Westminster Commentary
AND SO, blinking the recess out of our eyes, we came back for what must surely be almost the last lap, if not the final one. The first ques- tion on the order paper, from a Mr. Braine (and there's plenty of room at his top) was to the Colonial Secretary, and it was to ask him what representations have been made to him concerning the likely effect upon the develop- ment of the tung oil industry of Nyasaland of the recent action of the United States Govern- ment in authorising the off-loading on to the world market at subsidised prices of American- held stocks of Lung oil; and what action he is taking in the matter.
Then there were seventy-three more questions, and then, right at the end, came Mr. Donald Wade to ask the Foreign Secretary what principles are observed by Her Majesty's Government when deciding whether to permit the sale of arms to a foreign country to be used for the purpose of carrying on a civil war; and how these principles were applied to the ship- ment of 'arms from Great Britain to the former Government of Cuba prior to 15th December, 1958.
The numbering of the questions is, of course,
fortuitous; it just happened to be the day for Colonial Office questions to be taken first. Still, the upshot was that the House of Commons was told all about the representations that have been made to the Colonial Secretary about the state of the tung oil industry in Nyasaland and, since the question was not reached, did not learn, until it read the written answers to questions, what principles (a fine word in the circumstances, I must say) are observed by Her Majesty's Government when deciding whose man in Havana to blow up with rockets marked 'Made in Britain.' Two re- flections occur. The first is a naive one, really a day-dream rather than a coherent thought : what would have happened if both questions had been answered truthfully? The answer to the first, I suppose, would have been, 'I don't know and I don't care'; to the second, 'The principle that if the House of Commons doesn't get to hear about it everything will be all right, and even if they do we might get away with it.' But no; such visions will do for the hour between the insomnia and the nightmare, but not for the gloom of a rainy January afternoon in the House of Commons.
The other, and more serious, reflection pro- yoked by this quaint combination of questions is slightly more subtle. Come the election, will the electors be more interested in question 1 than in question 74, or vice versa? This is perhaps unfair, since nobody is in fact going to try to interest the elector in tung oil; try it therefore with question 52, which was from Mr. Bevan, and asked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement concerning the Government's policy in regard to German re- unification in the light of the exchange of Notes between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
and the Western powers.
This question got an answer from the Prime Minister and a dozen supplementaries, including contributions from Mr. Bevan, Mr. Gaitskell, Mr. Shinwell and Mr. Bellenger. Clearly, there- fore, question 52 was one that the Labour Party felt deeply about, and since the Labour Party has been going on about this sort of thing for some time, calling on the Government to take the initia- tive and all sorts of jolly things like that, it almost seems as though Mr. Bevan, Mr. Gaitskell, Mr. Shinwell and Mr. Bellenger, not to mention all those other ranks who murmured 'Hear-hear' when Mr. Bevan mentioned the Oder-Neisse Line, really think that the electorate is interested, or is capable of being persuaded to become interested, in the reunification of Germany. I do, not believe that this is so.
What is more, I believe that this is the case also with most of the other issues on which the Labour Party seems determined to fight the election. Not, that is, that they are going to fight on the Oder- Neisse Line, but foreign policy in general, or the approach to summit talks in particular, is going to play a respectably large part in their campaign. So—one flips through that pamphlet at random— will such things as housing, education, agricul- tural policy, pensions and what-all. I do not believe there are more than a handful of votes in all these things put together, and please bear with me while I elaborate on what may seem an im- possibly nihilistic view. The public's cynicism with politics and the politicians in this country has not, happily, taken the lurid forms it has assumed in other lands; there has never been any real danger of an average poll of 20 per cent. at a General Election, still less of Field-Marshal Mont- gomery seizing power. But because we continue to vote, and to vote for more or less the same people, it is too readily assumed that we are swayed by the same things that sway, or are said to sway, the -people for whom we vote.
It is this idea that I think needs looking at afresh. There is precious little hard evidence to go *upon, but such recent studies as those in Glossop and Bristol seem to me to suggest that there is a gap, in the public's mind, between, say, the present reality of living in a house with a leaky roof and the distant mirage of a political party which-pro- poses, not to send a man along with some new slates, but to 'municipalise housing' or to 'set the builders free,' or some other such windy pishposh and rumble-bumble. The existence of this gap, and its increasing width, is in my view an indication of a comparatively high standard of political sophistication, for the fact is, there is no connec- tion between leaky roofs and the housing policies on either side of Smith Square. But even if it is caused by a primitive inability to allocate effects to their causes, the gap exists, and it yawns in front of an extraordinarily high proportion of the current political dissensions.
