Political commentary
Massacre of SDP innocent
Colin Welch
Tt was a joy for all to see Mr Foot after the Darlington by-election restored to that shambling rambling good humour which has for so long deserted him. He was surg- ing crabwise down the steps of his house, legs and stick all over the place, hair and tie swirling in the breeze, a voluminous coat over his arm threatening to trip him up at every step. Even the fact that he was on the way to the funeral of a dear colleague could not wholly conceal or repress his new con- fidence. The word had come, take up thy bed and walk; and there he was, looking rather like an unmade bed walking, yet again 'in charge', so far as he ever was, speculation about his imminent demise 'killed right off', loyalty pledges pouring in, on top of the world, 'a good day for Darl- ington and for the people of Britain', but above all a good day for the people's Michael, the first for some time.
It was also a good day for what is now termed 'moderation' in the Labour Party. Much was made of the victorious Mr O'Brien's restraint and good sense, his pleasant appearance and manners. He has also, to judge by the snaps, a notably at- tractive wife; no Tatchell he, to be sure. Yet it must surely be evident by now that no new Labour MP is ever again likely to be 'moderate' as we understood the word 20 or 30 years ago. Mr O'Brien has had to swallow a programme which no Labour leader till now would have stomached, which the Communists fully endorse, which would have struck men like Bevin and Gait- skell as madness, which actually does strike as madness their true heirs, who have either left the party or who, staying in it, struggle feebly for lingering shreds of sanity or, shoulders shrugged, keep their thoughts cynically to themselves or a few cronies.
Massive nationalisation, slashing defence cuts, unilateral disarmament, withdrawal from Europe, a legal (or perhaps, in the case of education, illegal) ban on private health and education, a one-chamber parliament: this is what 'moderation' en- compasses now. Fresh fatuities are added almost every day, including a raid on the people's pension funds. A ban on hunting is proposed (the favourite sport of Engels, no less), with subsidies for angling: foxes are red, we know, fish presumably Tories.
This programme was described to Adam Raphael by a cynical right-wing shadow cabinet member as the longest suicide note ever penned. No matter, he presumably grins and bears it, though there is no com- promise in it, no give and take, nothing but a further leftward turn of the ratchet, ef- fected so to speak with the mute assent of
his dead body. To what else are we to at- tribute Mr Healey's shameful attacks on the EEC? And did not he and Mr Hattersley both engage never to serve in a Labour government committed to unilateralism? They are already serving in an opposition so committed. Are they hoping never to have their bluff called by that opposition achiev- ing power?
This programme is what the 'moderate' Mr O'Brien, for all his sheep's clothing, thinks right. The Young Socialists' past is Labour's present, their present Labour's future. They may look a bit mad: true pro- phets often do. What the Young Socialists wanted a generation ago, the moderates now endorse. What the Young Socialists want now is what the moderates will en- dorse next. And what do they want? Resolu- tions submitted for their conference tell us: for instance, abolition of the monarchy and police force, the armed services free to elect their own officers and go on strike, na- tionalisation of 200 or so 'monopolies', a £90 minimum wage for a 35-hour maximum week, troops out of Ireland, political status for IRA prisoners and solidarity with the IRA, a 'socialist workers' republic'. This year or next, this decade or next, Mr O'Brien will have to endorse all this, if he has not done so already in pet to. Unilateralist and anti-European we know him to be, and by conviction rather than as protective colouring. He fought his way on to the train. We must assume that he knows where it is going.
As for the Alliance, all its triumphs and disasters seem impostors, now up, now down, with nothing to be safely ex- trapolated from its bouncing fortunes. Its results at Bermondsey and Darlington sure- ly have a better claim to be dismissed as 'statistical garbage' than the figures about black crimes of violence so dismissed by Mr Hattersley. (Not long ago, incidentally, I was walking alone at night along a narrow dark street. Towards me lurched a mob of young blacks, singing and yelling, wearing those strange woolly peaked caps which look as if they had been inflated. Had they been a mob of elderly women, clergymen,
nuns or even retired majors, I would have been less apprehensive. Would Mr Hatters- ley, true to himself and conscientiously deaf to the evidence supplied by statistics or hearsay, have been more so?) The Alliance has not proved its ability to win Labour seats from normal candidates. It has proved it can damage and frighten the Tories; but that doesn't damage Labour (far from it); and Labour is what the Alliance has to damage if it is to replace it' It blames the inexperience of its candidate. But where on earth are small or young par- ties on the make to find experienced can- didates? There will be standing for the Alliance many Tony Cooks (we have seen them at the party conferences), vague, well" meaning, oft-bearded innocents, unknovva to those who selected them, pigs in pokes, their qualities and defects emerging nnlY too late, as the campaign unfolds.
The Social Democrat candidate at Car- diff North-West quits 10 days after selec- tion, his blood-pressure apparently en- dangered by what happened to Mr Cook ia Darlington and by the rueful reflection that 'by-elections do not seem to be quiet affairs any more'. I sympathise: but really, new parties, if they are going to get anywhere, should welcome, and flourish by, what is here deplored. They should relish and pros' per from noisy by-elections: the more pub" licity the better. They should play their inex" perience as a trump card and make the frost of it. They are supposed to be offering something altogether new; to offer it theY should have new people, inexperience evitably, but untarnished by the clismai drudgery of machine politics and the glib repetition of party slogans long staled bY familiarity. Of course they would run risks' thereby. But these risks would be rnacb reduced if the Alliance were inspired hY clear and persuasive philosophy, a vital ail° over-riding sense of new purpose, a visi°,11 which would, like a rising tide, lift all Itis candidates, brilliant, mediocre or awfth' point them in the right direction and sweeP them on to victory or at least gl°rY: Philosophy, new purpose, vision: does the Alliance lack, inter alia, these things. If it does, tactics cannot supply the want.i Tactical voting is fickle voting. What,lo
gives here it takes away there. Those „ live by tactics will perish by them. Nor
vast array of 'policies' suffice, even if theY_ were so clearly 'spelt out' as to meet ev.e1i, Dr Owen's requirements. As Man Watkins has pointed out, the SDP has policies c°1111; ing out of its ears. When people pervelsew accuse it of having no policies, he tinues, they mean that 'it lacks an 0.511 recognisable identity, a very differell matter'. Just as the Arab is arguably not the Orr/e of the desert but the father of it, 5° 'policies' not the parents but the children a coherent outlook on life. What counts 1_, as always, men not measures, character nc0" 'policies'; which is perhaps for the Alli e
an bad news.
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