Political Commentary
The eiderdown brigade
Patrick Cosgrave
Looking down from the press gallery at the House of Commons last week I had the momentary feeling that everybody there had just come out of summer hibernation and started moving again — slightly stiffly at first, but with increasing smoothness as the hours passed, and in' the same grooves they had been in last time. Of course it was the tag end of an old session (die new one begins at the end of this month), but even so there was little consciousness, it seemed, that we Were in a new political year, one likely, at that, to contain a general election. It was not until the Middle East debate on Thursday that fresh challenges seemed to arise, and these, too, took one back — at least to the Conservative conference at Blackpool, for here was Sir Alec again, smoothly, intelligently, captivating and winning a substantial majority for the proposition that everything should be left to him. It was only when my own eye was in that I began to see the differences. There was, for example, the curiously mixed appearance of that happy band of Liberal brothers. Mr Austick and Mr Freud had joined their number — the latter to vote in the wrong lobby on the first night. (" The new dog peed against the wrong lamp-post," said one Labour member in perhaps the best of many jokes about Mr Freud's employment as an advertiser of tinned dog foods.) By Friday, of course, such Liberals as were around began to look as though•Santa Claus had snatched their Christmas presents back from them, the ITN poll having shown that their percentage of support had fallen to twenty-three. Now, the problem for the Liberals is that even so substantial a figure would produce very little return in terms of seats won in a general election campaign. Such is the inherent bias of the system against them that more than 25 per cent of the votes would be required to get them anywhere near Mr Thorpe's dream of a number of seats sufficient to hold the balance: below twenty-five and the Liberals remain just a handful; above it and they can hope to score large gains. .So, opined the cognoscenti of the other two parties with relief, the Liberal balloon was starting to deflate. Of course, it is not necessarily so: the Liberals gained after their conference, Labour after theirs, and the Tories are now reaping the benefit of a seaside jamboree. Nonetheless, the Liberals have much more to do than the others, and that magic hurdle of 25 per cent is the one they must leap. I observed recently (before the two main conferences) that whether the Liberals kept up their momentum or no depended on how many people died between now and the general election, and how many by-elections, therefore, have to be held. There are now no less than four outstanding, all to be decided early next month. In two of them, Brighton and Hove and Berwick, the Liberal challenge is already under way. It seems, however, that there is at least an unspoken agreement between the Labour and Tory party managers to hold as many by-elections as possible on the same day, so as to divide the armies of Liberal volunteers. But, even apart from any such Machiavellian considerations, it has begun to look as though the Liberal initiative, at least in Brighton, is foundering. Mr Wilson of Shelter, their candidate, engaging enough in his rabbit-toothed way, was a champion selected in rather an unusual fashion, whose antipodean charm is working far less well than he had hoped on the old folk of the constituency, and certainly less well than the more conventional and more genuine-feeling charm of the quiet, serious and able Conservative candidate, Mr Sainsbury. Things are brighter at Berwick: even so, Mr R. W. Elliott, the Tory member for a neighbouring constituency, who has been looking after Mr Lambton's abandoned sheep, and who is also a vice-chairman of the Conservative Party, has been glowing with quiet confidence recently; and if the Liberals do not win Berwick, they will have foundered badly, perhaps fatally.
A lot now depends on the events of the winter, and on the contents of the Queen's Speech, which will specify the legislation the Government hopes to put before Parliament in the new session. Winter, especially if it is a cold winter, is a peculiarly dangerous season for politicians. When Mr Wilson went to the country in the summer of 1970, he appeared to be riding the crest of a wave. He himself could foresee the dangers of industrial disruption in the coming winter, and feared, indeed, that the whole industrial situation could get out of control, leaving him with very little time to reconstruct the fortunes of his government before an election became mandatory. What at the time looked like the brilliant and unscrupulous seizing of a heaven-sent opportunity was, in plain fact, a manoeuvre within a very tight circle of calculation. Mr Heath has more time to play with than Mr Wilson had in 1970: even if it was a bad winter he would have a whole year to recover from it.
The encouraging thing for him is that the gap between Tories and Labour is clearly so small. And in the Conservative Party one can still find a curious and persisting confidence that they are going to win the next election, just as, in the Labour Party, one finds a curious and persisting confidence that Labour are soing to lose. The Tory conviction derives from a genuine belief in their own propaganda, a genuine belief that the country simply will not accept the kind of programme Labour offered at Blackpool at the beginning of the
month. The Labour conviction derives, as far as I can see, from a continuing and now almost ineradicable belief that the last Wilson government was a horrible mess, and that the same men again in charge would produce a similar mess.
The principal Tory fear is the fear of abs. tentions. Abstentions among hitherto loyal supporters were a major factor in. bringing down Mr Wilson in 1970. In the middle of the campaign itself, when the Tories were welt nigh suicidal, Mr Richard Crossman, engage,d on a constituency tour, observed how badlY staffed many Labour headquarters and nut' stations were; and began to fear for the result. The Tories are in exactly the same danger now. They have always depended for their staggeringly consistent run in power on average income earners, especially in the working class. These people have benefitea little if at all from the Tory taxation reduction measures which were supposed to help then so much: despite figures carefully and cdn' sistently prepared and published by the Con' servative Research Department, it is noW, quite clear that, given the phenomenon 01 inflation, the Chancellor's numerous ta% reductions have made little real difference to .the family on average income and what is more important, the average income earner feels that nothing has been done for him. Sir Keith Joseph's remarkable performance at the DHSS has certainly helped many of the more unfortunate members of society, and thus probably won some support for the Govern' ment among the members of the conscience stricken middle class (the Jenkins consti' tuency): but it is unlikely to have made much impact on the hard-nose,d Tory voter. "The eiderdown brigade," Mr Wilson called the Labour members who left the House, usually with pleas that they had colds, before the vote on the Middle East last ThursdaY. There is an eiderdown brigade in both parties in the country as well. I was speaking other day to twenty or so harthworkins young Tories, whom I asked about the reception they were getting on the doorstees: and how exactly they would set abotil defending the Government's policies. " There 5 no use trying," said one (who came froin Sutton), with a rueful grin, "they woulcIn even begin to listen." A spirit like that is a dangerous one for any government to have to face, and it is not a spirit likely to be over" come by expensive poster and television campaigns. What can Mr Heath do? Well, he could star,! by winning the battle against inflation. This '' pretty well an impossible task, since it is far too late for him to adopt the kind of el.aec" torally dangerous policy favoured by Irhr Powell, while there is little he can do wit' Phase Three (or Phase Four, for that matte!) which he can be certain will produce t1:1 desired results. He can, of course, and have to, wait and hope that the mixture 0" come sufficiently good in time for the contes.t. And he can embark on some cosmetic measures, like a Cabinet re-shuffle, soli reforms in the Industrial Relations Act, an the implementation of new consumer protection measures. It will be especially interesting to see what the Queen's Speech will have toe offer in the way of new legislation likely to b on or advancing towards the statute book by. the time a general election is declared; anut one suspects that there can hardly be a gren_ deal that is significant. The reshuffle has beeps so long coming that one wonders whether it !_ going to come at all: even when it does itIs_ doubtful if the impact will be great. Th: Government is too deeply grappled v/r events for even the ebullient presence of Whitelaw on some more intimate part of !3cr. 'home front to be a crucial factor in Heath's survival. Still, Labour have not take:. real advantage of his difficulties. The ON election is still up for grabs; and the efde' 'down brigade is likely to decide it.
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