Political commentary

From iron to steel

Colin Welch

Tottering into Harrods a few weeks ago to have my Footworthy locks cut, I found the whole place infested with Christmas decorations. I deceived myself for a moment with hopes that, like Glasgow pantomimes manfully playing on through the summer, they were last year's decora- tions still up. But no. As for hair, so for presents, it was later than I thought.

Presents, presents: priggish and didactic, my baser self enjoys giving presents which are appropriate, improving, instructive and thus thoroughly unwelcome. For Lord Car- rington, a single ticket to sunny Zimbabwe, so that he may fully savour for himself the sinister benefits he has conferred on that once fortunate land. For Mr Pym, and for others who harp on without the necessary qualifications about the desirability of a Palestinian homeland, why not some such homelands, bristling with weapons, in their own immediate vicinities? For Mr Pym, why not in his own constituency in Cam- bridgeshire? From there the PLO could easily bombard Sandy, where he lives, and might even hit Hazells Hall, the com- modious and elegant ancestral mansion he has himself sought to destroy. And for Mr Prior — I owe this suggestion indirectly to Mr Powell — an 'assembly' for his own East Anglia, precisely reproducing the multitudinous defects of that which he has dreamed up for an ungrateful Ulster.

In his ever re-readable Eothen, Kinglake relates how the Turkish ladies of Constan- tinople in 1834 used, with macabre humour, to touch a European's arm, say- ing, 'There's a present of the plague for you.' My generosity is more discriminating. It brings a plague only to those who have brought a plague to others, or seek so to do — and in each case gratuitously, not reluc- tantly or out of any ineluctable necessity, but one of whim or a sort of restlessness, a desire to meddle or 'do something' in areas where inaction would be excusable, prudent or even sublime.

And for Mrs Thatcher I have a present perhaps less welcome still — advice, and this of a sort which may go right against her grain. It points to dangers she may think laughably remote, though others don't; it offers means of averting them which she may think uncertain as well as unaccep- table. I don't expect her to swallow it readi- ly; but here goes.

At the moment the Alliance, and the Social Democrats in particular, are in un- necessarily low spirits. They calculate that at an election now they would only get about 24 per cent of the vote (though they actually got 26 per cent at Peckham and

Northfield). Talk of forming a government is therefore ridiculous, hopes of holding the balance uncertain. The Social Democrats are specially depressed as they ruefully con- template the results of the deal with the Liberals. Of the first 100 seats won by the Alliance (a tall order anyway), they might get as few as 15. If things went worse, Dr Owen alone might survive. But look again. If the Alliance wins anything like a quarter of the vote (and it is pretty well there now), it presents a most fearful threat to the Tories. It has been calculated by Dr Gordon Reece of Bristol University (reported in the Democrat) that if the Alliance won 28 per cent of the vote, and the two other parties 34 per cent each, the result would be 41 seats for the Alliance, 255 for the Tories and no less than 313 for Labour.

We can fool about with these figures as we please: there is nothing sacred about them, nor yet anything impossible. A 28 per cent vote for the Alliance is not impossible. In the single year before the 1970 election the opinion polls oscillated by no less than 26 per cent! It is not impossible that the Tories will benefit from redistribution, or suffer from a reversed Falklands effect. It is not impossible that the Alliance will do well in new unfamiliar, shaken-up constituen- cies in which its own lack of roots will be less conspicuous. In any case, short of the dire result adumbrated by Dr Reece, a new parliament in which the Tories could govern, if at all, only with Alliance support is perfectly possible.

This conceded, what can be done about it now? Would it not be wise to wait for the next election results and then make the best arrangements possible? In normal cir- cumstances it might be. But we must first deal with a snag drawn to my attention by one of the wisest old parliamentary bird- watchers known to me. No one could be at the Alliance or Liberal conferences without being aware of their mistrust or even hatred of Mrs Thatcher. What if the Alliance makes it a condition of its cooperation that she and her nearest and dearest must go, makes it clear that it will not serve with or under her or support any government she leads?

As I suggested last week, there are whole sections of the Queen's Speech which reveal how loose, tenuous and imperfect is her rapport with bits of the party she appears to dominate. She is at present as party leader as pre-eminent as ever Churchill or Mac- millan was. Even her enemies, sly or avow- ed, respect and admire her, however grudg- ingly and ruefully, with whatever nervous jokes and jibes to sugar their acquiescence.

The Spectator 20 November I98 But circumstances can change. If Mephistopheles were next year or in 1984 to lure various top Tories to the mountain peak, and to spread out before them the in: finitely alluring prospect of continuo power, and to demand in return only the sacrifice of Mrs Thatcher and her en tourage: well, who could guarantee tha,t loyalty or gratitude would restrain them' Nor is there anything in Alliance policies or philosophy, especially when watered down , as they would be by the need to comproonsej and strike bargains, calculated to ter these Tories who never chose Mrs Thatcher in the first place and who harbour still their reservations about her. Those of us who would regard her departure as a disaster must wonder how it could be prevented. W ought perhaps first to wonder whY the Alliance hates her so. Much about her, Per; sonal and political, doubtless grates; but above all there is her known and allegewaYi fanatical opposition to proportion representation. She is supposed to regar7 this from her point of view as the kiss °,,f death, the Alliance from theirs as the kiss ":f life. Both I suspect are wrong. I doabt_1,4 Germany's sort of PR, had it operate'? here, would have robbed Mrs Thatcher 00 her triumph, though in Germany it seeros.tte have dished the Alliance's oPP°sIst numbers. Nor did our first-past-the-Pohe system prevent Labour from replacing tlit Liberals as the alternative governoterlt" delays its rewards till they are well and tr° '

earned; but then it gives lavishly. her

Do I really suggest that Mrs Thatc should bite the hated bullet, embrace Pot and promise it unconditionally? No: 1,, would be unreasonable and unnecess'ccr I'd as soon ask her to dance the goPak,. nationalise every small grocer in the lart...;uer Bismarck advised the young K'sst always to keep the wires open t° f Petersburg. My advice to Mrs Thatcher,.', she will forgive me, is to get into touch the Alliance and to keep in touch. Of c°111,1; its leaders will challenge her at once ort Very well. There is no need for her to 111‘.`70 any unconditional promises except thesle'the open her mind and keep it open; and I, the result of the next election is to pa` a Alliance clearly and indisputably b' d ri balancing position of power, then, and roe then, she will, however reluctantly, :be them what they want. There Wolk' or do nothing dishonourable in promising in g this. For that very election result, Ps'tie duced by the present process which _ate respects, would indicate that the electovi er_ was ready for PR or at least had no ° she whelming objection to it. If it had, ise, would not be thus reduced to comPr°111teel The iron lady would become the s, do

.

lady, stronger than iron, and flexible. id do no believe for a moment that PR wcitt ,sr at her or what she stands for any harm, I'd do least not half as much harm as it "times, / to what she detests. As for her new a more doubt too if they would give her anY, hoot trouble than some of her own party.

the unions they might give less.