SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
PETER GOLDMAN
In one important respect Mr Wilson did the country a bad turn by losing the election. If things had gone the other way, political commentators of the more thoughtful variety would by now have been crying out for constitutional reform. It was all very well, they would be arguing, to allow a prime minister to select the moment at which he will be judged by the electorate when this gave his side no greater edge than that enjoyed by a cricket captain who has won the toss. But the techniques of political gamesmanship have now left those of the playing field far behind. Psephology and Keynesianism have dangerously increased the capacity of governments to measure the poli- tical temperature and manipulate the eco- nomic weather, and hence to stay put. If American presidents are debarred from run- ning for a third term .. . etc. etc.
I happen to agree with this argument. It seems to me that the powers of modern gov- ernments are extensive enough without their being armed with a possible means of self- perpetuation. Less dramatic but more prac- tical is the observed fact that during long cycles of power-holding by one party, govern- ments become stale and oppositions green. After the Conservatives had managed to win three, and very nearly four, elections in a row, Labour could not find even a handful of suitable men with previous experience of office. This goes far to explain its earliest and most incomprehensible fumblings. Had Mr. Wilson pulled off a similar hat-trick, Mr. Heath or his successor would have been un- able in five years' time to provide an admin- istration like the present one with the right mix of old hands and new. The old would have retired for ever to the City, the Lords or the grave.
Unfortunately, the conventional wisdom has been given a new lease of life by last month's events. We are now told that the British people have grown too sophisticated to be beguiled by short-run improvements in the economic indicators and (by George Hutchinson, for example, in this very Note- book) that, as a guide to voting intentions, opinion polls are now utterly discredited. My own view is the reverse. Labour's defeat was attributable precisely to the fact that the economic indicators—for the cost of living, unemployment, the balance of payments— changed to 'storm' in the last days of the campaign, too late for all but one of the polls to signal the swing in public opinion. The parameters of the constitutional prob- lem are therefore unaffected by Mr Wilson's mistake. And, it follows, so is the case for fixed-term parliaments.
Boat fare
I read the list of junior government appoint- ments while consuming a deliciously spiced goulash of beef on the shores of the St Wolf- gang lake, not far from the original White Horse Inn. It had a negligible effect on my digestion. We were travelling to Vienna in the nicest, most leisurely manner, which involves putting one's car on a train to Milan and then motoring through the Dolo- mites and the Brenner. But my chief mem- ory is not of sunshine, scenery, or even seasoning, but of the Channel crossing. From Dover to Boulogne the French boat served a meal of ample proportions and choice which would have done credit to a one-star bistro; on the return journey the English boat offered permutations of over-cooked rashers, under-cooked bangers, tinned peas, soggy chips and instant eggs. The claim that post-war British cuisine has undergone a sea-change should be taken with the pro- verbial pinch of salt, Our railways have
been nationalised all right; they have ,till to be civilised.
Diplomatic incidents
A dozen miles south of Vienna lies the elegant spa of Baden, once famous and still fashionable for its (almost) all-night casino and its co-educational sulphur baths. For ten years after the war it was the head- quarters of the Soviet army of occupation, which is said to have occasioned several mil- lion pounds' worth of physical damage. Its pretty pre-war face has now been restored. But the Russians are back in strength bedded down in the newest hotel, protected from the amorous advances of the citizenry by armed police, and conveyed by chara- bancs to the sittings of SALT, latest abbrevia- tion for endless disarmament negotiations. Last week all the other hotels in Baden were filled from attic to cellar with professional consumers (for which there is no word in the Russian language), who had gathered together to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the International Organisation of Con- sumers' Unions and to carry forward its work.
It is unlikely that the handful of pioneers who founded rocu can have foreseen its spectacular growth. In 1960, when the ori- ginal constitution was framed, it had sixteen members. In 1968, when that constitution was revised and democratised by a committee under my chairmanship, it had thirty-one. Now it has sixty-four. In other words, it took us more than eight years to double in size, but less than another two to redouble. Canada and Luxembourg; Yugoslavia and South Korea; Puerto Rico and Iceland; Ger- many and Israel; Hungary and Spain: it would have been difficult to invent a bag more mixed than this—yet each has a genuine consumer organisation (and some- times more than one), which tocu welcomed to its ranks last week.
I take it entirely as a compliment to the British Consumers' Association, whose rep- resentative I have been for the past five years, that this remarkable constituency should have elected me to a term as president. The post is honorary, but also onerous. For we are still in the early days of building up a docu- mentation centre to provide information on request to all member organisations, of devel- oping publications that will enable the con- sumer voice and viewpoint to be heard inter- nationally as well as in each country and, above all, of helping small and struggling consumer groups to gain a foothold. In future, those who run the international or- ganisation will hold their executive meetings not in their own capitals, where consumer associations flourish, but in places where their advent may receive the publicity that characteristically greets a rara avis. Helsinki, Dublin, Belgrade, Kuala Lumpur—here we come I Out for the count As the curtain descends at the end of the first act of Puccini's Turandot, the young nobleman from Tartary signals the arrival of a new claimant for the hand of the cruel princess. Three times he beats upon a huge oriental gong. But among many traged- ies at the Vienna Staatsoper the other night, the gong collapsed at the third stroke. Half the audiance guffawed; the other half could be heard asking their neighbours in various languages, 'Is it symbolic? Does it always happen like this?' But the quickest reaction came from the Canadian girl I was escorting. 'Gee! ', she said, 'has Jti Arthur Rank heard of that guy?'
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