The re-emergence of Reggie

POLITICAL COMMENTARY AUBERON WAUGH

Just what is our Reggie up to? In the prevalent mood of disenchantment with Mr Heath it was only to be expected that Maudling' supporters might stage a little diversion, but the deputy leader of the Conservative party is an experienced enough politician to know that there is no real leadership crisis at the moment. Delegates discuss Mr Heath's showing more in sorrow than in anger. From the moment he entered the ice rink of Top Rank's entertain- ment centre in Brighton, it was plain that the conference was going to rally round with a brave face. As a former party dignitary put it: 'The trouble with Ted isn't that he is inadequate but that he knows he is inadequate;' and the delegates' gallant ovation seemed determined to bolster his self-confidence, if nothing else:

The talk in the corridors is all about Mr Maudling's solution to our economic ills. From a somewhat grudging admission in 1964 that the Conservatives had been prepared, under certain circumstances, to impose an import surcharge there has grown the belief, fostered in part by Mr Maudling himself, that Conservative policy up to October 1964 was a deliberate long-term acceleration out of our difficulties, with over- heating \to' be controlled by import quotas and a toothy incomes policy at some later date. Alas, so much mud has been thrown at the Conservatives' management of the economy in their last months of office that some has stuck even as far as Conservatives are concerned. His speech on Wednesday, however, avoided all mention of this. Conference speaking has never been his happiest role, and it might seem curious that he should have chosen the one debate in which delegates were most passion- ately interested—Freedom and Enterprise—to make his conference debut. It had nothing to do with his opposition brief but it was a propitious moment to bring himself to the dele- gates' attention, and in the course of touching on almost every subject to be debated this week, he established himself in the van of the freedom movement while explicitly repudiating those laissez-faire elements in the party who might otherwise seek to. lead it. Mr Heath might well have looked anxious as his deputy roamed from taxation to social services, nationalisation and planning. What is left for Mr Heath to talk about on Saturday? Almost the only thing which Mr Maudling omitted was to deliver the now ritualised tribute to Mr Heath as Leader.

If there had been a leadership issue at this conference, delegates might almost have sup- posed that Mr Matidling was setting his cap at them.—less dramatically, perhaps, than Mr Hogg in 1963, but no less unmistakably. The fact that there is no leadership crisis may not be apparent to everyone at the conference, but awareness on this point is strongest among the political journalists present, who have the task of trying to cook one up. It is even possible that the Shadow Cabinet are not really aware of the delegates' mood. Unlike their Labour counterparts, they do not mix freely with the people in bars and lounges. You don't see up- roarious dinner parties in the better restaurants of Brighton at which Privy. Councillors let their hair down among a throng of journalists, Tv men and spare nymphs from the Thomson em- pire. In the fifth-storey suites at the Metropole Hotel, where ex-Cabinet Ministers receive journalists for a selfconscious gin and tonic, the atmosphere is tenser. But if members of the Shadow Cabinet seriously believe that a leader- ship crisis is in the offing, they should really make the effort to come downstairs.

What, then, is Reggie up to? Attempts to vindicate his stewardship and to sketch an alter- native to Labour economic policies might all be in the day's work for a deputy leader of the Opposition. But dedicated Maudlingites make no secret of their impatience. But our Reggie is not one to be rushed. Having shown a little of his hand, he may even now retire for a period of years and allow the seeds he has planted to germinate, especially if Gor- ton and Leicester prove tougher nuts to crack than the party is at present disposed to imagine. Everything depends upon his assessment of who is going to win the next general election.

Uncommitted Tories, watching these manoeuvres with detachment, feel that he will have to play his cards very carefully. There is a general awareness, echoed faintly in Mr Bar- ber's opening speech of the conference, that the real malaise is not to be found in the personal showing of the Leader. In a sense, he is no more than a puppet controlled by a number of strings inside the Conservative party, and the basic con- fusion is to be found among the string pullers. Mr Barber referred to the task of bringing the three components—constituency workers, par- liamentary party and Central Office—closer to- gether. But his real task, which cuts across this one, is to reconcile the two sides in a much deeper division—between the party's more in- telligent and less intelligent supporters.

Motion No 91 was sent in by a Mr A. C.

Smith, on behalf of Keighley Conservative As- sociation: 'That this conference, mindful of the emphasis apparent in the majority of resolu- tions, urges the party to note their general tenor, thus ensuring that policy is framed in accord- ance with constituency views.' The organisers must have had a certain amount of difficulty in slotting this particular resolution. Finally, it was committed to oblivion under the general heading of Freedom and Enterprise. Its fate reflects the tragedy of all party conferences, but one wonders what exactly Mr Smith had in mind when he referred so blithely to the con- stituency views. We shall never know. Perhaps, like Conservative principles, they are best left undefined.

Is it a principle that corporal punishment should be reintroduced for crimes of violence,

or just a constituency view? Is it a matter of

principle that coloured immigrants should be kept out, or merely one of expediency? In the muddle of defeat, an increasing number of constituency thinkers appear to have reached the conclusion that these are matters of prin- ciple. It is sad to see so much highmindedness wasted. There is no shortage among Conserva- tives of that passionate belief in the rightness of

their cause, to which Mr Anthony Barber appealed. but there is confusion as to what the cause actually is.

Sir Cyril Osborne. speaking at a pre-confer- ence dinner in his constituency, produced one

of those gems which should be carved in marble and mounted in Smith Square as a warning to any young Central Office enthusiast who is tempted to get above himself :

'Village life still retains much of England's traditional virtues — self-reliance and self- respect, and a willingness to work. Our big cities are breeding a tiny but growing minority of spongers whose ideal is to thumb a lift

through life, and who, lacking roots, are not

ashamed to eat the bread of idleness . . . you country people have a natural gentility, dignity

and decency, which contrasts vividly with the dirty, scrappy, long-haired and weirdly attired minority of city-bred exhibitionists.'

The sad thing about the Conservative party is the way in which its more sophisticated ele- ments regard Sir Cyril Osborne's attitude (which still finds expression in many undebated con- stituency motions) not with tolerant amusement so much as with self-righteous abhorrence. Un- like the Labour party, where there is a sense of broadly shared purpose throughout, the Con- servative party provides very few meeting places indeed between its stupid and its intelligent supporters. At present any speech which is to appeal to a .Conservative audience without irreparably antagonising the uncommitted must be a judicious mixture of deeply felt socialist

platitudes on welfare, and right wing implica- tions on such things as Rhodesia, Common- wealth immigration and steel nationalisation. The culmination does not carry conviction be- cause it is not coherent and, this is Mr Heath's problem, every bit as much as his audio-tactile impact. It is simply not possible to attach iden- tical importance to the plight of the poor on the one hand, and the individual's right -to free- dom on the other. If politics is the language of priorities, there is nothing to be gained by try- ing to make everything top priority. Yet this, apparently, is what' the Conservative party ex- pects its leader to do. It is a point of only aca- demic interest whether Mr Maudling would be better at this impossible task than Mr Heath. What needs changing, as one Shadow Cabinet Minister plaintively remarked, is not the leader but the role he is expected to play.