Political Commentary

Where are the wonder kids?

John Grigg

Politics is a game which is best played, as a rule, by those who start playing it young. Very few of the major figures in our political history have entered the House of Commons in middle life. Most have become MPs in their thirties, and many in their twenties.

The present House of commons contains approximately 100 MPs of forty or under (out of a total of 635). Of these about fifty are Conservatives, about forty Labour, four SNP, three Liberals, two UUUC and one Plaid Cymru. How many of them are known to a wide public or have done anything really out of the ordinary ?

On the Labour side the most successful, to date, is probably David Owen, the Minister of Health. He has not only reached comparatively high office, but has also shown a good deal of courage in supporting Roy Jenkins. Others who have attracted some notice are (among junior Ministers) Michael Meacher and (among back-benchers) Leslie Huckfield, Phillip Whitehead, Robert Kilroy-Silk and Helene Hayman.

A promising new recruit in the under-forty bracket is Geoffrey Robinson, elected at a by-election for Maurice Edelman's old seat in Coventry. He is unusual among MPs in having held a big executive position in manufacturing industry, as managing director of Jaguar.

The younger Tories include four moderately notable front-benchers, Norman Fowler, David Howell, Christopher Tugendhat and Malcolm R if kind. Commendable (if, in my view, wrong-headed) independence has been shown by Teddy Taylor and Ian Sproat, leading opponents of Scottish devolution. Another young man of spirit is David Hunt, recently elected for the Wirral, who might have been in Parliament sooner had he trimmed his Sails to suit a Powel I ite constituency association at Plymouth. And Anthony Nelson, still under thirty, is perhaps worth watching.

In the Liberal group David Steel has unquestionably made his individual mark. Other names may occur to readers, but I wonder if anyone will be able to say with confidence that they can detect a future Prime Minister among the under-forties in Parliament today.

Now look back twenty years to 1956. Edward Heath, still under forty, was Conservative Chief Whip. In his maiden speech a few years earlier he had challenged the orthodoxy of both front benches by arguing for British membership of the European Coal and Steel Community. Reginald Maudling, aged thirty-nine, was Minister of Supply.

Edward Boyle was Economic Secretary to the Treasury and soon to resign over Suez. Sir Winston Churchill told my father that he gave Boyle his first Ministerial post in 1954 with some reluctance, because he was then even younger than he—Churchill--had been when he first became a Minister. Another quite senior, but youthful, member of the Government, who was also to resign over Suez, was Anthony Nutting; and a backbench leader of the militant Suez Group was Julian Amery.

Other bright sparks among the Tory under-forties were Nigel Nicolson and the newly-elected Sir Keith Joseph ; and a bright under-thirty was Peter Kirk. Christopher Soames was a junior Minister, but perhaps he has to be balanced against Winston Churchill in the present Parliament, as someone whose place in the public eye was not at the time solely due to his own merits.

Then, as now, youth was less well represented on the Labour than on the Tory benches. But it made up in quality for what it lacked in quantity. At the beginning of 1956 Harold Wilson was still under forty, having been a Cabinet Minister for three-and-a-half years before resigning, with Bevan, in 1951.

Roy Jenkins, first elected in his twenties, was already regarded as a coming man and had published what some regard as his best book, Mr Balfour's Poodle. Wedgwood Benn, also elected in his twenties, had made his name by pleading before the House of Lords that he should be excused the reversion of his father's peerage.

It was in 1956 that ,a Labour MP aged thirty-seven brought out a very influential book called The Future of Socialism. His name, of course, was Anthony Crosland, and he had earlier produced Britain's Economic Problem. Another star among the Labour under-forties was the brilliant but erratic Denis Healey.

Without wishing in any way to idealise the past or denigrate the present, it is surely hard to feel that today's young politicians are quite as talented or promising as their predecessors twenty years ago. Why the contrast ?

One reason, no doubt, is that Britain is now a far less powerful country, and that its politics are correspondingly less interesting. In 1956 much of the Empire still remained and Britain's prestige in the world was still— until the Suez fiasco—remarkably high. The sad decline that has since occurred must inevitably have reduced the attraction of politics to young people of imagination and spirit.

Moreover, even within the shrunken orbit of British power, the power of Parliament as an institution has diminished. It is no longer obvious that the House of Commons is the place where the nation's fate is decided, and it is probably true that MPs are now held in less esteem than they used to be. Most constituencies, when they select a candidate, are not primarily concerned to select someone with the qualities of a good national representative and legislator. They are not looking for first-class intellect, ot dynamic practical ability, or experience of

the outside world, or distinctive, even eccen' tric, character—qualities that Parliament

desperately needs. Their choice tends to he governed by their own needs, which are in' creasingly incompatible with the needs of Parliament.

Faced with the mounting horrors of bureaucracy and the petty tyrannies of local

government, most constituency associations seek, above all, someone who will be a corn' petent and diligent local ombudsman. But this is by no means all that the country needs of a person who is elected to Parliament.

Certainly it is necessary that MPs should look after their constituents and bring id

Parliament the knowledge of local problerls that frequent contact with their constituents can give them. But when they become too closely t'ed to their constituencies they are uf very limited use to the country. Granted the present status and requirements of the job, it is hardly surprising that

many gifted young people, who might forty

erly haveiried to become MPs, are now not even making the attempt ; and that sorne who do try are disappointed in the guest' Business, diplomacy, public administration, journalism, academic life and (not least) the armed forces seem to many to offer more exciting prosPects. Very significant, too, has been the drift of politically-minded intellectuals into behind

the-scenes work for leading politicians, as on

alternative to the frustration of looking WI seat or the tedium of having one. The speda advisers and speech-writers who are now s° much in evidence are the modern equivalents of the worldly priests who clustered at the courts of illiterate mediaeval kings—b0r, there was such a thing as parliamentar' democracy. Is there any remedy, or must we accept the lower calibre of our Parliamentarians as ,ge fact of life which cannot, in the foresee.ah't future, be changed ? It is hard to see wha positive steps could be taken to effect an inlr: provement. An elected second channhe e based upon large constituencies and sonlbt form of proportional representation, roig.„, enable some good people to get into parlloaf ment who would never get into the House_i Commons as at present constituted. Du, what hope is there of an elected secorlof chamber? Is it imaginable that the House.°F. Commons will ever allow a rival popul'

• ed.

The question deserves to be consider but unfortunately political questions are.sesfrs dom considered with a view to action unle.„ events take charge or the public is claruou'e ing for something to be done. In this orre neither condition is likely to apply. Medi°,hey MPs will keep Britain mediocre, but is will not destroy it. And public opinicTan normally more tolerant of mediocrity to of excellence.

chamber to come into existence ?