Political commentary
Ugly is as ugly does
Ferdinand Mount
Norman Tebbit is gloriously common. Neither his manners nor his diphthongs have been strangled by gentili- ty. It is hard to imagine Lord Weidenfeld inviting him to dinner, inconceivable that Mr Roy Jenkins would ask him to make up a tennis four.
Mr Tebbit is also at present the sharpest debater in the Cabinet (which may not be saying much, but it does transform his own position from protege of the Prime Minister to a senior minister enjoying personal authority). At the same time, he retains what Mr Michael Foot correctly identified as the qualities of 'a semi-housetrained polecat': the stealthy gait, the claws, the pricked ears, the ability to emit noxious substances when threatened.
When Mr Tebbit was promoted to the Department of Employment, it was argued here that Mrs Thatcher had, on balance, made a mistake. It seemed better tactics to have the second instalment of her trade union legislation brought in by a reluctant Mr Prior than by an obviously enthusiastic Mr Tebbit.
That tactical argument is certainly what both Labour and the SDP are relying on. Jim Prior is now portrayed in retrospect as a real gent who would always play fair. When the Employment Bill had its second reading on Tuesday, Eric Varley, for Labour, made his now routine opening of describing the new Minister as 'a far nastier piece of work, both personally and politically'. Bill Rodgers, for the Social Democrats, said that Mr Tebbit made `an ugly speech because he's an ugly man'.
These are matters of taste, but a beauty contest would, one suspects, place Mr Varley behind Mr Tebbit and Mr Rodgers with Mr Prior a poor fourth, and Michael Foot and Albert Booth, the other recent Employment ministers, eliminated in the qualifying round. Mr Rodgers seems to me to have a certain rugged allure, nicely set off by the bohemian air of his black cor- duroy suit, although some women have told me they find him ugly too (but the use of `ugly' in this connection may conceal some ambiguity of feeling). Mr Rodgers, con- tinuously heckled and jeered by his former Labour colleagues, confessed that he would rather be voting alongside Mr Varley whose speech was itself scarcely preux.
In political circles, oddly enough, Mr Varley is universally regarded as a nice chap, that is, one who does not believe a word of what he says. By an accident of heredity, Mr Varley found himself born in- to the National Union of Mineworkers and the Labour Party; the chances of politics have dictated that he has spent the best years of his life helping to defend and ex-
tend the privileges of trade unions. In reali- ty, everyone knows that he is fully con- scious of the defects of the trade union movement and, if In Place of Strife had not gone awry, would welcome nothing better than to introduce his own legal reforms of the trade unions — as indeed would most of his former colleagues.
When everyone is duty bound to say what he does not think, there is a case, both moral and political, for having things out in the open. It is highly frustrating for public opinion, and it is a bad way of making law if no government can honestly declare its real intentions. There may be some pro- paganda value in having a representative of Tory paternalism — which, from Disraeli to Walter Monckton, has done so much to en- trench the unions in their present powers bring in the Bill to disentrench them. But Mr Tebbit's clarity of purpose has its uses.
For one thing, it shows up the Opposi- tion. 'Alliance holds together in first crucial voting test', was the headline in The Times. What will they think of next? 'Nazi-Soviet pact holds in crucial Stalingrad test'? Of the 27 Social Democrat MPs, five voted against the Bill, five abstained for one reason or another, and 17 dragged themselves, com- plaining vociferously, into the lobbies with the Government.
But it was Mr Rodgers's own speech which exposed, even more cruelly, the weakness of the SDP position. In his pious recitation of the shortcomings of the trade unions, he was constantly interrupted by cries of `Did you say that when you sat there?' (the front benches). 'Did you say. that when you were a sponsored GMWU MP?' On he ploughed. 'I have long taken the view' — 'Since when? When?' I want to be absolutely honest' — 'Ho, ho'. 'I am a recent convert to legislation of this kind.' (House collapses). The occasion of Mr Rodgers's conversion was apparently the Winter of Discontent: 'I have never believed that trade unionists should refuse to bury the dead.' You still took their money' (as indeed he had, many of the gravediggers being GMWU members). 'Why didn't you resign?'
In time, most of us manage to live down our pasts. But Mr Rodgers's awkward 20 minutes revealed a deeper and more lasting dilemma. For amid all his strictures he repeatedly stressed that he welcomed the ex- tension of trade union membership in re- cent years. Indeed, that welcome was the condition of Shirley Williams and David Owen voting for the Bill. For even after Monday's vote, the Social Democrats hope to establish connections with the trade union movement which will produce both votes and money for the party.
But all this is in direct contradiction .of the underlying purpose of Mr Tebbit's 1301: which is to reduce the national corporate power of the trade unions. If you don't believe that the huge increase in trade union membership, from 6.6 million in 1945 to 12 million in 1979, has been bad for Britain, then you have no business voting for the Tebbit Bill.
For if the Bill works at all, in conjunction with the Prior Act, it will discourage peoPle from joining trade unions. In new In- dustries, it will be much harder for the unions to establish closed shops; in old in- dustries, it will be harder to maintain closed shops. It will be easier for employers to buy goods from non-union firms; strikes will take longer to bite, if they bite at because firms will be able to buy from alter- native suppliers with less risk of blacking. It would be ludicrous to pretend that even if all these things do happen the trade unions wil be weakened to anywhere near the Taff Vale position at the turn of the century. Membership is the ultimate deter- minant of union power, and not the legal limits on trade union activity; and in 1901 only 12 per cent of the labour force belong- ed to a trade union, whereas about 50 Per cent now do, and that huge proportion will not disappear overnight. But to remove at least some of the post- war accumulation of trade union power and privilege is what both Mr Tebbit and public opinion are after. It is clear that the SDP has not nerved itself either fully to disown its past, or to decide its future direction. 10 vulgar terms of votes, Dr Owen and Mrs Williams have a case for saying that the SDP should not be afraid of looking like a Labour Party Mark 11. For the recent opl- nion polls, which are sending such shudders down SDP spines, suggest that the ex" Labour Right is where the 'hard' SDP votes are, while the 'soft' Orpingtonian votes may slip back to the Tories, as even Mr Jenkins concedes. But you cannot go on interminably discussing 'support' and `lift-off' and 'crossovers' like an obsessive corset manufacturer. Otherwise, you fall into the fatuous vacuity of Mr Ian Wrigglesworth, the SDP's industry spokesman, who last Friday issued a long statement claiming that `a great deal of poppycock is being talked about the position of the SDP and the SDP/Liberal coalition in the latest GalluP and MORI polls' — which showed the Alliance gaining about 40 per cent of the vote. Unfortunately, two days later, the Sunday Times published an even more re- cent poll showing that the Alliance vote had fallen to 34 per cent. Those who live by the polls run the risk of perishing by them. , On a charitable view, this week 5 headline might be 'Small Alliance split --- not many hurt'. But if the SDP is to staY on the right side of that narrow divide between getting 50 seats and getting 150 in the ne/41 Parliament, it will need to demonstrate some of the less charming, more military it tributes of an effective political party' discipline, unity and objectives.
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