WINNING THE ELECTION
Next week Mr Heath and his ministers will gather in a kind of summit to assess the progress of the Government thus far, to consider the situation at home and abroad confronting it, and to decide upon the broad outline of the domestic and foreign policies it will endeavour to pursue. The Labour party will also meet, in its annual conference; and it is no disrespect to the party of alternative government to point out that Mr Heath's private conference with his administration at Chequers will be more important than the public rituals of Mr Wilson, his colleagues, supporters, friends and enemies at Brighton. Although the Labour party and its leader may enjoy greater favour with the public at the present time than the Conservative party and its leader, it is the party which is in power that counts, and Mr Heath and his lieutenants are the men whose decisions matter.
They are comfortably in power; Mr Heath commands a decent Parliamentary majority secure against the erosion of a series of by-election reverses; he and most of his team are firm men and any crumbling from the top which in the past has brought about the collapse of Tory administrations is unlikely; within his Cabinet the personal authority of Mr Heath appears to be as unchallenged as it will undoubtedly be made to appear at Brighton, where the Tory conference follows the Labour conference. Yet, when they meet at Chequers to consider their record so far and to anticipate the future, the ministers and their chief will be very aware that the situation before them presents great political difficulties. Put bluntly, if the strategic objective be defined as winning the next election (as the objective of the Selsdon Park meeting, with which next week's Chequers conference is being compared, was the winning of the last election), the Government will have to produce more and better evidence than it has so far done that Tory government works. It is not difficult to isolate the obstacles in the way of electoral victory. The problem facing Mr Heath and his men is how to surmount, get round or remove them.
The Irish obstacle is not of the Government's making. Nevertheless, the continuation of the Irish mess with no sign of it ever being cleared up will do the Government no good. Mr Heath is to be congratulated upon getting Mr Lynch and Mr Faulkner to talk together with him (and so are the two Irishmen for agreeing to do so), and few will not wish the forthcoming talks under Mr Maudling to go well. The Government and the Opposition are to be congratulated for maintaining the bipartisan approach. It may be that the Government's policy of tinkering with northern Ireland's constitutional arrangements, combined with internment and an army treating the IRA as its enemy, will in the long run work. We hope it will but think it will not. No one, however, can seriously believe that the Irish obstacle will have been surmounted, got round, or removed during the lifetime of this present Parliament; and if Mr Wilson and Mr Callaghan can persuade electors that they would be better, or at least no worse, at dealing with Ireland, then votes — and seats — could well be lost by the Tories. This may be unfair; but it is the way of the political world.
The Common Market obstacle is of the Government's making, and choosing. The massive propaganda effort by the Government to persuade the public of the benefits of entry has had some effect. Most calculations give the Government a kind of Parliamentary majority for a declaration of principle in favour of eritry; but if such a majority exists, it is likely that it will diminish, and it could disappear, when the House is asked to vote on the guillotine motion necessary to secure the enactment of enabling and consequential legislation, or at any time during the protracted passage of such legislation. The Government does not pretend that the immediate effects of entry will be other.than painful. The benefits, if any, could not be enjoyed, and thus have electoral effects helpful to the Tories, before the next general election, even were the present Parliament to be allowed to run its full course. The probable Tory argument, "we have got you into Europe; we are therefore the people to be in power during the first years of the great venture," is not likely to carry as much electoral weight as the higher food prices the housewife will have to pay.. Unless the public experiences a massive, and quite uncharacteristic, sense of exaltation about the European venture, Mr Heath's Common Market policy, on any reasonable assessment, must be expected to lose more votes than it will gain.
The third chief obstacle is the economic one. It is the Government's failure to convince the public that it is any better than the Labour party, and the impression that it may indeed even be worse, handling the econothy, that is the princ cause of public dissatisfaction with t performance of Mr Heath and his men. rise in prices has been worse than p.ected, and Mr Heath's election phr that he would reduce the rise "at stroke" may prove as damaging a gaffe Mr Wilson's phrase about "the _pound your pocket." Moreover, the rate• unemployment, higher than ever before the post-war world, is proof of a diffe and even worse kind than inflation, that far, Tory government, if it is working at (and it may well be), is working in mysterious way and that there have yet been any wonders to perform. It despite this that there is in its dealing WI' the economic obstacle the promise of gre achievement and the prospect, therefor of growth in the support Mr Heath administration may come to attract fro the public. The inflationary rise may ha' been checked. Prices could settle. Indust may begin to share a guarded confided with the City. There cannot be an hide trial shake-out without men being shake out of jobs; and if, by next spring, unemployment figures start falling and at the same time, the new employment in profitable and not unprofitable wnr then these days of a million uneniploY! may in the future be seen as the beginnl, of the end of the economic disease. Des1) inflation and unemployment, it is becn ing clear that we are not quite as sick as° have believed ourselves to be.
Thus optimism about winning a sec term of office need not be entif excluded from the deliberations of t Tory chiefs at Chequers next week. Gre political rewards await any government, either party which is able to convince t' public that it knows what to do about t economy. The radical departures from PI policies by the present administration 01, yet work and be seen to work. I Government should not, and in all Pi bability will not, be deflected from course, which is one of reducing st(Ji intervention in industry and in the snc, services, of encouraging private enterPri: and allowing the weak to go to the assisting individuals (but not firy genuinely in need, and of reducing 13 • simplifying taxation. This is what It elected to do; and if it does it, and l'tt works, there is still enough time foci Conservative party to win the next n'y tion.
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