What Mr Cook has on the back burner along with his chicken tikka masala
FRANK JOHNSON
Afew years ago, Lord Tebbit announced his 'cricket test'. He said words to the effect that the real test of whether a Briton of immigrant origin owed ultimate allegiance to this country was whether they cheered on the English cricket team when it played India, Pakistan or the West Indies.
Many of us who broadly agreed with him had a few difficulties. We were born of a long line of Britons, but we still tended to cheer on the Italian and German music teams against the British. Ideally, we would love to have seen Vaughan Williams thrash Beethoven, But in any game between their respective symphonies, we shout for the Kraut. It is broadly the same with international painting. In the romantic division, in the view of many of us, our Turner beats France's Delacroix. Otherwise, no contest; France and Italy always beat us at painting. Still, we understood Lord Tebbit's drift.
Now Mr Robin Cook has introduced his tandoori test. In that speech on race which so enlivened the Easter season, he claimed that the British national dish was chicken tikka masala. In any eating match, we indigenous Britons would be expected to cheer on the masala team against the fishand-chips or black-pudding squad. It was unclear whether Mr Cook — a Scot — was arguing that chicken tikka masala was now more the Scottish national dish than haggis. Doubtless it is. In Scotland, it is now quite hard to find a restaurant that does haggis. But Mr Cook is probably not brave enough to say that haggis is no longer the Scottish national dish. He confines himself to a safe reference to 'British'. By that, he probably implies just English. Politicians think it safe to seek to undermine the identity of the English. From their point of view, we have the merit of being both the majority and, on the whole, and until aroused in extremity, passive. That makes the politicians — for the time being — think us safe soil in which to sow the multicultural crop which they hope in due course to reap.
And sowing for the future is what Mr Cook's speech could well have been about. In all the reporting of it, hardly anyone seems to have asked why, at this particular time, did he make it? We are nearing a general election. Traditionally, race has won more votes for the Conservatives than for Labour. Some Labour politicians think that Asians and West Indians, and their descendants born in this country, are in the process of forming a huge block of dependable Labour voters. But that is not certain. Asians in particular might be attracted to the more capitalist of the two big parties. In any case, even it were true, Labour as a party especially hospitable to Asians and West Indians could damage the idea of Labour as a party equally hospitable to whites; and whites will remain the majority for the foreseeable future. That is why Mr Blair does not say much about race. It is impossible to imagine his making that speech of Mr Cook's. So, on the face of it, there were no votes in it for Mr Cook. But there were; they were different votes. That is, the votes of Labour party members in years to come.
It is not at all certain that Mr Blair will retain Mr Cook as foreign secretary after the election. Apart from prime minister, politicians consider only two other offices to be comparable with the Foreign Office: the Exchequer and the Home Office. There must be some sort of promotion and demotion after the election. Mr Blair would not remove Mr Brown from the Exchequer against Mr Brown's will. Mr Blunkett is thought likely to become home secretary, with Mr Straw going to the Foreign Office. At least this is what Labour backbenchers say. Mr Cook will probably go to some invented new office to do with industry or the environment or whatever. He will be discontented. He will need what we armchair strategists call 'a power base in the party'; that is, as in any party, a lot of the more extreme backbenchers and constituency agitators prepared to support him and vote for him, especially in those constant elections which Labour has — to the National Executive or, when in opposition, the shad ow Cabinet. If Mr Cook is thus reduced, the masala speech will be a help to him. He would have proved himself the multiculturalists' candidate. He will also be remembered as having been the European federalist: another anti-English cause, as so many left-wing federalists, especially Scots, see it. He remained a European at a time when fear of the electorate made Mr Blair and Mr Brown less enthusiastic in that cause.
There is a precedent. Just before a general election, another Labour Cabinet minister, with a vaguely leftish reputation, made a speech accusing various Tories of being 'racist', and the Tory leader of being afraid of them. Labour was well ahead in the polls. The Tory leader was unpopular in the opinion polls. The prime minister complacently called the election. Labour lost. But the Cabinet minister in question went on to hold that office which seems to be part of our constitution; 'leader of the Left'.
Mr Tony Benn was the Cabinet minister. The prime minister was Wilson, the election 1970. In the campaign Mr Benn made a speech saying that the flag flying over Wolverhampton — where Mr Enoch Powell's constituency was situated — was the same flag that had flown over Auschwitz. A friend who was working in the Labour apparat at the time said that Wilson and party headquarters were engulfed in letters from Labour voters saying that, because of Mr Benn's speech, they would not vote Labour this time.
In his diaries, the then Labour Cabinet minister Richard Crossman mentions addressing meetings in two Black Country towns, Halesowen and Oldbury, during the campaign. 'Racialism has been extremely violent in this area,' he writes. Then he shows that there were limits to his own liberalism. He refers to the then home secretary (later prime minister): 'There is no doubt that stopping immigration, which was one of Callaghan's great achievements, has done a lot for us.... 'Achievement? Crossman makes it sound like a socialist aspiration. In truth, Labour took office in 1964, having voted against all Tory attempts to stop immigration.
The swing against Labour was higher than average in the West Midlands at that election. Mr Benn need not have worried. He went on to office as leader of the Left. Likewise Mr Cook is not worried now, but Mr Blair is.
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