Mrs Castle's rubber dagger

POLITICAL COMMENTARY AUBERON WAUGH

This week has been dominated by yet another instalment of the unhappy soap opera of Mrs Castle's proposed Industrial Relations Bill—with the Government hop- ing, perhaps, that by the time it eventually appears, after all the dramatic diversions which will have intervened, nobody will be much interested in what it actually con- tains. One would certainly be committing a grave error if one discussed it outside the context in which it is likely to appear, and the longer its appearance is delayed, the stickier the context will be. This session of parliament—normally, it would end on 25 July—promises many thrills and spills for the Government, which may be divided into those which will merely damage Labour's morale on the one hand, and those which will excite active internal opposition on the other.

In the first category comes Mr Crossman's Budget, which will seek to raise £430 million in direct taxation. Mr Crossman's Budget, it will be remembered, has to pay for the recklessly lavish increase in old age pensions and associated benefits which was promised by Mr Jenkins in his preliminary Budget last April. At the time it seemed a good idea, and it enabled Mr Jenkins to take another curtain call, give a modest little curtsy and accept a posy of wild flowers from the parliamentary left. Now the time has come to pay for it all, as the House realised when Mr Crossman pro- duced his National Insurance No 2 Bill on Tuesday, and although few Labour MPS would ever vote against the implementation of higher old age pensions, there is gloomy acceptance of the fact that higher insurance premiums will be almost universally un- popular. Also in the general category of morale sappers, come the by-elections. The writ for Ladywood is now issued, and poll- ing will probably be on 26 June, but there are by-elections pending in another five Labour-held seats, and these cannot be post- poned indefinitely.

But it is the second category, embracing those measures which are certain to excite internal opposition, which is even more relevant to any discussion of the atmos- phere which is likely to be prevalent when Mrs Castle's Industrial Relations Bill finally breaks surface. The two most obviously worrying are Mr Crossman's Order raising the national health service charge for false teeth and spectacles, and Mr Jenkins's own letter of intent, signifying the conditions under which the International Monetary Fund has been prepared to extend our borrowing. The first may be the occasion for no more than the familiar display of petulance and histrionics, but the second is liable to cause much deeper despondency, and in conjunction with such a betrayal of class loyalty as would be represented in an Industrial Relations Bill with penal clauses, might just result in some act of suicide.

If reason prevails, of course, the In- dustrial Relations Bill, when published Will not contain any penal clauses. As I wrote some weeks ago, by far the best strategy for Mr Wilson to pursue—and he has given no indication as yet that he is not pursuing it—is to strike tough. uncompromising attitudes until the last minute,. then declare their unions' proposals represent a major

breakthrough, no matter what these pro- posals may actually be. Mr Victor Feather, general secretary of the TUC, plainly sub- scribes to this interpretation, too, as he pithily revealed when he described the threat of legal sanctions as 'a rubber dagger in a political pantomime'. Mr Wilson might lose a little face, but it is better to lose one's face than one's entire head, and as Mr Thorpe pointed out, Mr Wilson has very little face left to lose in any case. Mrs Castle, however, still has a certain amount of face to lose—or at any rate, she thinks she has. Probably Mr Wilson would be able to persuade her that any agreement, however unenforceable, which she had wrung out of the TUC represented a personal triumph: that she alone had been unable to persuade the unions to reform themselves after forty years of laisser-faire; that the 'rue's proposals must be given a try, at any rate until after the general election.

Such, as I say, would be the Govern- ment's course of action if its actions were governed by reason, since nobody can honestly suppose that the penal clauses, as envisaged in Mrs Castle's White Paper In Place of Strife, would have any significant influence in reducing the incidence of un- official or unconstitional strikes. Even before it was declared 'official', the stoppage at Leylands Motors, for instance, would not have been subject to the compulsory cool- ing-off period, because it was not a case of

a few men threatening to put a large num- ber out of work, but rather of a large number deciding to stop work of their own accord. Moreover, any legislation which does include these penal provisions, how- ever deeply frozen under activating Orders in Council, will be totally opposed by the luc and will mark the end of the road for the Labour party as the political wing of the trade union movement, leaving it with nothing but Hampstead thinkers and a few power-crazed schoolteachers of uncertain mental equilibrium.

Nevertheless, there are signs that sweet reason may not prevail, at any rate for a while. There are two explanations for this: one is that Mr Wilson is intoxicated with the success of his own balancing act, as the headlines day after day record yet another tough ultimatum to the trade unions, and he now appears stuck there, like Saint Simon Styletes of old; the other is that Mrs Castle has not only a face but also two ears, as she stands brandishing her rubber dagger at the entire British working class. Some- body inside the Inner Cabinet—and by process of elimination, I think it may be

Mr Healey—has been whispering into her other ear that acceptance of the TUC'S pro- posals will not be a personal triumph at all, but a humiliating defeat. And it is at this point that unreason takes over.

A fault among all political commentators is to suppose that Politickl activity is governed by logically explicable pressures. It that were so we would have to decide that all Mr Wilson's and Mrs Castle's tough talk is so much play-acting designed to secure the best terms possible before the inevitable acceptance of whatever the rut has offered. But this interpretation ignores both the talent for self-deception necessarily possessed by most democratic politicians who are not actually the most villainous cynics—call it the actor's artistic involve- ment with his part, if you like—and also the possibility that even the best actors can sometimes get carried away.

My own money is still on the proposition that when the Bill finally appears, it will have no active penal clauses in it. The

present noises may well be intended to im-

press the IMF bankers as much as anyone else, although it is hard to see logically why they should be impressed by them. How- ever, they set great store by our prices and incomes policy, so plainly they are not the all-knowing, majestic figures of popular legend. If I am wrong, and if Mr Wilson and Mrs Castle really are as much in- ebriated by their own purposiveness as they seem, then this session should be a lively one indeed. Presumably Mr Wilson imagines that if he includes penal pro- visions, he will be able- to remove them at a later stage, having demonstrated his toughness, before the breach between the unions and Labour party is complete. But if these penal provisions are included in the Bill for its second reading—even now, the mind boggles that such stupidity could pre- sail—then it inescapably follows that its committee stage will be taken on the floor of the House, and that until the penal pro- visions are actually removed there is not a cat-in-hell's chance of the Bill being finished before Parliament is due to rise on 25 July.

No threat by Mr Mellish or by Mr Peart to keep Parliament sitting very long after that date can carry much conviction. In the old days, people used to say that Parliament had to go down before 12 August or there would be no Tories in the Chamber, but Tories are scarcely necessary these days. Before the Great War, Parliament often used to continue into August, but now the servant problem makes this impossible. Many servants in Westminster Palace have contracted to begin work on 1 August at South Coast resorts, where they earn more money, or in Butlin's holiday camps, where they apparently have more fun, and no amount of vital work in the national in- terest can alter that. Not even Mr Stewart would dare send in troops to keep the Com- mons' tea room open, so the only solution will be to resume in the autumn where they left off, postponing the opening of a new session by as long as is necessary to get Mrs Castle's Industrial Relations Bill through both Houses. Such behaviour— with the Commons kicking their heels while the Lords deliberated—would be so un- conventional as to verge on anarchy.

No, it seems inconceivable that either Mr Wilson or Mrs Castle could be so ill-ad- vised as to persevere with these penal pro- visions. But if their defiant postures have come within a hair's breadth of convincing such hard-bitten commentators as your political correspondent, there can be no limit to the extent they have succeeded in convincing each other. They should remem- ber what happens to Romeo and Juliet at the end of the play, and remind themselves that even rubber daggers can be dangerous, if wielded too energetically.