Political commentary
Dead sheep at bay
Colin Welch
Stag at bay week for Mr Foot at Black- 1.-3 pool, his wounds and embarrassment accumulating, his antlers wobbling, his flanks gory, the cruel jaws of the polls and the Militant Tendency tearing at his rump, the slight 'moderates' loping along near at hand, waiting to turn the kill to their advan- tage. Or that was how it was expected to be. In fact, as so often happens, reality proved less dramatic than prophecy. The old boy got away with some ease and considerable skill. Good news for Mrs Thatcher? In a way; though a hideous struggle for the Labour leadership might have suited her better.
To reassert his so-called authority, not one but two great speeches on successive days were expected from this half-disabled Demosthenes. He has been, to be sure, described by John Cole as one of the great orators of the Left, along with Lloyd George and Bevan. Well, I have seen him years ago without notes reduce the whole Commons to helpless laughter. But I have never before seen him fighting for his own life or anyone else's. Nor does his normal questing and elusive, improvisatory and in- cantatory style of oratory readily lend itself to cogent defence or to ferocious counter- attack. No wonder his supporters were ap- prehensive.
How could such an act be got together and dropped on the Militants? Denis Healey memorably described being attack- ed by Geoffrey Howe as like being savaged by a dead sheep. To be attacked by Mr Foot on recent form might be rather like being dive-bombed by some old shot and wound- ed bustard, one wing kaput, its steering gear wonky, now swooping, now lurching, now side-slipping, showers of feathers fly- ing about in all directions.
He dealt with the Militants on Monday, however, by sticking very, very strictly and repetitively to the point — and that 'a very, very narrow one. He permitted himself no harsh comments on them or their views. The row for him was not about policy ques- tions at all. Indeed, he broadly and shrewd- ly hinted that it was wrong to discourage the expression in the Labour movement of any views, Marxist or not, because they might be 'the very ideas for the future'. No, the Militants were in breach of the Labour party constitution, that was all and that was that. Most of the emotion he displayed was lavished on that hallowed document, the tree to be spared by the woodman. One might have thought it had originated in heaven itself rather than in the musty cerebellum of Sidney Webb. His speech was coolly received.
As for his presentation of the parliamen- tary report on Tuesday, his apologia pro vita sua, I suppose it was a sort of tour de force. No matter that he quoted from a Times leader, more extensively, I think, than he acknowledged. It was great oratory, deserving its standing ovation. On- ly to me can it have recalled, in its half- suppressed hysteria and demagogy, the wild eloquence of Kerensky, pregnant not only with swift fame but also with horror and disaster for a whole great nation.
Mr Foot has, to be sure, yet another style of oratory, highly commended by Peter Kellner in the New Statesman. This consists of reading carefully from copious and precise notes with his nose about three in- ches from the paper. His missile-scrapping CND speech at Bristol, reported in full in the Guardian on 4 September, was delivered thus, the rash analyses and pro- mises, the sheer nonsense in it thus par- ticularly and unusually clear. To take its central point, there may well be a case for us to scrap missiles and spend the savings on 'adequate conventional defence'. It never convinces me, least of all when ex- pounded by a man like Mr Foot. His whole thrust is surely against whatever defence we happen to have. Save money on missiles, save it next on conventional forces: no defence could ever for him have priority over the kiddiz, the old folk and the Third World.
Re-launched as a glossy-covered mon- thly, the CND magazine Sanity prints let- ters wishing it success from many veteran peace strugglers, Brockway, Pinter, Melly, Soper, Canon Collins and Michael Foot among them. His presence in this galere is one reminder among many that he changes not, and that whoever calls him a moderate, centrist, or middle-of-the-roader might with just as much justice apply the terms to A. Benn or Allende or Jaruzelski (as some indeed have done). Unless memory errs, Denis Healey delivered an economics speech of incredible irresponsibility and `terminological inexactitude' on or about exactly the same day as Mr Foot in Bristol. These facts remind us, as does this con- ference all the time, what base and wild forces struggle against the Militants for control of a bankrupt whelk stall which none of them is very obviously fit to run. It is not a struggle in which it is easy for nor- mal people to take sides.
Two questions arise as a result of the Militants' defeat. 1) What's happened? 2) What does it all really mean? First, they haven't gone, and getting them out will be the very devil. Even identifying them is tricky enough. The new National Executive is more to Mr Foot's taste. It will have its work cut out all the same. Militants obey conference decisions only when it suits
them. You might compare them to limpets on a rock: huge waves sweep over them, but they remain inviolate. Conference resolu' tions are to them just so much water -- great force at the time but soon dispersed. As Militant Labour candidate Pat Wall Put it, 'You cannot separate the ideas of Mars and this movement.' Indeed, these ideas are not so much grit in the works as the works themselves.
As to what it all really means, I must con' fess to some bafflement. The Militants are supposed partly or wholly to reject the authority of Parliament and to be in favour of various sorts of direct action or revolu' tion. But so many respected socialists have shared their impatience, from CriPPs through Laski and the young Healey down, even to old Uncle Jim Callaghan, that one wonders: why pick on them? Why are they so specially offensive. Because they are Trotskyites? Apparently not. Mr Foot recently told John Mortimer that 'there was a good deal to be said for Trotsky' (What? CW). The Militants 'Call themselves Trotskyites, but I think theY malign Trotsky .. . he was far less sectarian than Stalin. They alienate people • i.e. lose votes. In fact at the decisive n1°- ment Trotsky had 'alienated' far more Pen,°- pie than Stalin, but let that pass. What Mr Foot seems to be saying is that the Militants would be nicer if they were more like Trot- sky rather than less, and if they didn't con' stitute 'a conspiracy against the Labour party' — words coming strangely from such a veteran rebel. Is it because the Militants are Marxist? What if they are? Asked if he is himself a Marxist, Mr Foot only replies evasively that `It's foolish to deride Marx's contribution ... the idea of the class war is fundamental' before waffling on about Marx being, like himself, a cosy old bookworm. No less cow fusing is Mr Silkin's assertion that 'tit! Militants' claim to constitute the Marxist influence in the Labour Party is arrogant and false'. Who then can properly Make,. such a claim? Other Labourites? All ° them? Mr Silkin himself? It seems to him anyway a good influence, something to be proud of. He further accuses them of oP' posing some of Labour's best (i.e. bar: miest) policies, such as the alternatin economic strategy, import controls an. withdrawal from the Common Market. true, bully for them. Like that beautiful and sinister Nazi boy at the end of Cabaret, the Militants are confident that the future belongs to them' What `moderates' now attack as extremism they will soon be enthusiastically embracing and defending as moderation. Every `right wing victory' leaves the right wing well ,t_„ the left of where it was before — even to 01,' left of where the left once was. Every tact1 cal success is a strategic disaster — a little more soul sold. The Militants by contrast lose battles, but not wars. They have malt; ed out and now occupy the ideologic ground on which the next great Labour re: conciliation and reunification will take place.
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