Political Commentary
The lions of the left
Patrick Cosgrave Every political event, and every sequence of events, contains within itself the germ of the unexpected. Napoleon once threw up his hat in joy when Charles James Fox joined a British government, for he assumed—and all the evidence he had to hand, objectively considered, led him to assume—that such a government would be pliant in the face of the interests of France: yet, within months, he was as disillusioned as Fox himself was surprised by his own stern conduct. In all attempts to predict events the unexpected, which cannot be allowed for in calculation, will come in and make mock of those seeking to be wise before the event. Sometimes the unexpected will even take on a manic aspect. Thus, when Sir John French was retreating after the first engagement of Mons, all the rules of war which he knew and held to counselled a retreat to the fortress of Maubeuge. Fortunately for the Allies, this singularly unimaginative and inflexible general recalled that Napoleon Ill had been heavily defeated after making exactly the same move, and decided to stand his ground: he did so with success.
So we can provide the evidence, or the kind of evidence, which most critics have used to justify the assumption that Mr Callaghan's government will not be dominated by the Labour left. After his reshuffle of the Cabinet, and following an initial flutter of nervousness, most writers and commentators concluded that the so-called social democrats were pretty firmly established in spite of the defeat—rather, the utter humiliation—of their principal champion, Mr Roy Jenkins. True, a number of critics—of which the most distinguished is Mr Alan Watkins—are dominated by that strange belief that nothing ever changes in British politics, that, since the Wilson government of 1964 shifted to the right, all succeeding Labour governments must do the same. Such men believe, even, that despite the Community Land Act and the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Amendment) Bill the Government has, since February 1974, demonstrated a steady drift to the centre. Such beliefs are, of course, nonsensical—as at least every home-owner threatened by expropriation without right of appeal should realise—but they are held.
Mrs Shirley Williams, at all events, was under no illusions. Congratulated by a friend on her acquisition of the PaymasterGeneralship she shrugged and said, 'I've got my tuppenceworth, but no Social Democrat has got as much.' She had inquired—I gather gently—which Cabinet committees would come under her control, it being understood that her new appointment was designed to counterbalance that of Mr
Michael Foot. Though the answer was vague, she came away pretty certain that nothing of real significance would come her way. And when the optimists suggest that Mr Foot will find the same problem as Lord President as did the late Richard Grossman —that the non-departmental character of the office greatly weakens its occupant, who quickly finds that committee chairmanships carry little real power—they quickly forget that the positions of the two men are altogether different: Mr Crossman, as was typical of him, was easily led away from central concerns into the technicalities of parliamentary reform; and he had not just performed brilliantly in a leadership election. Nor was he sustained as Mr Foot is by an able and determined group of ministers and backbenchers. We have not seen the end of the second ballot alliance between him and Mr Benn.
But it would be very wrong to discuss the balance and inclination of the new Government solely in terms of the way power and influence is likely to be divided between the Left—the members of which, after all, have in recent years been most direct and open in spelling out their policies and their vision of the future—and the Social Democrats, socalled. We ought to see things the way a majority of the Labour Party in the country see them; and the way in which the large number of members not hitherto identified as left-wingers, but who voted for Mr Foot, saw them. And there is one clear conclusion such people have reached : that social democracy is an empty thing.
The phrase 'social democracy' or 'social democratic' has come into use in recent years to describe certain members of the Labour Party who had hitherto been called right-wing. Alas, it was not the simple absurdity of calling any member of the Parliamentary Labour Party (except perhaps Lord Paget) right wing that induced such as Mr David Watt and Mr William Rees-Mogg to dub Mr Jenkins and his friends with a title possessed of a European pedigree. Rather, so far as can be divined, three quite different motives operated: the title or phrase, having that European pedigree, implied a proEEC stance; it could conveniently be extended to include the Liberals and some Tories, and could thus be made a linguistic vehicle of coalition; and it sounded nice.
None of this—as I shall suggest in a moment—conveyed that social democracy had any real content. But there was this at least to be said for those who gave it currency: they were correct in supposing that, in so far as it was applied to members of the Parliamentary Labour Party, it could be said—as the left have always recognised— to be possessed of an intellectual pedigree. As Mr Eric Heifer and Dr Stuart Holland have both pointed out in recent books, the Wilson governments of 1964 and 1966 (prin.' cipally remembered these days for a comic, not to say cosmic, incompetence) were noi just collections of men blown hither and thither by events, but politicians acting to a fairly well defined set of principles which might, not unreasonably, be called 'social democratic'. The principles were as action' brated in Mr Crosland's various volumes. The failure of the governments, the let, argued, was the failure of the principles, aria so they demanded a chance to try theirs. If one were a fair-minded member of the Labour Party one could hardly deny that' on the face of it, they had a point. Everybody is familiar with the process bY which, after 1970, the left in the Labour Party gained control of its policy-making machinery and set about writing its neid manifesto (though there has been a fairlY widespread agreement, since Mr Wilson re' turned to power, that this is of very little consequence). I merely suggest that the process has continued since Labour's resumPtion of office, and that there is legislation-in addition to Mr Foot's leadership vote-to prove it. Moreover, the disappointments of the 'sixties, and the continued vacillation of their leading figures, have resulted in 3 serious debilitation of the so-called social democrats. On the other hand, the left IS full of vitality, and there is no questioning that it makes tip the most intellectually virile (and distinguished) element of the Labour movement today. Of course, there is a powerful element of wishful thinking about the assumption that the Labour right are still in charge. There is also dislike of the left, and a feeling that they cannot possibly prevail within the British system. And, of course, it would he folly to deny that they have had their setbacks: we still have an Army, for example, and it looks as if—perhaps at the behest uf the Committee of Selection—the Govern' ment will compromise in its attack on private practice in the National Health Service. If this last happens the members of the Tribune Group will create a tremendous fuss, for they have well learned that one should shout a lot whatever happens, and thus gain greater concessions than one 'S merits or one's strength entitle one to. But for those who oppose the left, whether theY are on the right, or in the centre, or among the Social Democrats, it is useless to depend on some exceptional event in the future, to imagine the advance symbolised by this Government's treatment of the Clay Cross councillors or its implementation of the Community Land Act, or its confiscation of sixty-five per cent of GNP for its own purposes, means nothing, and that all will iti. the end be well. They would do better to recall Tennyson:
'Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lion, creeping nigher, Glares at one that nods and winks behind a slowly dying fire.'
Previous page
