Centrepiece

Doctor not dictator

Colin Welch

peter Kellner, the New Statesman's respected political editor, seems in part baffled by Mrs Thatcher's continuing sur- vival and chirpiness. After five years as Prime Minister, Attlee had almost lost his majority, Macmillan's rule was slowly disintegrating, Harold Wilson was trailing miles behind in the polls. Ted Heath didn't even last five years; nor did Callaghan. Yet after five years of Thatcher, the Tories are ahead in the polls, Mrs Thatcher herself en- thuses about leading them into the next election and beyond and, most surprising of all, no one is surprised. Mr Kellner rightly points to things which have gone wrong — public spending above Labour's, no radical reforms yet of welfare state, education or health. Fewer children than ever attend grammar schools. He grants that inflation and interest rates are down, output and profits (and produc- tivity) up, but denies her credit for these developments — 'all perfectly predictable features of an economy working well below capacity but making a gradual recovery from the worst decline in industrial output on record. The trick is,' he continues, `to sustain the rate of output and profits in- crease, and to keep inflation and interest rates down, when unemployment is low: there is no evidence that Mrs Thatcher knows how to do it.'

Here I dissent. None of this would have been 'perfectly predictable' had Labour been in office. The trick is a difficult one. It will take time to perform, as well as 'nerve

and resolve', words which for some reason, used by Mrs Thatcher, brand her in Mr Kellner's eyes as a 'dictator'. There is much evidence that Mrs Thatcher knows how to d.o the trick if it can be done it hasn't been done yet, I agree); no evidence whatever

. at Messrs Kinnock and Hattersley can do a.

In her anniversary statement she describ- ed a considerable sense of achievement, and a feeling that Britain has found a new confidence and purpose.' Strange words, Rinses Mr Kellner, 'for the three million who are without work and the thousands of businesses that have gone bust.' Yet she probably believes them, he goes on, as politicians do normally mean what they say: when they say something absurd, it is g nerallY because their views really are absurd ly are What is absurd about Mrs Thatcher's remarks? Many agree with her. As Mr Kellner concedes, a substantial number of voters trusts her judgment. Many of the

ernployed voted for her. Why? our country was in 1979 like someone drunk and smoked too much for years, and was in consequence gravely ill. The doctor was called in. The cure is pain- ful, slow and uncertain. Yet a fair-minded patient doesn't turn at once in rage on the doctor, who is doing her best, or blame her for the disease, or turn again to the quacks who misdiagnosed it.

Of course unemployment is far too high. But fair-minded people suspect that it is caused by follies, distortions and waste which were there long before Mrs Thatcher, and which she denounces, detests and strug- gles against, with many setbacks, but with all her strength. Many must know the dire effects of local authority fiscal and plan- ning policies, especially in the inner cities and people's republics, cm industry and jobs (figures are given in the current Economic Affairs). Most people who were ever on her side still are, and hope she will get this and other problems right in the end. No one else will. Some of those who have voted for her and will do so again may not even disagree (though I do) with Mr Kellner's hunch that she is 'in some respects a second-rate politician who muddles along making rather less difference than either her supporters or her opponents claim.' They must have a balancing hunch that her op- ponents are third-rate and would make a lot of difference, all bad.

Some dictator this, incidentally. Her private discussions are disloyally leaked, her plans shot to bits before they've left the drawing board. Many of her aspirations, twice endorsed by the electorate, remain still aspirations. Twice a week she faces an uproar in the Commons which, if it serves no other useful purpose, must remind her of her common humanity and the limits to her power. So must the miners' antics. Daily the media remind her of their freedom, often in ways insulting and pain- ful to her. She reminds the Left of Hitler, or so they say (Mr Kellner's article is headed `Mrs Thatcher's vision of a 15-year Reich'). She reminds me sometimes of Louis XV who, supposed to be an absolute monarch, heir to the man who declared `L'etat c'est moi', once confessed with weary resigna- tion that, if he were prefect of Paris, he would prohibit hansom cabs. Shrugged shoulders are not her line: but she has sometimes given the impression of being an impassioned critical spectator of what she presides over.

I would not acquit her or any other strong-willed person of rare momentary regrets that she is not a dictator. But there: it is not only what surrounds and binds her which prevents it, but also her own inner- most convictions, which cleave to an idea of freedom under the law far wider than

anything recognised, understood or valued by the Left.

Mr Kellner justifies his use of the word `dictator' by reference to her 'special loathing of dissent'. This loathing, if it exists, must make her life a misery, there being so much dissent about, not all of it as civil as Mr Kellner's. He further justifies it by citing her attitude to the police, the armed forces, the trade unions, local coun- cils and government secrecy. I think I know what he means. But it amounts to very little when we remember that trade unions and local councils can impoverish and harrass, that armed and police forces are needed to defend freedom and protect the weak, and that all government depends on a measure of confidentiality and obedience. The Left in office has no love of leaks.

Judging by its criticism of Mrs Thatcher, the Left thinks freedom safest under governments which are weak, incompetent, indecisive, inconsistent and incapable of ensuring their own preservation: a strange delusion, flatly contradicted by most left- wing governments, which oppress even as they totter.

lam becoming increasingly more agitat- led with the cry of the middle-aged against Boy George', wrote 15-year-old Tina Clarke from Kells in Ireland to the Daily Mail's junior letters column. 'They reject him, claiming he is "a disturbing in- fluence" on the youth of today ... His critics should take a leaf out of Boy George's book and not judge people by their appearance or colour, but look at the person inside the clothes and make-up.' If Boy George doesn't judge people by their appearance, he must be even odder than he seems. If he met me, he would probably guess from my grizzled locks, grim storm- eroded features, frayed line-regimental tie and thunderous grey suit that I was not likely to be a fervent Boy George groupie. And he would be right.

We middle-aged (if I can still claim to be so) are becoming increasingly more agitated with the apparent inability of the young to predict, or accept without whining, what will be the effect on us of what they do and wear. If, as invited, we look at 'the person inside' Boy George's clothes and make-up, who do we find but Boy George who chooses to dress and paint himself as he does? According to Miss Clarke, he is a per- son of exemplary character. He has 'never said a threatening word in public', cracked `a blue joke', is not 'sexist or racist, or disrespectful to anyone or anything'. Yet Boy George's appearance is surely deliber- ately 'disrespectful' to convention, and to all those who think transvestism in some way unnatural, abnormal, 'wrong' and like- ly to exert 'a disturbing influence'. It is surely designed to attract some and shock others, perhaps to attract by shocking. If it succeeds, what has Miss Clarke to complain about? And, if Boy George himself thinks his appearance libels him, why doesn't he change it?