Political commentary

Conversation with a Wet

Ferdinand Mount

'This disunity in the Labour Party is Very Bad for The Country', said my friend Phineas Bogge. When Tory politicians say something is bad for the country, they usually mean it's very good for us but we must not say so.

'I like to see a united opposition, keeps the government on its toes,' he continued. I forbore to point out that most governments tend to topple over in the attempt merely to stay upright, let alone to achieve any remotely balletic posture.

When I say 'my friend', I mean only that Phineas, unlike many Conservative politicians, is kind to journalists. He flatters you; he waggles his eyebrows and gives you a great booming laugh if he thinks you are making a joke. I prefer his wife Sally who handed me a dark mahogany drink with the expression that says I know you newspapermen can't last five minutes without the hard stuff.

Phineas himself is a kind of antiMicawber. He is always waiting for something to turn down. He could give lessons in applied pessimism to Arthur Schopenhauer. • 'The outlook,' he said (Bogge not Schopenhauer), 'is uncertain. We have not yet reached the Trough.'

'Things will get worse before they get better?' I added helpfully. Phineas looked at me with a certain severity. Never offer a politician a cliche. He already has quite enough of his own.

It is too early to talk of bottoming out,' he went on. 'We may be starting to turn the corner, but it will be a long corner.'

'But surely the Treasury says —' `I have had conversations,' Phineas interjected, 'with people in all walks of life.' I know people-in-all-walks. They tend to be Phineas's accountant.

'Optimism would be premature at this stage,' he said. Of course it would. You never hear anyone say optimism would be timely.

'Come off it, Phineas,' I said. 'You're just practising being gloomy for Wednesday's Cabinet.' To be candid, I'm not really up to this rough style of chaff, but I know that it's what politicians enjoy. And indeed phineas gave a bellow of we-understand-eachother-don't-we laughter, changing down to a rueful you-are-awful chuckle, before rounding off with a let's-be-serious-now shake of the head which put him in prime shape for some our-peopling.

'Our people won't stand for this unemployment indefinitely.' This 'our' is a curious possessive pronoun. Does it refer to Phineas and me and possibly Sally, who had rushed into the room with another whisky, this one the colour of old teak, as though concerned that I might be dying of alcohol starvation? Or to Phineas and Willie and Francis and Peter and Jim? Only Conservative Cabinet Ministers talk about 'our people'. Journalists talk about 'the public'; socialists used to talk about 'the people'; ordinary people talk about 'people'.

'Something must be done?' I hazarded, gazing at the portrait of Harold Macmillan on the piano in its silver frame. It was the one before he had his teeth fixed. He could have been auditioning for one of the statesmanlike Elder Rabbit parts in Watership Down.

'We cannot go on like this,' Phineas countered. It is not a question of strategy, it is a question of tactics.'

`Ah', I said. I never used to be able to remember the difference. Now I rather doubt whether there is one, in politics at least.

'You mean we should start electrifying the railways and building the Channel Tunnel and all that —' It is not so much a question of specific projects,' Phineas was not going to be had easilf. It is a question of looking favourably on worthwhile enterprises which will show a real return.'

'What happens if there aren't any?'

'We must get away from this rigid distinction between public and private investment.'

'Yes, but supposing —' 'I think we should take a long hard look.' Yes, well, there's nothing better than a long hard look, except a short hard look. 'lam firmly convinced,' he said, 'that this is the moment to begin organising for —' I could have sworn he was going to say 'the leisure society of tomorrow', but then the awful example of the Duke of Edinburgh must have flashed across his mind, for he continued, a little lamely, 'the society of tomorrow if we are to end this appalling waste of human resources which, I happen to believe and I'm not ashamed to say this, is absolutely vital.' It was hard to argue with. You wouldn't get many votes for a Waste Human Resources Party. 'Urn, how exactly would you — ah, what would you actually do to create more jobs, I mean?'

'The fight against inflation remains our top priority, but we must be pragmatic, we have to take a balanced view. We have to operate on a realistic time-scale. Good gracious, is that the time? . . . nice to see you, dear boy, we must meet again very soon.'

On the way home in the Tube I read the leading article from The Times: 'Increase output without necessarily increasing inflation . . . press for further capital in vestment in the soundest schemes . . . the Channel Tunnel . . . Railway electrifica tion is another excellent candidate . . . admitted . . . extra inflationary tendency . .

Who says The Times is not what it was? The same majestic embracing of contradic tory alternatives, the same gentle breast stroke swimming with the tide of conventional opinion, the same clambering onto the Li-lo of the soft opinion. 'This alterna tive policy does not stretch political credibility.' Of course it doesn't, dear. 'Ministers would be able to argue plausibly that what they are intending to do is a natural extension of previous policies to take account of changing circumstances.' So they would, bless my soul, so they would.

After British Steel and British Leyland come the details of the Government's hand-outs to the National Coal Board — another 000 million this year, pushing the total over the billion mark; a gold medal for Joe Gormley. This surrender may, I suppose, be more charitably viewed than others. Unlike empty train seats or mothballed steel furnaces, the coal, once dug, will eventually be burnt. Uneconomic pits will continue to close, more slowly and quietly.

All the same, the fact that millions have been and are being misspent is not an argument for misspending more millions. It is not merely steel and coal but the entire public sector which cquld be described as 'suffering from overcapacity'. We have too many schools, too many reservoirs', to many government offices and council depots, too many power stations. Nasty pockets of shortage and shabbiness persist in the midst of— and partly because of— this chaotic superfluity (grim psychiatric hospitals, ill-maintained council tenements).

Contrary to Galbraith's glib formula, what we have is public affluence and public squalor. If private capital is to be brought into public enterprise, why not use it to cure these defects instead of repeating the errors Of the 1960s?

Yet Phineas, I fear would be reluctant even to enter upon this kind of argument. For him, schools and hospitals and trains are absolute goods; you can't have too many of them; they are what he is in politics to provide. He is not much interested in confronting choices or costs. Instead, as the general election approaches he and his friends simply apply a gentle but continuously increasing pressure in favour of higher public spending, gradually stifling argument like a cushion slowly pushed into the victim's face.

Wednesday's Cabinet may have left them unsatisfied. They may complain that a couple of hours was too short a time to review strategy — or was it tactics? — and that the Chancellor did too much of the talking. But there will no doubt be other Wednes days.