Spectator's Notebook
AL the smoke-signals now emanating from Whitehall indicate that the Prime Minister is at last hovering on the brink of making a declara- tion of intent to join the Common Market. The big question is what precise form that declara- tion will take. Obviously, the only point now at issue is the question of the French veto—is it still there, and how can it be avoided? At his 'press conference' last week the General obliged by spelling out, with unprecedented clarity, the two reasons why France used her power of veto in 1963: our inability to accept the rules of the Common Market as they stood, and our allegi- ance (demonstrated by the Nassau agreement) to a power outside Europe (that is, the United States).
Now there are some highly intelligent Euro- peans who believe that the second part of the General's statement was just a bluff designed to frighten Mr Wilson off—in other words, that if we were to accept without reserve the rules of the Common Market (which means not just the Rome Treaty, but the rules of the common agricultural policy and all the various ancillary regulations agreed among the Six since 1958) the French would simply have to let us in. I don't share that view. I believe that even if we satisfied the Six as to the first half of the General's official admis- sion fee, we should then still have to conduct bilateral talks with Paris to reach agreement on the second. And since the outcome of these must inevitably be uncertain, this calls for political courage on the part of Mr Wilson; for it means that he will have to risk exactly the same public rebuff as Mr Macmillan suffered in 1963.
But what matters above all is that the Prime Minister's declaration of intent goes all the way with the EEC: in other words, it must be a firm undertaking to abide by the rules of the Rome Treaty and the agricultural policy and all the other regulations, subject only to transitional arrangements (to be negotiated) and a very small number of protocols to cover key special prob- lems such as New Zealand. Anything less than this would be disastrous: de Gaulle would simply shrug his shoulders, the talks with Paris would become irrelevant, and the Five would lose patience. The great danger is that in order to restore industrial confidence at home and to dis- tract his party's attention from Rhodesia and the public's from the recession Mr Wilson will be rushed into a premature declaration of intent; but that because of the weakness of sterling and general cold feet he will make it a qualified one. Far better no declaration at all for the time being than this.
After Erhard Meanwhile, the General is clearly savouring the pleasure of watching his opposite number across the Rhine, Chancellor Erhard, who has made the cornerstone of his policy the alliance with America rather than entente with France, fighting a hopeless battle for his political survival. What- ever the final outcome, Erhard's successor seems bound to choose at least a middle way between LBJ and de Gaulle. But in other respects the prospect is more disquieting. With 'time for a change' now firmly operating in favour of the Socialists (after seventeen years of Christian Democrat rule), but no election likely to be held for another three years, the most probable out- come of the present crisis is, it seems, the forma- tion of the so-called 'great coalition' between the two big main political parties. Parliamentary democracy in Germany even today is neither so old nor so deep-rooted that I, for one, will watch the disappearance of party politics and elimina- tion of all effective opposition with equanimity. Nor is my apprehension in any way allayed by the realisation that, if any effective opposition does eventually emerge, it can only be in the shape of the extremist German Nationalist party.
Profit without Honour
If, as Dr Johnson wisely remarked, 'there are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money,' one of those few ways must surely be the pursuit of honours. But innocence is no longer in fashion, and Mr J. Harold Wilson, OBE, has decided that poli- ticians should lead the way to the new Britain by suffering an honours freeze. But before all those who dislike politicians add their welcomes to the discontinuation of this harmless (and singu- larly non-inflationary) form of political reward, let me utter a word of warning. The alternative to an honours system, as the Americans under- stand full well, is the spoils system, in which political appointees are given public posts which they proceed to occupy with disastrous results and at the taxpayers' expense. No doubt this is all highly convenient for a Labour government, which is creating new public boards, commissions and posts of all kinds almost every day. But if it's to be a choice between honours and spoils I haven't much doubt which system I would prefer to see.
Cells within Cells What an almighty hash the Opposition has made of its parliamentary opportunities this past week. Instead of succeeding in keeping the Government on the run over the Blake affair and prison escape in general the Tories first made the error of mounting their attack in the shape of a personal motion of censure against the Home Secretary, then drafted the wrong motion of cen- sure anyway, and, finally, allowed Henry (now Lord) Brooke to rise from the political dead and throw a spanner into his side's own works as only he can. It didn't help, of course, that the Tories based their whole case on the assumption that Lord Brooke's spanner would prove their secret weapon. It's a pity that while they were about it they didn't consult Lord Butler first.
Mr Jenkins was certainly wrong—and point- lessly so—in misleadingly paraphrasing his pre- decessor's Home Office minute. But this is nothing compared with the discovery that when he initialled that minute Lord Brooke had no idea where Blake was, didn't think it important enough to find out, and regarded Blake as on a par with Mr Wilson (the train robber). The whole affair seems too bad te be true. I gather, incident- ally, from a friend who has long been visiting another inmate of D block of Wormwood Scrubs, that Blake had for a considerable time been work- ing hard, and with no little success, at busily converting his fellow-prisoners to Communism. Cells within cells, as Lord Mountbatten will doubtless discover.
Contempt Then, the following afternoon as ever was, Mr Harold Wilson took it on himself to defend the disgraceful remarks of his egregious Attorney- General on the Aberfan disaster inquiry. Sir Elwyn Jones, it will be recalled, had a few days earlier warned the press, radio and television not to make any comments on the origin or cause of the Aberfan disaster—or, for that matter, to in- terview any witnesses—since this would amount to contempt of court (the court being the inquiry tribunal) 'the possible consequences' of which, he added, 'call for no elaboration.' Strictly speak- ing, Sir Elwyn's statement was legally correct. But it is well known that the law of contempt is a scandalous law, and the citizen's (and the press's) protection has hitherto lain in the convic- tion that the Attorney-General of the day would only invoke it in a restrained and responsible way. But here was Sir Elwyn threatening to use it as an instrument of suppression of a basic freedom.
So to Mr Wilson's defence and justification, which turned out to be a wordy and unconvincing recital with not a single example of alleged press, radio or television iniquities at Aberfan, until, having restored Labour morale by a descent into personal abuse (of which he is the acknowledged master) at Mr Heath's expense, he at last quoted from an actual television interview. 'I have, as a young journalist' declared this interviewer according to Mr Wilson,
attended and reported several public inquiries into pit disasters. In rearly every case, I have to report that when the grief had safely abated, the final report was a judicial exercise in official whitewashing.
Mr Wilson concluded triumphantly : 'I want to ask you, whether in the light of that statement, at the very moment this motion was on the Order Paper, you still feel it was wrong for the Attorney-General to give his warning.' The answer, of course, is yes, more than ever. For by a stroke of staggering ineptitude Mr Wilson had succeeded in choosing what must have been one of the very few statements about the Aberfan disaster that was not even in the narrowest legal sense capable of being a contempt of court. But did a single member of the Opposition point this out? Not so far as I can discover.
NIGEL LAWSON
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