Yet we still continue to vote Labour or Con- servative in our millions. If we don't do so because we believe that road transport ought or ought not to be nationalised (and even if we do believe one of these remarkable propositions, we are still a very long way from believing that we can bring either of them to pass by electing the party which favours it), why then do we vote at all? Well, millions vote under the pressure of inertia; it is a matter of record that most people vote the same way all their lives, no matter what shifts in attitude or circumstances may befall the party of their choice. Many vote for the party with which they have, only partly consciously, identified them- selves, the party they think is 'best for' people like themselves. Many, too, are swayed by the public image of a party or of its leading personalities.
And many, and this group containing most of the 'floating vote,' vote on the issues presented to them not by the parties but by circumstances. For instance, it is clear that unemployment is going to play an important part in the election. But do people vote Labour because they imagine that Mr. Robens will help them to find, or keep, a job? Only in the vaguest and least conscious sense. On the whole, those who vote Labour because of unemployment will do so as a protest, a blow at the government which was in power when the unemployment arrived or loomed up on the hori- zon. After all, when the crops fail in the Mid-West the farmers vote Democrat, but nobody really believes that they do so because they think the Democrats will improve the weather.
There are, of course, the dedicated party men, who really do believe the Labour Party will achieve the reunification of Germany, or that the Conservative Party will enable the pound to look the dollar in the face, but they area tiny minority and electorally, apart from the work they put in 'on the knocker' and the like, insignificant. For the most part, I do not believe that votes are to be won by making noises about superannuation, or co-partnership, or the United Nations, or the grammar schools.
But 'my conclusion is not in fact a cynical one; on the contrary. If what I am saying is true of the mass of the electors, as I believe it is, there is a minority—though numerically by no means con- temptible—of which it is even more true. If it is impossible to reach the bulk of the electors with a campaign on any sort of issue, and the more sophisticated few with a campaign on the kind of issues the parties select for presentation to the electorate at the moment, I believe a different kind of issue could well bring our minority hot-foot to the polling-stations. The other day I lunched with a man who in his rage banged upon the table— literally, with his fist, so that the wine-glasses jiggled and clinked—because he can now be fined £5 for throwing down an empty cigarette-carton in the street. He thinks this law is an outrage, and so, though I do not smoke cigarettes, do I. What is more, I think it a national scandal thA our opera-houses, art galleries and symphony orches- tras should have to beg their bread in the way they do. What is more, I think that telephone- tapping should be stopped—in all cases, including those involving national security. What is more, I think that the bit in my passport which says that it remains the property of HM Government and can be withdrawn at any time should be cut out, and the,Civil Servant who thought of it sent to prison for twenty-five years. What is more, I think the Senate of the University of London, and the architects they are at present employing to ruin Gower Street for ever, should be disfranchised, and for good measure flogged. What is more, I think that the recommendations of part two of the Wolfenden Report should be passed into law. What is more, I think that the House of Commons should either obey the licensing laws or change them. What is more, I think that the principles upon which Her Majesty's Government decides whether to permit the sale of arms to a foreign country to be used for the purpose of carrying on a civil war are all wrong, and that their applica- tion to the shipment of arms from Great Britain .to the former Government of Cuba prior to December 15, 1958, wronger still.
Which is where I came in. Why was the ex- posure of the British Government's boss-eyed part in the Cuban revolution left to a Labour back- bencher, Mr. Hugh Delargy? Why did not Mr. Gaitskell lead a campaign to get it stopped? Because Mr. Gaitskell does not believe there are any votes in it. Mr. Gaitskell is wrong; there is my vote in it, and the vote of my friend who banged the table when he thought of the Litter Bill, and the votes of all my other friends. And I have quite a lot of friends. Very well, let us cry our wares in the marketplace. Contrary to Section 99 of the Representation of the People Act, 1949, I am now offering my vote for sale. It will be delivered on polling day, in good condition, to any party—any party, including the Flat Earth Party, the Eva Bartok for Prime Minister Party, the Anarchist Party, the Vegetarian Party or even the Liberal Party—which will, between now and then, convince me that it cares about the things that I care about, some of which I have listed above. I await offers; who speaks first? TAPER
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