harassed is our noble Chancellor that he suffers a minor breakdown and his plaintive little voice is heard to sigh, 'Oh dear, the Prime Minister is now asking me another question'. Since Mr Heath has not uttered all afternoon and since Mr Harold Wilson is on his feet at the time of the utterance, it seems that poor Anthony Barber has finally over-cooked his goose. Mr Wilson, giggling like a naughty goblin, has had a lovely day even without this joyful omen rounding it off like a bless- ing from heaven.
As for Mr Heath, he looks a trifle pale but he bravely carries on with his act of being another man in another place. This time he's playing at being a man in a reference library. Leaning forward to the table of the House he selects, from among others, a small hard- back, Manual of Parliamentary Practice. He opens it at random and assumes an absorbed little frown.
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