POLITICS
Time to adopt the Bah! Humbug!
approach to political philosophy
SIMON HEFFER
t this season it is proper to think of those less fortunate than ourselves, so let us imagine the ménage at Chequers on Christmas afternoon. Mr Major and his Minister of Sport, Mr Atkins, will be set- tling down to watch the video of The Gra- ham Gooch Way to Firm Leadership. Pre- tending to doze will be Mr Jeffrey Archer, replete with jelly, secretly composing the plot for his next novel, provisionally called Who Shot the PM's Butler? In a not unrelat- ed incident the Prime Minister's favourite journalist, Mr Bruce Anderson, hindered by a strange unsteadiness of hand, is at the new Heseltine Executive Minibar, bonho- mously serving cocktails to guests irrespec- tive of whether they want them or not.
Genuinely asleep in an armchair is Mr Douglas Hurd, his slumber induced by vol- ume two of Elk Ne Passera Pas — comme Jai etouffe Mme Thatcher, personally Inscribed by the author, M. Jacques Delors. Mr Gus O'Donnell, untiring in his work as the Prime Minister's Press Secretary, is on the telephone to Mr George Jones of the Daily Telegraph to tell him, unattributably, that the carving of this year's turkey could best be described as a 'triumph' for the Prime Minister. 'As it was brought into the dining room I heard him say it was game, set and match to the carnivores,' mutters Mr O'Donnell into the receiver, confiden- tially. 'He wanted it, he'd got it, and he was going to eat it.' Down the corridor, the Joint is really jumping. But, while he waits for Mrs Douglas Hogg to finish her rendi- tion of 'Do You Think I'm Sexy?' so that he, too, can have a turn on the karaoke machine, Mr Chris Patten's thoughts turn to the best way to win the next election.
Yet his party has already been assiduous In doling out Christmas presents (some of which arrived so early that they are almost forgotten by their ungrateful recipients) to those interest groups who must be propiti- ated. Gift-wrapped exemptions to the council tax, and substantial sums to ease the lot of junior doctors, are but the latest benefactions. It is no wonder the Govern- ment stood out against the social charter, for with all these goodies to deliver within a 48-hour week poor old Santa would have been at it until after Easter. And, even where there is reluctance — for the Moment — to use too much of other peo- ple's money to buy presents, there is no hesitation at all in enforcing charitable
intentions upon innocent third parties. Note, for example, the corporatist terror- ism being waged against building societies to prevent them taking the reasonable step of chucking out of their houses those who cannot pay the societies back for them. But then, at Christmas (and with an election perhaps weeks away) putting thousands of Tory-voting homeowners into bed and breakfast hotels may not look like the best possible politics.
There are two important, if Scroogeish, points to make about- the Conservative Party's festive overdose of charitable feel- ings. First, charity is easy to promote when it is not funded by the promoter. Second, if the Government thinks anyone but a hard- core of left-wing pressure groups is impressed by the exercise of State compas- sion, it had better think again. Last week- end the London radio station LBC ran a telephone poll, to which more than 3,000 people responded, on the proposition that mortgage interest tax relief should be scrapped and the money used instead to help the homeless. Only 11 per cent of the respondents agreed. The conclusion one respectfully suggests to the social market wing of the Tory party, is that the way to gain votes is to praise those who mortgaged themselves prudently and to tell those who mortgaged imprudently that they are learn- ing a robust, if unpleasantly empirical, les- son in the workings of the free market.
Such sentiments horrify the incumbents of Tory marginals in the recession-stuffed Home Counties, who fret keenly about the miserable, besieged Christmas being spent by those 'paying the price' for Britain's membership of the Government's beloved Exchange Rate Mechanism. The principal concern of such MPs is holding their seats. They may not, therefore, interpret the Gov- ernment's desperate attempts to stave off repossessions as a tacit admission that it is the Government's fault that many of these defaultings and domestic bankruptcies are happening. This is not the view that would be taken by rightist ideologues, who preach, correctly, the gospel of personal responsibility for financial decisions. How- ever, the Government may feel that its fail- ure to pursue an independent monetary policy has put interest rates and commer- cial insolvencies at a far higher level than they need be, causing the job losses that lead to mortgage arrears. This is not the whole story, for it includes chapters on per- sonal poor judgment. The Government's reaction to the problem (for which it has no more responsibility than for the reposses- sion of video recorders) is an advertisement to the feckless of Britain to spend, spend, spend, for when the bills cannot be paid the creditors will simply have their arms twisted (and, if necessary, broken) by politicians. The other danger of having these com- passionate thoughts in the season of good- will is that their price will have to be paid for months or years to come; and since it is almost as difficult to meet a Cabinet minis- ter who believes the Treasury forecast of recovery as it is to sell one's house, one is forced to conclude that there will be several hundred thousand more eager recipients for the State's largesse before Christmas comes round again.
If only the ideology of Christmases past were employed, this problem could be seen instead as an opportunity. The glut of repossessed property, and the accompany- ing glut of homeless people, is an ideal way for the Government to revive the private rented sector. It could have a new year res- olution to complete the deregulation of rents and lettings, and build up a new Tory- voting rentier class. The correct role of gov- ernment, of setting a framework in which enterprise may flourish rather than acting entrepreneurially itself, would thereby be re-asserted. The only public money that would need to be spent would be on the passage of the deregulation legislation through parliament. If it made the Govern- ment feel any better it could complement its latest act of chartermongery — the Job- seeker's Charter — with a tenant's charter, or an anti-Rachmanism charter, just to keep morale up.
If it prefers, though, it can keep on bully- ing mortgagees who thought they had an independent contractual relationship with their borrowers. Yet it would find in the end that the mortgagees would tell the Government to pay up to stop reposses- sions, or to keep quiet. This harshness might not be in the Christmas spirit of the caring, at-ease-with-itself Tory party, but then neither would the Beggar's Charter to which the whole country would have to sub- scribe were the compassionate alternative taken to its logical end. Instead of talking humbug this Christmas, our governors should try to start rooting it out.
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