THE FAG-END OF POWER
Ian Waller remembers Macmillan's
last years in office, and detects a similar decline in Mrs Thatcher's position
FOR those with long memories the Gov- ernment's present condition bears an un- canny resemblance to the dying years of the Macmillan era; the fag-end of a long period of power under leaders for whom adulation has given way to savage media satire and scorn in the saloon bars, both a heavy liability for the party faithful trudg- ing the by-election doorsteps. Perhaps because the weather has been cooler and late night sessions fewer, the gossip and intrigue on the Terrace and the Smoking Room before the House rose were less frenetic than I recall from those now distant days. Nor are there many left of those sturdy Knights of the Shires like Sir Harry Legge-Bourke ready to voice with genuine detachment the anxieties of party and nation.
There are plenty of disaffected Wets around, but too many carry the suspicion of resentment at dismissal rather than strength of conviction; others are too punch-drunk by the polls and by-elections, preferring instead to close their minds to the holocaust that could be ahead. The army of consultants and PR men the Thatcher years have spawned are too busy making money while the going is good to be over-active at Westminster. The many who owe their seats to the split in the anti-Tory vote at the last election know their time will soon be up and are prepar- ing for life thereafter.
Nor has there been a Vassal or Profumo to titillate the public mind and provide an easily perceived yardstick to measure Prime Ministerial incompetence. But there is Westland and the damning criticism by the Commons Select Committee of the style and standards of government that have developed under Mrs Thatcher's dominating personality. It is as matterless whether Heseltine was right or wrong as was the number of women Profumo took to bed (his cardinal error was to choose one who was sharing her pillow with a Soviet agent); it is the response to both from Downing Street that provides the damning indictment. No one told me,' was Macmil- lan's plaintive comment as the full story of the Profumo deception emerged: was not informed,' was Mrs Thatcher's attempt to evade responsibility for the cover-up op- eration she either knew or ought to have known was going on under her nose. Either way those carefully nurtured assets of honesty and competence were shat- tered, as was the Supermac image.
The climate in Downing Street at mo- ments of stress seems a re-run of 1963. The diaries of the late Sir Harold Evans, Macmillan's press secretary and close con- fidant, graphically illustrate the bunker- like atmosphere as fresh disasters struck the bewildered premier. So, too, last spring in the wake of Heseltine's walk-out, but compounded by panic among an en- tourage so completely dominated by Mrs Thatcher's personality as to be alter egos rather than detached advisers. With dis- trust now added to the other attributes the electorate evidently find displeasing in her character, the already uphill task of con- vincing voters that the health service and schools are better than ever — or unem- ployment unavoidable — becomes well nigh impossible.
A feature common to both in the opin- ion polls is the feeling of their being out of touch with ordinary people. Macmillan because of the carefully cultivated air of aristocratic aloofness (not that he was a proper one, save by marriage), Mrs Thatcher because of a staggering insensi- tivity and total inability to understand that others cannot be as clever and successful as she has been in rising from comparatively modest origins; her flair for sensing and exploiting some of the nastier and more selfish human instincts is not the same thing. Wish, too, readily becomes father to her thoughts; whatever view may be taken about South Africa only someone completely divorced from reality could proclaim, 'I have won the battle over sanctions.' Whatever Macmillan's failings he never lost that touch for diplomacy she has never possessed. It is impossible to conceive of him stripping his foreign secretary of a bargaining counter and then sending him on a mission to Africa guaran- teed to court humiliation.
There are, of course, differences in style between the two. While Macmillan occa- sionally faltered or seemed weary under pressure at the dispatch box, Mrs Thatcher grows ever shriller (what Alan Watkins has aptly dubbed 'the fish-wife streak' emerges) rattling off meaningless sta- tistics and so-called facts about the last Labour government's record. But here little really changes over the years. My notes for 1962-63 record backbench criti- cism of propaganda focusing on what by then — as now — were distant memories for a generation of young voters, of de- mands for better PR to get over the truth about the government's record, of demora- lisation and divided councils in Central Office — and the need to counter left-wing bias in the BBC, all the signs of a party in extremis.
As the House went into the long recess in 1963 the question — as now — upper- most in many a Tory mind was how to change a leader who had become an electoral liability, without tearing the party apart over the succession. The Old Master showed no more signs of being ready to go than Mrs Thatcher now. Convinced of his indispensability, his mind had long moved from boring domestic policy to the lofty heights of world statesmanship and dreams of a lasting niche in history as peacemaker between East and West. Like Mrs Thatch- er, he found the crowds that greeted him abroad more welcoming than those at home. But he did at least give thought to whom the mantle might fall on, if for no other reason than ensuring it was not Mr Butler.
Even as the pressure mounted on him to decide before the Party Conference, his mind wavered before finally determining to brazen it out and lead the party into the general election no more than a year off. Then illness forced his hand, or at least provided a graceful escape that — so it has always seemed to me — he eagerly seized on; tiresome as a prostate must be, it is scarcely a compelling cause for sudden retirement in a man as strong and mentally alert as the subsequent 20-odd years have proved him to be. But the year of hesita- tion cost the party dear, precipitating the bitter public struggle for power that took place in Blackpool. Macmillan's going at least spared him the ignominy of leading the party into certain disaster; the mere fact of change enabled Sir Alec to pull it back from that and come within an ace of victory, an achievement for which I believe he has never been given due credit.
No one would wish Mrs Thatcher the sudden ill health Macmillan suffered but she has, if she wished, credible reasons for a graceful withdrawal. She has had a record stint, her eyesight is a strain, while the ever-patient Denis — now into his seventies — must be yearning for the tranquillity of the Dulwich mansion. There will be a bruising struggle for the succes- sion whenever it comes about. By October, unless some miraculous shift in opinion takes place, many Tory MPs will be think- ing better sooner than later.
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