MR HEATH'S PROBLEMS OF GOVERNMENT
The Governrnent is reshuffled, Parliattn, ent is re-assembled, and a decisive 'Tie in the life of the country lies aaead. Mr Heath's Irish initiative has hsacoeeded so far : direct rule has not vri,?u_ght with it a Protestant backlash, 1-1!' whitelaw seems to be setting about is task of pacifying the Province with good-humoured confidence and COMPetence, the Catholic clergy support the enl°ves towards peace, and only the IRA 4trehlists persist — as must the leaders 1.,,janY revolutionary organisation in reject revolutionary settlements and in advocating peaolipcidt°trignanising violence. Although the of Ulster remains critical, the shrinine Minister's necessary gamble of-tWhs signs of success : the temperature are`ue Patient is less fevered. But we very long way from effecting a uh.';' In Ireland, and elsewhere in the st.-,;ttLed Kingdom disaffection persists. o"`"i'es and the threats of strikes follow ofno each other with every appearance fop inevitability, remorselessness and pt,t''Y. Far from bringing about the imw,vetnent in industrial relations which 1;8 its secondary non-political purpose, twe Industrial Relations Act stands benietn the trade unions and the GovernMr an J impediment to co-operation; ack Jones and his Transport and connt.eral Workers Union has come into Rel;te,rnPt of the National Industrial Liv;"°ns Court already, five thousand and-1:1),(101 dockers defy a court order; that 'le Trades Union Congress policy Act'lli°ris refuse to register under the Aith'Intinues to be very much in force. Ertl °ugh there are indications that some rie‘ployer_ , 6 are beginning to take on tliue:orkers, unemployment is high, and Pers':,,,°' it is beginning to look very (liscZ'ent indeed. It is too early yet to be `'n Whether Mr Barber's budget will econas successful in stimulating the Stoa.011Y as it was in stimulating the txohange. The Prime Minister's eiCe;an Policy fails to arouse popular Pokis'asrn and succeeds in arousing trlort,a,r antipathy. The House of CornPres; is required by the Government to llriti°I.1 With the European Cornhe Bill Bill to emasculate Parliament. blic ..,,ernment is estranged from the as de 11 time ahead is difficult as well or b„eisi've: it will be a time to make eak. Mr 20tIve,eath'8 administration still fails to Coiro,.' to the Conservative party in the the "'oils and in the country, and to r nation ,„ St br, at large, what it is about. The l'eat ellight days following Mr Heath's thart, ectoral promise of "a radical s'e in the style of government" soon changed into grey and confused months; and now, after almost two years of his rule, there are aspects of it which seem indistinguishable from that of his predecessor. Political exigencies have constantly intervened to provide excuses for making exceptions in declared policies, and now it is being said on all sides that we have returned to the politics of consensus, which is to say to the economics of Bustkellism. It is not at all probable that we will be hearing any more from government mouths such words and phrases as 'lame ducks ', shake-out of industry' and like paradigms of the Prime Minister's new conservatism. The lame duck policy is itself a dead duck; the policy of shaking out has been itself shaken out.
But it would be mistaken to conclude that because the Government has trimmed, it has already become indistinguishable from other post-Attlee British governments. The Government has undoubtedly moved towards the centre : but it has not arrived there yet, and before it does so (if ever it does) it will have accomplished several reforms. The hard line will have been translated into legislation covering major areas of domestic policy. The Government is going ahead this session with its radical plans to alter the whole structure of the pensions systems in this country and switch the provision of the great bulk of pensions from the state into private schemes. In housing, despite stubborn Labour opposition, Mr Walker is seeing through legislation which will change the whole system of subsidy from the provision of buildings to the support of people, with fair (if not economic) rents all round : this is a radical break with a consensus which has existed since the first world war. Mrs Thatcher's speech at the conference of the National Union of Teachers at Blackpool showed her determination not to sanction any more large comprehensive schools, and she has declared, with radical intent, that she will go ahead with her planned investigation into the quality of the teaching of reading in Britain. The reform of local government is being proceeded with; as are Mr Barber's ambitious series of fiscal reforms.
Nevertheless, there are great tracts of traditional governmental activity which this Government hoped to evacuate and which it still occupies. It is still doing things which, according to its earlier doctrines, it ought not to be doing at all. Not only has it been propping up specific firms and specific industries and specific projects with more cash, even if with less enthusiasm, than its predecessors; but now it also proposes to prop up entire regions. The regional and industrial policies now adopted by the Heath administration and to be carried out by the reconstructed Department of 'Trade and Industry are the policies of the previous Labour administration, taken to excess. These policies have failed before and there is no reason to suppose they will succeed now, even if they are backed with more cash than hitherto. What these policies amount to is the subsidising of unprofitable firms by profitable firms, of uselessly employed men by usefully employed men, of moribund regions by vital regions. Such policies restrict the increasing accumulation of national wealth by compulsorily transferring resources away from the profitable into the unprofitable.
No one will raise serious objections to a Conservative government which puts no great faith in doctrines and dogmas and which shows itself prepared to act in a practical and businesslike fashion. No one advocates unbridled laissez-faire. But this Government was not elected to prop up, to subsidize, to intervene massively in the economic and industrial processes by which goods are made and wealth accumulated. Conservative back-benchers are troubled by the Government's recent departures, for these departures are a return to the worst aspects of consensus. Whatever the post-war British politics of consensus did and did not do, it failed to create the conditions of sustained economic growth. It makes no economic sense whatever, and only very little (and very short-term) political sense, to seek to keep the Clydebank yard open. Yet this is now what the Government is seeking to do. And since this is the opposite of what it said it sought to do, it is no wonder that the -country fails to understand this Government as well as fails to like it.
If it be Mr Heath's strength that he does not mind not being liked, it becomes his weakness that he does not mind not being understood. The Government is beginning to look like a government which is muddling through, or not, as the case milght be, just like the rest. It is a great misfortune, and it may become a tragedy, that the Government has wobbled, wobles ,and looks all set to continue to wobble in its industrial policies. It is here where the party and nation would have gained from that firmness and resolution the Prime Minister has shown elsewhere.
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