POLITICAL COMMENTARY
DAVID OWEN, MP
Walking into the chamber of a House of Commons lit by a combination of storm lanterns and candles was rather like entering a Gothic cathedral. All that was needed to complete the picture was to hear the Te Deum wafting down from the Stranger's Gallery. Listening to the debate it could have been a young, earnest, suffragan bishop ad- dressing the diocesan council on church finances, and it took a little time to ac- climatise oneself to the fact that the speaker was none other than the abrasive Mr Peter Walker. Times certainly do change. His transformation from a polemical party politician was so startling that one wondered what lay behind this low-keyed approach. The substance of the debate was the Rate Support Grant Order, which deals with the one really central issue of politics, namely, the relative priorities which respective parties attach to public spending.
In a week when the nation has been plunged into periodic darkness, and when the Industrial Relations Bill is dominating discussions, it might be thought a little odd to dwell on the Rate Support Grant; yet to increase the burden on the domestic rate- payer, at a time when this country is in the midst of a serious inflationary spiral, is potentially one of the more damaging of all the courses this Government has chosen to embark on.
As Tony Crosland reminded the House, the Order accurately reflected the new Government's basic hostility towards essen- tial public expenditure. The new philosophy, or perhaps one should say theology, is to shift the burden of local spending from na- tional taxation to the local ratepayer. As the Local Authority Association said in their statement on the Order, it would be difficult for them to bear this double cut in grant `without a significant increase in the rates or some curtailment in the planned develop- ment of services, or both.' The end result will undoubtedly be to delay the much needed introduction of improved basic standards in education, health and personal social services.
During the closing stages of the June elec- tion, inflation emerged as a key issue, and it is almost certain to be a dominant issue at the next election, even given the difficulty of predicting three or four years ahead. There are, however, still some who predict an early election on the unlikely grounds of an emo- tional campaign on who rules the coun- try—Government or the unions—with the Labour party being identified with the unions. The only real basis for an early elec- tion which the Prime Minister would seriously entertain would be if he doubted his ability to push through Parliament the numerous consequential legislative changes that would have to follow a decision to go in- to the EEC and precede ratification. As an ex- Chief Whip however, he knows that a large majority can be far more troublesome than his present working majority, and he would have to calculate carefully how many of the Tory candidates who might be swept into Parliament on a wave of anti-unionism, would be the very Tory backwoodsmen most likely to be militantly anti-European. All the signs are that this Government will run its course, and that the next election will be fought on domestic issues against the background of Britain already within the
EEC.
On the basis that governments lose elec- tions, rather than oppositions win them, it is normally unwise for opposition parties to announce publicly too many detailed alternative policies, and also to commit themselves in advance to repealing legisla- tion. It is therefore regrettable, even if un- derstandable, that the parliamentary Labour party is now publicly committed on the In- dustrial Relations Bill to develop a 'construc- tive alternative to the Tory Bill which will ensure that a workable accord between a future Labour government, and the unions and their members, can be put to the elec- torate as a firm basis for the repeal of the In- dustrial Relations Bill now before Parlia- ment.'
There are a number of potential hostages to fortune within this resolution. However, given the situation following the demise of In Place of Strife it represents a remarkable political feat, not merely of drafting on which once again Douglas Houghton has made an immense contribution to party unity. At the next election the Industrial Relations Bill will have only been running in its completed form for a relatively short period. The fact that the present Bill is in- trinsically unworkable may well not have become fully apparent and failures of the legislation will be explained by the Govern- ment on the grounds of union intransigence, with allegations that they have been aided and abetted by the Labour party. Inflation will no doubt be dismissed by Smith Square PR men as an inevitable consequence of the `European adventure.' To convince the elec- torate, the Opposition will have to show that the Government's policies of divisive legisla- tion, and of values based on the market
place, are the very ingredients that ex- acerbate industrial strife and perpetuate inflation. The Labour party will have to demonstrate to the country that its tradi- tional links with the trade unions are not the liability that they are presently widely
felt to be, but of real positive value. Whatever doubts there are as to the feasibility of the parliamentary Labour party, and the National Executive, and the TUC developing a convincing strategy, it will be difficult to adopt a different approach at least until after the next election. The task is to make the unions realise that whether the party which they largely created succeeds or fails at the next election now crucially depends on their willingness to hammer out credible alternative policies.
The danger is to believe that easy answers are to be found. It will be necessary to eschew rigorously the blandishments of the believers in a mythical policy of painless growth and to forgo, too, the easy slogans of a voluntary incomes policy, which no one intends keeping to. To adopt this approach will be merely to return to the situation prior to winning power in 1964, and will convince no one. Those in the parliamentary party who lived through as back-benchers the agony of the July 1966 deflation, and strove throughout to maintain their belief in the egalitarian principles of a prices and in- comes policy are not prepared again to allow these issues to be fudged over. There are real lessons to be learned from the mistakes of the last six years, not least of which must be a more realistic attitude to flexible exchange rates.
Before the next election, if it is to win, the Labour party will somehow have to find a viable industrial relations policy, and, stem- ming from such an agreement, if it is not to appear totally one-sided, the unions will need to cooperate in an agreed policy for tackling inflation. This will clearly need to be seen as being.a well-thought-out, disciplined approach. The emphasis in the early stages of any future prices and incomes policy will have to be on a workable scheme for stringent price control, for human nature will not have it otherwise. It will be necessary to study carefully what is presently happening in Scandinavian countries; where direct ac- tion has been taken on prices, a course which certainly no Tory government would ever adopt.
As an Opposition, meanwhile, we will have relentlessly to espouse egalitarian policies despite their unpopularity with many sec- tions of the community, and explain, far more aggressively than we did in govern- ment, that public expenditure makes a decisive contribution to communal wealth, in terms of access to high standards of personal social services, health, education and hous- ing, and is more individually enriching and communally rewarding than the carefully fostered false image of an overtaxed Britain burdened by wasteful public expenditure.
It will not be an easy message to put across but there were signs during the elec- tion, that the then Government's stress on a concerned compassionate society was as electorally appealing as the 'stainless steel' approach, which lurked ominously behind much of the then Opposition's policies. After a few years of experiencing the full rigours of the new priorities, there are reasonable grounds for believing the country will be more receptive to arguments which have as their basis a very different concept of society and of the interdependence of individuals within that society.
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