Voters and cynics
POLITICAL COMMENTARY ALAN WATKINS
'There's a poster round the corner saying "Up Lane" and, do you know, someone has scrawled something rather rude underneath it,' said Mr David Lane, the engaging prospective Conservative candidate in the Cambridge by-election. A few days previously, while speaking in the market square, he had been struck by two tomatoes and an egg (the precise computation varies). He professed to detect, in his travels through the city, a cynicism about politics and politicians. Tomato- chucking and poster-scrawling, enlivening an otherwise pedestrian by-election, is arguably as much a sign of active involvement as of cyni- cism: but no matter: let us take up Mr Lane's point about cynicism in politics.
Certainly he has not been alone in making the point. Indeed, the past week has been one in which charges of cynicism have been thrown about with an altogether reckless abandon. Politicians have accused journalists of being cynical. Journalists have accused politicians of being cynical. Politicians and journalists have united in agreeing that the public is cynical. As Sir William Harcourt might have observed, we are all cynics now; and one wonders where on earth the process is going to end.
For it is my contention that, though all may not be well either with the Government or with politics generally, the trouble cannot be traced to an excess of cynicism. Further, I believe that such cynicism as exists about politics is neither unprecedented nor undesirable; that the public has .always been suspicious of politicians, and politicians of journalists, and that this is as it should be; that most if not all governments have been unedifying; that times have always been bad; and that in politics, as in other activities, it is fatal to expect too much. But if too much should not be expected of politicians, neither should politicians expect too much of journalists. At the moment it seems that they do.
Thus Mr George Wigg, for instance, believes that journalists should dig, and not be content with rumour and hearsay. Yet rumour and hearsay are a perfectly legitimate subject for reporting, certainly for political reporting. Moreover, as Mr Wigg must know, it is possible to talk to two people, and get the story right; twenty people, and get the story wrong. There is no democracy of facts. But Mr Wigg believes that there is. There was a time, some years ago, when he would talk privately and at length on defence matters. He would exhibit the most detailed knowledge of troop movements, of whether such-and-such a battalion was up to strength, or such-and-such a regiment to be moved. The flow of information was seemingly inexhaustible. On and on it went. But was anyone the wiser at the end? It is very doubtful.
Then there is Mr James Callaghan at the Cambridge by-election. He takes a simpler point than Mr Wigg (who made a thoughtful and considered speech). Mr Callaghan merely wants the Government, in particular Mr Harold Wilson and himself, to receive better write-ups. This is a perfectly understandable wish, though the Chancellor hardly went about expressing himself in the most tactful way. But it is equally understandable that the newspapers should not see eye to eye with the Chancellor. However, I suspect that all Mr Callaghan really wanted to do was raise an easy cheer from the party faithful, who are never averse to a rousing attack on the capitalist press. His remarks need not be taken too seriously by anyone, least of all by himself.
Need Mr Edward Heath's observations on the Daily Express be taken any more seriously? Unfortunately they must, because they cast doubt on Mr Heath's judgment. Mr Heath, it will be recalled, said that the Express story on the replacement of Mr Edward du Cann was 'damn lies.' Now 'lies' is one of those words, like 'fraud' and 'hack,' which the prudent will avoid, unless the supporting evidence is very strong indeed. And in this case the story had a substratum of truth. Mr Heath inherited Mr du Cann from Sir Alec Douglas-Home. It is well known that, despite this week's exchange of fulsome letters, they never quite hit it off. Equally it is no secret that the National Union regarded Mr du Cann as peculiarly their own, but that nevertheless Mr Heath wished to replace him at a suitable moment. The public, however, can hardly be expected to go into these details: the general impression left is that a newspaper said Mr du Cann would go, Mr Heath violently denied it and Mr du Cann duly went.
Here, then, are three recent though very different examples of politicians' attacks on the press, all, in their different ways, misconceived attacks. It is not altogether fanciful to detect a response by the press. This response takes the form of pointing to the so-called cynicism of the voters (occasionally the politicians are told that they are cynical too). There follows a demand for leadership, or for inspiration, or, more mildly, for 'better communication' be- tween government and governed. This response is in my view equally misconceived. It is based mainly on a 'golden age' view of political history.
For example, it is said that in the past the general tone of public life was much higher. When people talk about the tone of public life it is usually difficult to know precisely what they mean. Disorder in the House? There has never been a quieter, more conscientious and, in parliamentary terms, more law-abiding body of mt.: than the present one. Scandals, then? Scandals of one sort or another occur in all administrations roughly every three years: so in this respect at least Mr Wilson's govern- ment is to date doing rather well. But when people talk about the tone of public life they generally have in mind, not parliamentary dis- order, or scandals, but something else– open- ness and truth telling and purity of political soul. Asquith perhaps came nearest to the model, yet Asquith was capable of dissembling with the best or the worst of them. And as for Gladstone (who is sometimes conjoined with Asquith). his gift for ambiguous statement makes Mr Wilson look like a glass of clear water.
Again, the claim is put in a slightly different way by saying that in former times the parties 'stood for' something. And here again the pro- position is difficult to sustain historically. Whether judged by interest or ideas, British political parties have been fluid combinations. Until 1886 the Liberal party was a loose coalition : part of it then joined the Tories, who themselves subsequently changed in character. As far as policies are concerned, there is a myth that Gladstone and Disraeli bandied principles across the floor of the House. In fact most of their disputes were concerned with tariffs, with fiscal policy and with the details of foreign affairs. And the two subjects which dominated late nineteenth and early twentieth century politics—Ireland and tariff reform—did not so much separate the parties as split them internally.
In the twentieth century it is much the same story. Professor Samuel Beer has had a brave and readable try at showing that in the inter- war years the Labour party was different. His thesis is spoilt only by the fact that, for the brief periods in which it happened to find itself in office, it persisted in behaving just as conservatively as the Conservatives. More re- cently we have had Butskellism, then a brief period of division between the parties at around the time of Suez, then a coming together again, then Mr Wilson's sleight of hand in 196314, when he managed to make out that the parties were different and finally Mr Wilson in power.
Yet do the voters respond any more or less cynically today? I end, as I began, with the by-election. At Cambridge the candidates are not cynical men, nor would it be right to treat them with undue cynicism, for none of them is a shiny product of the party machine: they are all individualistic, even eccentric. Mr Lane is an untypical old Etonian; Mr David Spreckley, the Liberal, is a former cavalry officer and a paci- fist with a grip of iron; while Mr George Scur- field, the Labour candidate, is of a homespun, William Morris aspect, holds the Military Cross and writes novels in Norfolk. The electors re- main unmoved. They are worried about the state of the pavements, about prices, about a 25 per cent increase in council rents. 'Politicians are all the same' is the answer one hears, and it is not a particularly new answer. At Cam- bridge. which changes little, where the sound of tract can still be heard floating from upper windows and John Whiting is still presented at the ADC, the voters change least of all.
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