SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
NIGEL LAWSON
America's greatest contribution to western philosophy to date (the field is admittedly not all that strong) has, I suppose, been C. L. Stevenson's 1938 Mind paper on 'Persuasive Definitions.' In it he showed how what pur- ports to be a neutral definition can often be a covert piece of propaganda about the thing de- fined. I'm reminded of this by the Govern- ment's brilliant notion of giving the proposed enabling Bill, designed to give the state the power of arbitrary and selective intervention in private industry, the official title of the In- dustrial Expansion Bill. Of course, in reality it's got nothing to do with expansion whatever, and indeed appears at a time when expan- sionist policies are conspicuous by their absence. But this is what makes the nomen- clature all the more useful. To the heckler who asks 'what's happened to all that dynamic growth you were promising?' the Government spokesman will only have to answer 'well. we've passed the Industrial Expansion Act.' 'The Tories,' he will add for good measure, 'may talk of expansion; but when it came to the crunch they opposed the Industrial Expansion Bill every inch of the way.'
The Tories must indeed be kicking them- selves for what in this sense were incon- trovertibly thirteen wasted years. If only the boringly named Resale Prices Act had been entitled the Price Reduction and Housewives' Protection Act. And the least that Duncan Sandys could have called his unpopular Rent Act was the Housing Improvement Act. But it's too late by far for right-wing regrets. The ball is now in clever Mr Crossman's court. So stand by for the Industrial Expansion Bill and its successors: the Balance of Payments Sur- plus Bill, the Rhodesia (Honourable Settlement) Bill, and the Abolition of Poverty Bill. No need to bother about drafting new legislation—let alone new policies. Just slap the names on whatever's next in the parliamentary pipeline.
Class war
We publish on another page the results of our poll of participants in last week's Conservative party conference at Brighton, and very interest- ing they are,-too. For me the conference con- firmed what I had already suspected : that edu- cation is the one issue in British politics today to give rise to genuine passion and real emotion on both sides of the political fence. Not that this indicates any overwhelming concern with education as such. It's just that the secondary schools are for the moment the main battle- ground in the class war, and the class war is still the real gut-issue between the parties. On the left, the so-called comprehensive 'principle' is seen as the chief instrument of vengeance against a privileged class—characteristically, the left can't even choose the right target—while on the right the embattled bourgeoisie feels bound to fight back.
This, I'm sure, explains why there was so much personal hostility among the petit-bour- geois right at Brighton towards Sir Edward Boyle (the upper classes don't send their child- ren to grammar schools anyway, so for them the controversy is academic in more senses than one). Boyle is seen not simply as a pink Tory, but as something far worse: a class traitor. This is a tricky situation for any politician in either
party, and I'm not at all sure Edward Boyle has the Butlerian dissimulation required to handle it properly. He's won his battle to dis- suade the Tory party from root and branch opposition to comprehensives. In the next re- shuffle, for the sake of his own future political career, it would be well if he were given some new job away from the class war firing line.
What Dizzy didn't say
Talking of Brighton, I was pained to hear the Leader of the Tory party declare in one speech 'when we are asked to state again the principles of our party, then it was the maintenance of the constitution which was the first principle laid down by Disraeli.' This must be one of the commonest misquotations in political life. What Disraeli really said was 'the maintenance of our institutions,' and the difference is a crucial one. In a very real sense Britain lacks a constitution, which is one reason (though not the only one) why our institutions are far more important than they may appear. And the Tory party has shown by its feebleness over the majority jury innovation that it isn't nearly vigilant enough about the dangers to the institutions on which freedom, order and justice depend. Further threats tie ahead.
Black and white
Among the saddest sights in London toda‘ are the cars—usually old, small Austins—driven by unsmiling respectable-looking black men and bearing the rear-window sticker 'Support Biafra.' No one, of course, takes the slightest notice. The Ibo people have suffered atrocities of a kind and on a scale unparalleled in modern Africa; and Biafra, the only country where they are safe, is gradually being throttled out of existence, with the possibility of further mass- murder if and when Ojukwu surrenders. Yet those protest groups usually so ready to speak up for oppressed black Africans remain silent. Evidently the left doesn't mind how great the murder, persecution and torture provided the oppressors are also black.
Psephology
Television interviewers and others obsessed with the declining opinion poll support for Mr Heath, may care to look at Gallup's graph, which shows an equally steady but even steeper fall—from a much higher figure—for Mr Wilson. I calculate that on present trends the two lines will eventually meet in December 1968, when both men will enjoy zero support.
Out of the mouths ...
My favourite comment on the fuss over the identity of 'M' was Osbert Lancaster's, in his Express cartoon : master to small boy—`Tell me, Clutterbuck, are we still claiming that our pater is head of M.I.6?' I particularly enjoyed it because, until about a year and a half ago. I was not at all sure that 'M' was Sir Dick White myself. It was then that my small son said to me, 'It's a pity you're not famous like Stephen White's father: he's head of the Secret Service.'
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