Political commentary
A worse tomorrow
Colin Welch
My opinion of the Social Democrats, for what little it's worth, could only go up. And so it has gone. Even on the special train, the Modewation Expwess to Cardiff, the auguries were all good. A buf- fet — yes, a buffet, and on Sunday: think of that! And Social Democrats shamelessly used it. Heedless of Dr Owen's warnings, some of them were imbibing lager, others even ardent spirits. One genial moderate was actually smoking a pipe and, when I asked for a light, gave me a handful of Swan Vestas to keep me going, without a single word about the perils of tobacco- associated diseases.
Then of course there is Cardiff, surely much jollier and with nicer old-fashioned hotels than other conference venues, and too the Social Democrats themselves. The Labour Party is by now surely even nastier than what it thinks. To meet it en masse is to be forcibly reminded how awful it is. The Social Democrats seem by contrast nicer than what they think.
Another bull point was Roy Jenkins's speech. No unreserved admirer of his am I; nor has his leadership been recently ad- mired, I gather. Well, they should have been here on Monday to hear the old boy, funny but not too funny, grave but not too grave, eloquent and dignified, not too much, not too little, like the shaving soap in the old advertisement just right, only a bit unfair to Mrs Thatcher — but then on that point I am hard to please.
Was nothing wrong? Well, perhaps the brand-new St David's Hall, one of those in- scrutable labyrinthine modern buildings which you can't easily get into or out of, full of escalators aimlessly ascending or descending from `level' to 'level', taking you from where you don't want to be to somewhere else you don't want to be either, a maze of blank lobbies, steps and cor- ridors, all frequently punctuated by in- numerable unmarked fire doors giving ac- cess to who knows what — the platform, the boiler room, lift shafts, the infinite void? For these or other reasons, the hall itself when you found it was half empty, as if for a concert by a contemporary British composer. And indeed the audience seemed rather like what turns up on such occasions, earnest, sparse, sober, full of inquiring good will.
Dire indeed too was the start of the pro- ceedings — proposals for the decentralisa- tion of government advanced by David Marquand, Professor of Politics at Salford University — not so much dreaming spires there, I fancy, as snoring spires. How could any sane person help wondering why on earth a bright new young party should kick off its second conference with this im- measurably boring and to many repulsive topic? What a sense of priorities seemed here revealed.
Heath and Walker were bad enough. The confusion and uproar they created has not yet died down: the damage they did is ir- reparable. And now along come the Social Democrats to pile worse on bad. Professor Dahrendorf of the LSE wittily charged the Social Democrats with offering a better yes- terday. Here they offer a worse tomorrow.
The party boffins propose, apart from Scotland and Wales, ten or 11 new regions, mostly lacking all coherence, each with its own parliament or the like, its own prime minister or the like, its own bureaucrats, quangos and powers of taxation. The pur- pose? To make government less remote. Why should they suppose that to me in Wiltshire for instance, Southampton or Portsmouth, almost totally inaccessible as they are, are less 'remote' than London, which I can get to in an hour by road or rail? Come to think of it, what's wrong with remoteness anyway? The remoter the bet- ter, in some ways . . .
Apart from every other snag, there is, I think, one obvious and overwhelming snag about finance. Regions left destitute by the passing of the last industrial revolution or poor for other reasons will presumably de- mand for their impoverished and numerous citizens the same social services for instance as those enjoyed by luckier souls elsewhere, the same or' better. They will therefore have to increase taxes. But there is no one left there to tax, little or no wealth left to transfer. What then is to be done? Money of course will have to be transferred, as Mr Marquand said, from rich regions to poor ones. And who but the central government can transfer it? Thus the independence of the regions, achieved by such prodigious ef- forts, is destroyed at a stroke. All are im- mediately reduced to the status of victims or supplicants, struggling ever to protect their citizens from central depredations or to get for them a share of what is produced by the central teat.
Nor is this • all. Many of the poorer regions would be more or less permanently under socialist rule. Some would doubtless turn into people's republics. The Social Democratic boffins refer to the new regional governments having a huge 'im- pact' on the location and pattern of decision-taking in industry. And so they might, my hat. In certain areas the mere mention of devolution may cause timid in- dustrialists and decision-makers to start packing their bags pronto.
The boffins seem entirely to overlook
The Spectator 16 October 1982 various other factors. One, that whether your purpose is to enslave the people or l° set them free, a central government is the very best tool for your purpose. Another, that a central government which governs It tle is infinitely more tolerable than a horri- ble regional government which governs 0 lot. These boffins talk incessantly °f devolving functions to the regions. A PO' this: it prevents them from wondering whether half these functions need to be Per,' formed at all, whether centrally or regional' ly. Of course the central government IS 05 Mr Marquand said, `hopelessly overloaded'. Well, why not unload it? And why pile all the discarded luggage Plus, heaps more on to 13 other spavined camels. Why not just chuck half of it away? The boffins propose to disperse not °MY functions but bureaucrats. Whoever now does whatever in London will simply be driven away to do it in the sticks. Fine: ani how is he to be induced to go into exile. Removal allowances, hardship allowances; regional allowances? But we are promisee no extra expense, and, in sum, no 111°r bureaucrats — just the same number Per• forming in different places! As I listened to Mr Marquand grinding on, visions of chaotic proliferation rose before me — of civil servants multiplYing, like the boll weevils on my grandfather hat. Where one first secretary nourish. modestly now, 14 will blossom; where:, thousand deputy assistant temporarY ad ministrative officers (class IV) push tea,: stained papers about, 14,000 will Plisn about 14 times as much paper. Yet at the same time a secret consolation flitted acrosb my troubled breast. Surely no party wince attached such disproportionate imP°rrncs ctooupldolipcioesssisbolyabpsroolsutely daft and Pointies ment itself or with others hold a balance? Yet as the debate Prot ere ed, both fears and secret consolations we ac miraculously dissipated. There ats widespread belief that the Social Denincr,„ consist of a handful of responsible, sensible errsororfoevrinen asugrv°ivveerlitol and moderate leaders who have attractecIly, follow them among others every sortc;', nutcase, faddist, misfit and gullible „,d gooder. Yet the chaps who surged forwa',_ to give tongue on decentralisation were nf, the most part distinguished for their blurt sceptical, even picturesque common seris% One splendid man compared the inassi", upheaval proposed to whistling one's navel. Another referred scathingkt., 'an administrative holocaust', 'a cunstn.nai tional Cambodia'. Mr Bob Mitchell, Snein, Democratic MP for Southampton Itche4 scrutinised the explanation that the wti.
thing would cost nothing and to one's
explou.ceer `Balderdash,' he cried: that's what Walk said when he introduced his 'Ulf°, °,11e reforms'. We're not supposed to clap in !if• press gallery, but I almost forgot MYselas Unless my instincts err, decentralisati°4nnt to an SD plank is dead or dying. Am rig,", a I warn that the Social Democrats would v" far more formidable force without it?
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