Politics
As bad as each other?
T ike radio announcers who strive to find 1-fartificial points of connection between one programme and the next, politicians like to link the separate topics of the hour into one theme which might attract general attention. At present, for instance, the Labour party is trying to frame a charge against the Government on the grounds of authoritarianism (Miss Tisdall, pickets and police, abolition of the GLC elections, rate capping ...). Although it is not a very fair accusation, it seems to be quite successful.
It has the added attraction for Labour that it pushes the Liberals and the Social Democrats aside, making way for Labour's traditional battle between the party of entrenched authority and the party of the workers' rights. Yet is it impossible for the Alliance to make something of the pre- sent difficulties by forging its own slightly specious but interesting link between the miners' dispute and the trouble over the GLC? The argument would be that there is not much to choose between Mrs Thatcher and Mr Scargill. Mrs Thatcher, increasingly convinced that she is the only person who deserves to hold power in this country, notices the independence of the GLC and the metropolitan authorities, and also observes that these authorities are run by her enemies, so she decides to get rid of them by whatever means necessary. Too bad if they are supposed to be having elec- tions in 1985 — scrap the elections. Mr Scargill the same. He wants a coal strike and he does not care whether miners want one or not. He remembers that in July 1971 the NUM reduced the majority needed for a strike from 66.66 per cent to 55 per cent, that within a fortnight the miners had put in a claim for a 47 per cent pay increase and that a successful strike began in January of the following year. Reduce the majority needed once again, and you will probably get a strike. The demands of 'solidarity' will then be enough to suppress the waverers, Now complete the analogy: these two peo- ple are power maniacs, neither of whom can be controlled by their respective parties; so protest — vote Alliance in Stafford, Cynon Valley and Surrey South West.
Actually, the comparison is largely false. The remark so often made by non-comba- tants that 'they're both as bad as each other' is seldom true, although it is even less true that one is always black and the other always white. In this case, Mrs Thatcher has the edge on Mr Scargill. She did, after all, fight an election in which she said quite often that she intended to abolish the GLC and the `mess'. It is not her fault if a large number of voters and even, it appears, some of her party's candidates, did not bother to listen. Since she frankly declared her intention — and then won the election — she now has the right to find the easiest method of abolition, even if that involves suspending elections.
Mr Scargill, on the other hand, is less scrupulous. Even if he is technically above board in his procedural manoeuvres, he has quite clearly defied the wish of union members to decide for themselves whether they want a strike, and therefore the spirit of the rule which states that a strike should be balloted for. Even though the delegate conference has the power to alter the pro- portions required to carry a strike vote, the very worst moment for such an alteration is when the strike and still more the vote itself are controversial. Mrs Thatcher can fairly be charged with mishandling a situation: Mr Scargill with manipulating one to gratify his personal obsession.
And yet one should not drop the com- parison entirely. It does draw attention to the Government's method of proceeding over the GLC, and it is that method, rather than the abolition itself, which rightly makes people feel uncomfortable. If one has to guess at the way that our Prime Minister arrived at her decision to rid herself of her troublesome authorities one might come up with something like this Mrs Thatcher notices that the GLC and the metropolitan authorities are all Labour, all unpopular and all expensive. She finds them irritating. The general election ap- proaches. She wants to offer a few specific promises during the campaign, but only a few. The simple answer — 'abolition' proposes itself. She accepts and then tells others to work out later how to do it.
This may not be altogether a bad approach. It is nice to know, for example, that Mrs Thatcher's instinct when con- fronted with an expensive public body is to abolish it rather than to invent a bigger one. (One can be sure, by the way, that a pro- posal to increase the number of officials, elected representatives and tiers of local government, no matter how stupid, would have been far less severely scrutinised than this not very sweeping attempt to reduce those tiers.) But it is not quite enough to be instinctively right. Mrs Thatcher tends to be peremptory, and to imagine that her strong feelings about particular issues translate easily into practical politics. Like Mr Scargill, she thinks that she is very good and that quite a lot of other people are very bad and need to be dealt with. Unfortunately, abolishing bits of local govenment is more complicated. You need heads in the right place as well as hearts, even a few of the despised economists, sophists and calcula- tors who are capable of understanding rate precepts. You probably want a secretary of state Patrick
who can see the wood and recognise the individual trees. Poor Mr ise i
Jenkins is lost in the forest.
It was wrong, though understandable, for the Government to start with the argil' ment that the councils should go because of the people who ran them. No doubt 0 would have been politically impossible to have embarked on abolition if any of the threatened authorities had been Tory- controlled, but it is not because of the Lett that abolition is called for (if that were so, the Government would be abolishing Islington and Liverpool and Lambeth). The authorities should be abolished because they greatly increase the level of public spending, thus undermining the Government's objectives, and because they perform few useful functions that other authorities could not assume. The counter; arguments are that the functions are useful and untransferable and that the Govern- ment has no right to impose its objectives. These objections are answerable, but have not been properly answered. The Ow- stitutional point is much the more imP°I- tant of the two. Supporters of the statIlis, quo have spoken solemnly and at length about 'local autonomy' and have got away with it. If the Government's case had been e coordinated with the political attack o'e , Tebbit and the constitutional carefulness 01 a Mien, they could have been routed. In' stead, government spokesmen have been content to heap unattributable obloquY °.1- Messrs Heath and Pym and Sir Ian 61 mour, and to treat the issue as a mere ues tion of party management. Yet the case Or the Government is classical and simple Britain is a unitary state; local governmerl, is therefore an arm of the policy of that state which deserves independence from then, centre only for practical reasons. It maYb" injudicious to reduce local powers, it reflect political arrogance, but it is not an affront to liberty. Perhaps the Government could make partial amends by conceding one imPorta,,t1 point. The debate in Parliament last wee'' and the campaign now being conducted hY, the GLC, centre on the impropriety .01 suspending elections next year and 011!tlu_g in appointees, rather than on abolitio.a, itself. Would it be such a terrible mistake if the Government were to prolong Mr Livingstone's administration by a Yeabre No doubt Mr Livingstone would . h obstructive, but he would be charged vatd the responsibility of governing London a.1, so with carrying out the wishes of ment. If he refused, and sat in County and made a scene, the effects of his detir ante would quickly make him unpoPulaie. the life 0,17 The sillier he seemed, the more PPea°r,IP13:: would support abolition. The more sen.sibine choeubecame,ldbe ctohme pmleotreeds.mAoontdhlybyt heia9686oli timo,pr Livingstone would be quite read) t° down and concentrate on becoming Member of Parliament for Brent.
Charles Moore
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