Stan of the people
IAIN MACLEOD, MP
Baldwin Keith Middlemas and John Barnes (Weidenfeld and Nicolson 105s) .Between the two world wars three Con- servatives, Bonar Law, Stanley Baldwin, and Neville Chamberlain became Prime ; Minister. There is an obvious link between the iron-master from Glasgow, the iron- ' master from Worcestershire and the industrialist from Birmingham.' These are the opening sentences of my biography of Neville Chamberlain. Since then the mould seems to have been broken. The link between industry and the Conservative party has been weakened, partly by the gradual disappearance of the family busi- ness, partly by the growing demands of parliamentary life. Those who followed as leaders of the Conservative party — Churchill, Eden, Macmillan and Douglas- Home—belonged to an earlier tradition just as Heath is the first of a new strain.
That the period of the Tory Men of Property coincided with the doldrums of politics and the shabbiness of the interwar years has been unfortunate for their reputations in the present scales of history, although I think each of them will rank higher in the end than they do now. The bare outline of Baldwin's progress is almost incredible. For nine years an unknown back-bencher, given almost by accident his chance at fifty to become a junior minister, he was still Financial Secre- tary to the Treasury at fifty-four. Then via the Board of Trade and the Treasury (be- cause McKenna refused it) he became Prime Minister before he was fifty-six. He retired at seventy, Prime Minister for the third time. Keith Middlemas and John Barnes have written a massive, sympathetic and wise biography which must stand as the definitive work not just on Baldwin but on his times.
Most Prime Ministers and leaders of the Opposition come to their position by a long process of selection and years of ministerial and front bench experience. Baldwin is almost the only exception. And yet for all his quirks of indecision there can be no doubt that he had a gift for leadership and for words, and that he was a consummate politician. Why did these talents lie buried for so long? Why did it need a long series of accidents before his chance came? And are there in fact other 'Baldwins' on either side of the House of Commons, slumbering peacefully on the back benches?
The answer to the last question is, I believe, 'yes'. I believe the two great parties are too unadventurous in their selections for front bench posts: the careful sifting by he Whips' office too unimaginative. Simply to read the Baldwin saga again set me thumbing through the list of Members of Parliament and looking at some of them with a fresh and calculating eye.
The authors have on the whole been fortunate in their timing. The new thirty year rule means that all Cabinet papers of the Baldwin period (except those on the Abdication) have been available to them. They have also been able to use the Baldwin papers. Surprisingly, the authors make. relatively little use of the original aterial of the Cabinet papers, and the
book leans heavily on extracts from other biographies. It is, all the same, a magnifi- cent piece of work, and I have only two reservations. First, there are a number of minor .inaccuracies: the photograph of 'Walter Monckton' is in fact of Tommy Dugda le (Lord Crathorne), there are several misprints. and on the only occasion when I checked something in the index I found it wrong. No doubt I was unlucky.
The second reservation is more important. This fine work is in the exact sense of the word almost unreadable. With photographs and an introduction it is 1,200 pages long. One needs wrists of steel to lift it. I tried reading it in bed, at my desk, in my rocking chair. The only satisfactory posture is to lie on the floor and I gave up floor reading forty years ago. Robert Blake's Disraeli was a little over 800 pages and that is, I judge, about big enough for comfort. Either, then, when works on this scale are written they should be in two or more volumes, as with the Macmillan auto- biography, or better still, as Randolph Churchill planned for his biography of his father, companion volumes should be published with the supporting documents.
'He was the first revivalist produced by the Tory party and we greatly hope they will not produce another.' I do not share Brendan Bracken's view of Baldwin, but then I do not share the very English suspicion of oratory. Baldwin's mysticism and his superb and elegant prose no doubt owe much to his mother's Macdonald blood. Rudyard Kipling. his first cousin, said 'The real pen in our family is Stan's', and some of his speeches have their place in any anthology. He was, I think, at heart a scholar in spite of an undistinguished academic record. He would perhaps have been happier as a Bishop rather than a Prime Minister.
As Prime Minister he introduced a new style of leadership. He could never have been effective in war time and he saw clearly that if war came it was inevitable that Winston Churchill would lead. He should have made Churchill his Minister of Defence, instead of selecting the safe Sir Thomas Inskip, but by this time Baldwin's grip on affairs was loose. Yet on at least three occasions Baldwin spoke for the nation: during and in the aftermath of the General Strike, throughout the vicious battle with the press lords, and above all at the time of the Abdication. His strength and his weakness alike came from his ability to make articulate the ordinary, muddled, decent feelings of the British people. He had a close sympathy at all times with the Labour party and no one man has done more than Stanley Baldwin to destroy the 'Tv,o Nations' of Disraeli.
He retired full of honours, and with the nation's acclaim, to his beloved Worcester- shire. And yet he was not allowed to die in peace. He was reviled in his retirement as no man has been before or since. The big men, Churchill, Chamberlain, Halifax and many others behaved generously and warmly. The dogs yapped at his heels. They always do.
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