Conservative dangers ahead
by 'a Conservative'
Lest it be thought that our right hand does not know what our left hand has been writing, it is necessary to notice the remarks made in last week's SPECTATOR about Mr Powell's political future by its fertile political commentator, Mr Peter Paterson. As Industrial Correspondent of the Sunday Telegraph, Mr Paterson spends much time with trade union leaders. He has also con- siderable knowledge of the House of Com- mons. We don't doubt that he is right to suggest that Mr Powell is not well-regarded on the Conservative back-benches at present. It is even possible that some Conservative MPS believe him to be waiting enviously in the cold while the Government eats its way through a feast of fun, wit and administra- tive enterprise.
Our difference with Mr Paterson is partly that we believe, as he does not, that Mr Powell has a future, though not, obviously, as Prime Minister. It is partly that we see, where he cannot, that Mr Powell, in addition to many more important things, is an em- bodiment of 'the moderation, efficiency and modernity of Tory policies' (to use a phrase Mr Paterson applies to Mr Heath). It is much more the nature of Mr Paterson's political instincts and the expectations he maintains about the way things happen in the political system he is discussing.
Our view of the political system is that it is a struggle not just beween parties but between innumerable groups of politicians who all aim for the prizes which control of a party brings. For every politician near the top there is a struggle of great intensity against his rivals not only in the opposing party but in his own party as well. Each leader who reaches the top creates a regime of his own, both in order to feel protected and in order to get things done. Regimes on the whole do not last long—usually two or three years, until the political situation demands a reconstruction. Any leader who survives a long time, like Baldwin or Mac- millan, has a number of reconstructions, sometimes having to replace colleagues he knows and likes by colleagues he doesn't like at all.
Regimes can be shattered in many ways— by events, by their own incompetence, by opposition propaganda, by newspaper criticism, or by a spontaneous sapping of public confidence in their ability to deal with the problems that press. When one or some or all of these things happens, then even loyal MPS begin to think that some spec- tacular remedy should be provided. Mr Heath now has a regime of his own to which the escalation of problems and the Passage of time will do damage. When enough damage has been done, reconstruc- tion will occur. In the process of recon- struction, it will not necessarily be obvious who should be brought forward and it may be that the problems will be so great that nobody of consequence will come. Or it may be that those who actually come will seem insubstantial, as Mr Barber seems at present, beside the major figure whom Conservative Mrs are not prepared to men- tion,
In normal conditions the process of re- construction would put some people up and others down, but might have no larger significance. The difficulty in the present circumstances is that severe economic prob- lems are in sight and that there is a major political problem on the doorstep. - Britain's approaches to Europe may, of course, come to nothing, in which case the political problem will not arise in that form. But it may also turn out that they will be so successful that Mr Heath will try to give us all a final push, whether we want it or not. The objections to this course are great, the dangers facing the Conservative party greater. We can't know in advance where the dangers will come—whether at by-elections, through ministerial resignations, or by defeat in the House of Commons. Nor can we know in advance whether Mr Heath will be flexible and fair in dealing with them, or as stubborn as Gladstone in 1886.
We mention 1886 because Mr Paterson mentioned it, and we do so because it has a significance for us very different from the significance it has for him. For him it is the year of Lord Randolph Churchill's failure to mobilise the Conservative party's national Union, which, as an enemy of Mr Powell, he thinks worth celebrating as an analogy. For us it is the year in which Gladstone used Irish Home Rule to drive Hartington and Joseph Chamberlain out of the Liberal leadership, drove the Liberal Unionists out of the Liberal party, and did incalculable damage to the Liberal party in the process.
We don't much., care for historical analogies, so we don't suppose Mr Heath will do a Gladstone by driving Mr Powell out of the Conservative party, or that Mr Powell has any intention of being driven. But Europe is a major political question about which feelings are strong, and we possess no certainty that a classic conjunc- tion of personal antagonism and policy divi- sion won't shake the Conservative party as sharply as Gladstone shook the Liberals.
While, therefore, we do not doubt that Mr Paterson's present information is correct, we don't believe that he, or his Conservative informants, understand the gravity of the situation. Mr Heath, as Prime Minister, has begun to drive the Conserva- tive party towards menacing rocks in a way which has little public support. The support-
ing cast at Westminster may think otherwise. We believe that Mr Powell remains a poten- tially powerful force which no expressions of schoolboy loyalty will remove and which only a massive government victory at a general election could erase.
We don't know how Conservative Mr Paterson claims to be. We are Conservatives ourselves and wish to be loyal ones. But we regard its treatment of Mr Powell as a test- case of the present Government's integrity. We are sure that entry into Europe combined with a further rebuff to Mr Powell would be deeply resented and we doubt very much, speaking entirely for ourselves, whether we would go on supporting a Heath government if Mr Heath allowed this combination of things to happen.
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