POLITICS
The road which starts at Tory Central Office and leads to Rome
NOEL MALCOLM
Rumours that the Conservative Party is being taken over by a Catholic mafia are greatly exaggerated. A learned article in Marxism Today (a magazine which seems to be turning into a theoretical journal of the Tory Party) pointed out recently that Mr Major is now surrounded by Roman- ists. There is Mr Chris Patten, who re- placed a smoothie Anglican as chairman of his party; there is Mrs Douglas Hogg, the new head of his policy unit (the man she replaced was evangelical); and there is Mr Gus O'Donnell, the head of his press office (the man he replaced was diabolical).
But in at least two out of the three cases, the Roman Catholic background of these people seems to play no observable part in their professional or political lives: Mr O'Donnell's beliefs remain private, and Mrs Hogg worships, during working hours, only at the altar of economic efficiency. It is just a coincidence that they have both moved into No 10 Downing Street at roughly the same time.
It is a coincidence, too, that this weekend the leaders of the various Christ- ian Democrat parties of the EEC will meet to discuss an application by British Con- servative MEPs, who want to join up with the Christian Democrats' party group as an `allied member' in the Strasbourg Assem- bly. The pre-history of this request goes back a long way — originally, to an application by Mrs Thatcher in 1977. That attempt came to nothing, because in those days one could not join the European Christian Democrats without signing up to an explicit commitment to Christian values, something rather foreign to the traditions of the Tory Party. But since then the Christian Democrats (or, as they now call themselves, the European People's Party) have developed something called `allied member' status for parties which do not have explicitly religious programmes. The Tory MEPs applied for this, with Mrs Thatcher's blessing, in the aftermath of the 1989 Euro-elections; the Christian Demo- crats, displaying a rather unChristian de- sire to rub Mrs Thatcher's nose in her defeat, turned down that application, but said it would be reconsidered in two years' time — which is why the whole process is starting up again now.
So it is just one damned coincidence after another. But this new rapprochement between Tories and Christian Democrats (which shows every sign of succeeding this time) happens also to coincide with the Anglo-German love-in of Mr Major and Dr Kohl; and it coincides too with the public recommendations by Mr Chris Pat- ten of the idea of the 'social market', which, when it meant something, was a doctrine developed by the German Christ- ian Democrat, Dr Erhard. (I say 'when it meant something', because the phrase `social market' is virtually meaningless. The original phrase was `soziale Marktwirt- schaft', social market-economy: i.e. an economy which is a market economy in the first place, and is then modified for pur- poses of social policy.) What these coinci- dences suggest is that at the back of Mr Chris Patten's mind — and occasionally at the front of it too — is a set of doctrines which bids fair to become the creed of the post-Thatcher Conservative Party: the doc- trines of Christian Democracy.
These doctrines are not exclusively Ro- man Catholic. Far from it — given that one of the 'allied members' of the Christian Democrats at Strasbourg is an Ulster Un- ionist. But by far the most important element in Christian Democrat thinking is the tradition of Catholic social theory which rests on the pronouncements of Leo XIII in the 1880s and Pius XI in the 1930s. In a great series of Encyclicals they tried to lay down the principles of a modern Catholic state: a state which allows plural- ism and (within limits) free speech, but also a state which promotes religious and moral values; which protects the family; which, while defending the right to proper- ty and the wage-relationship between em- ployer and employee, demands that those rights and relationships be exercised in a socially responsible way; and so on and so forth.
Much of this sounds like good old- fashioned Conservatism, which was after all one of the ingredients of Thatcherism. Indeed, less than two years ago a close adviser to Mrs Thatcher, Mr Robin Harris, produced a pamphlet for the Centre for Policy Studies which put quotations from Pius XI alongside passages from the speeches of Margaret I in such a way that it was really quite hard to tell pontiff and premier apart. He was not telling the whole story, however, since there are some elements of Catholic social teaching — an obsession with putting worker representa- tives on the boards of companies, for example — which Mrs Thatcher clearly rejected. Most of the European Commis- sion's 'Social Charter', wrongly described by her as socialist, is standard Catholic- Christian Democrat doctrine. But in gener- al terms any Conservative will sympathise with the aims of Catholic social teaching if he is generally in favour of morality, motherhood and apple pie.
`In general terms'; 'generally': these are the giveaway phrases. The trouble with these Catholic theories is not that they are obviously false or repugnant, merely that they are so vague and general as to be practically useless. If you look for advice on practical policies in the Encyclicals you will find the sort of empty phrases that gave pontificating a bad name. Here, for example, is Pius XI on industrial relations: `Let employers, therefore, and employed join in plans and efforts to overcome all difficulties and obstacles, and let them be aided in this wholesome endeavour by the wise measures of the public authority.'
And here he is again on what he called `the principle of subsidiary function': 'It is an injustice, a grave evil and a disturbance of right order, for a larger and higher association to arrogate to itself functions which can be performed efficiently by smaller and lower societies.' It is a classic example of a principle which means what- ever you want it to mean: it does not say what counts as 'efficient' performance, and it gestures at a vague hierarchy of 'associa- tions' which makes no essential distinction between a philatelists' club and a super- state. And yet this is the famous doctrine of `subsidiarity' which, Christian Demo- crats believe, will guide the future develop- ment of the European Community.
It is not a coincidence that Christian Democrats believe in subsidiarity; nor is it a coincidence that they also believe in European monetary, economic and politic- al union. Talking this week to a Tory MEP, I asked how the Conservatives could poss- ibly join up with a group which, in Novem- ber last year, issued a statement in favour of European control over monetary policy, defence policy — even a pan-European army. 'Oh, they may have signed it', he said, 'but that was all just en principe. You have to understand the Continental atti- tude to agreeing to things en principe'. Which made me think that the land of the Christian Democrats may be a fine place for double-glazing salesmen and theolo- gians, but it is dubious territory for a Tory.
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