The nation
Nothing but tears
John Peyton, MP
If you go on peeling an onion for long enough you will be left eventually with nothing — except tears. If we in this country continue endlessly to analyse ourselves, search for grievances and pick at our troubles, we too shall be left with tears, and bitter ones at that. We have looked too long in the mirror, too little at the facts: we have diagnosed our ills over and over again and prescribed unnumbered remedies; but somehow we have avoided rubbing too much against the truth that we have become rather lazy and very greedy; expecting and demanding more for doing and giving less. We could still save ourselves and recover our self respect as well, if we were to do a bit more work and be a lot less bloody-minded about it. "We cry too much and try too little": it was a London cab driver who said that to me last week, not a politician.
The alarm bells have been sounding and the storm signals flying for a long time now, but their message still seems unreal to millions who, though inconvenienced by inflation, have not yet been wounded or frightened by it. The warnings have been in too sharp conflict with not only the desires but the experience of ordinary men and women to be taken at all seriously: so much better to live on in the world where it seems 'always afternoon'.
Those who are in a position to inflict the most damage, to wound almost beyond repair the well-being of the community, have not as yet suffered much. There are others though, who have felt more than just the rumbles of the coming storm. Older people who had made what looked like a very adequate provision for retirement now face the cheerless prospect of rapidly declining standards and the bleak choice between deprivation and state charity. Professional people and those running small businesses, whose clients and customers are learning to do without, find costs going up and income down. People whose jobs involve a measure of dedication to the service of the community find themselves as always at the end of tfle queue unless they are both able and willing to adopt new and rougher ways of getting what they want and sometimes deserve. I am constantly surprised by the degree to which those who at least affect to despise politicians expect so much from them. There are unhappily some politicians who by clever talk encourage such ill founded expectations. Squealer, that influential pig in George Orwell's Anima/ Farm, used to dwell upon the wickedness of others and the wisdom and indispensability of the pigs who organised everything. The other animals believed him and found out too late that while the egalitarian talk of the pigs was wholly bogus, their greed and love of privilege were only too genuine. There has been talk from time to time of "the smack of firm government": the extent to which anyone really wants this or is in a position to provide it has remained uncertain.
English history has had as one of its most distinguishing features the revulsion against the concentration of power in too few hands.
We have therefore deliberately opted for weak government, though in times of great peril we have been prepared to tolerate strong leaders.
Government in this country neither controls nor has any decisive influence over the media of information; it is therefore dependent on them for opportunities to explain its policies to the public at large. Nor, as we have found out recently, is modern government in a position to guarantee to the public the provision of even the most essential services without which the daily life of the community would come to an awful halt. Those who cry loudly for firm government give little indication that they appreciate that such regimes, when translated from verbiage into fact, can have an unattrac tive side. But if we cannot control the militants who prey upon the needs of the people and their vulnerability, we shall face the odious choice between utter chaos and what would indeed be firm government: There has been talk, too, of leadership: but leaders are awkward, uncomfortable people to have about; their intrusion into our lives is never welcome and only acceptable when the annoyance which it causes is counterbalanced by a widely shared fear of what might otherwise occur. In ordinary times we greatly prefer to be left alone and not to be messed about.
We have at this perilous point of time to try to apprehend the balance between the conse quences if we fail to achieve a solution to our problems which is generally acceptable and the price which we will have to pay for success.
Failure would not mean the painless replacement of our society by something better and fairer; it would involve the collapse and break up of the vast complex overstrained and rather rickety scaffolding to which all of us now cling. It is hard to overstate the ruin which would follow and which would engulf us all, rich and poor.
Success can still be had, but only if we are ready to discard greedy ways and 'couldn't care less' attitudes and do, all of us, a fair day's work for a fair day's pay. We have to understand that the possession of a grievance is not unique and does not entitle anyone to vent their spleen upon the public to secure immediate redress.
Before we frivol further along the path to ruin we should stop trying to be clever and above all cease to be intimidated by that highly articulate but tiny minority of hoodlums and maggots who coalesce with the naive and well-intentioned to destroy our society, to undermine our industry and who select our hard pressed police as their particular targets.
It might be as well before it is too late to reflect that in our time more people have in the western world enjoyed more things under condi tions of less constraint than at any other time in human history. It is the measure of our own folly that we have allowed the name of capitalism to sink into disrepute, while not even the most savage of its detractors show much re luctance to absorb the benefits which it confers. Judging by its results for millions of people, capitalism is a very much more cheerful affair than communism, for which few, when offered an alternative, are silly enough to vote.
John Peyton is Conservative MP for Yeovil and was Minister for Transport Industries in the last government.
Railways
Previous page
