Lessons of a Lost Battle
By JULIAN CRITCHLEY Mr. Wilson: Why do I emphasise the importance of the Royal Navy? A Voice: Because you are in Chatham.
WELL, if we achieved nothing else, we can claim the award for the best heckle of the election. Mr. Wilson came to Chatham in the first week of the campaign to support Mrs. Anne Kerr, the Labour candidate, who, as a unilateral nuclear disarmer, was finding Chatham dockyard and its 12,000 workers something of a problem. Mr. Wilson's promise of a larger navy must have helped, for she succeeded in turning my majority of 1,023, gained in 1959 at the ex- pense of Mr. Arthur Bottomley, into a Labour gain by 1,013 votes----a swing of fractionally under 2 per cent.
The constituency includes Rochester, a city Whose cathedral has almost disappeared beneath a weight of light industry, and Chatham, a working-class town dependent upon the Royal Dockyard. Gillingham, the third Medway town, is largely residential and consequently a Con- servative stronghold. The Medway towns are highly prosperous, having more in common with Coventry and the Midlands than with the rest Of Kent. The dockyard has attracted over the years a number of people from the East End, While the small resident middle class has been reinforced by 4,000 commuters who have settled in the newly-built private housing estates. No one retires to Rochester or Chatham, they prefer Maidstone or SevenoakS, as do the managers of Rochester's new factories. The seat is thus in- dustrial, one-class, and traditionally Labour, but With a strong naval and military background.
Bottornley, who, if anything, is right of centre in the Labour Party, was succeeded as Labour candidate by Mrs. Anne Kerr, who has never made a secret of her support for CND and her membership of bodies like Mothers Against War and the London Peace Campaign. This con- trast suggested our tactics, which were to make her views common knowledge and to try to separate her from part at least of the Labour vote. There were times when the election re- sembled the disputes within Labour that followed Scarborough. No member of the Campaign for Democratic Socialism ever denounced the neu- tralist alternative as strongly as I. We did not win, but we did manage to .hold the swing to Labour below the average both for the county and for the country.
Unless one is a Minister, or his Shadow, a candidate for a marginal seat is generally con- fined to his constituency for three or more weeks. News from the outside world filters through as if into a city besieged. His isolation is heightened by his own conspicuousness. Be- ribboned like a bullock, he can never escape attention, and moves continually to the flattery of his supporters or the abuse of his opponents. His evenings are spent either in speaking to the committed at public meetings, or out can- vassing at a time of night when no salesman, not even one of Mr. Bloom's, would dream of knock- ing on anyone's front door. I never saw a single party television broadcast, but, to judge by the protests of boredom that I encountered, this may have not been the loss that I feared. A candidate quickly falls into routine. The newspapers to be read first thing on waking, a massive breakfast, then into the party headquarters to deal with the post. `Do you approve of fluoridation?' Yes.' The carefully loaded questionnaires from bodies in favour of this or that, Sunday Observance, the United Nations, Pensioners. 'Do you think a pension of £3 7s. 6d. is adequate for a single person."Yes, as of now.' Tracts from temper- ance societies, letters from disaffected con- stituents. 'I am a life-long Conservative but be- cause of your support for the Common Market for your hostility to the small shopkeeper, or your support for the homosexuals, whatever it may be] I shall not vote for you at the election.' A polite
acknowledgement. Then to a morning spent can- vassing.
I have never been convinced that canvassing achieves very much. Most local parties put great store by it, not so much for the results obtained, which are often inaccurate, but because it is one way in which voluntary workers can be kept busy. Everyone must be given something to do. I de- cided to concentrate my own canvass upon the new owner-occupied housing estates that had gone on to the register since 1959 and which, on the basis of that election, would be con- fidently expected to be Tory. They were no longer so. I found on the outskirts of Rochester what many a Conservative candidate was finding, namely, the disaffection of the middle class from the party with which it has traditionally identified itself. Less than half of them voted Conservative.
If canvassing is but a ritual, what of the other traditional forms of electioneering? The public meeting is useful only if a report can be got into the press. We held five, one for each issue of the local papers. Our largest attendance was 300 for Mr. Heath, Mr. Wilson had over 1,000. In every case, the audience consisted of partisans. Ques- tions were not asked for information, they were gauntlets thrown down before the feet of the enemy. Poster publicity is valuable, for it stimu- lates interest and thereby induces a high poll. The candidates? This is more difficult to judge. An observer might have felt Mrs. Kerr's views on defence a disadvantage in such a constitu- ency. Nevertheless, she overcame it, although the relatively small swing to Labour could have been a consequence of her views, which by the end of the campaign were widely known. Although we decided deliberately to draw out the distinction between her views and the policy of the Labour Party proper, it was not easy to make people appreciate the difference. By the same token, my own eccentricities, support for selective service conscription, Wolfenden part two, and the end of RPM (which brought me into conflict with the local chamber of com- merce), played little or no part. All the evidence appears to confirm that the choice of candidate has little chance of influencing the national trend.
Why did the Tories lose? The answer is plain. Once we had been excluded from the Common Market we had nothing to put in its place. The election was lost in 1963. Britain in Europe would have enabled us to take the centre of politics and to appeal to the younger managers and executives, and to youth in general. We should have had something to shout about. Labour's opposition to Europe would have served only to underline the inadequacies and irrele- vance of the party. As it was, we lost ground precisely where the Tories, if they are to govern, must remain strong. Continued affluence and an appeal to patriotism (the retention of the inde- pendent deterrent) meant an increased working- class vote. Our materialism, apparent com- placency, and, to be frank, less attractive leader- ship, lost us support elsewhere. For all his courage, Sir Alec could not and did not match Mr. Wilson in what was to be a quasi-presidential election campaign. The strongest arguments for the Tories—Messrs. Heath, Maudling, Joseph and Boyle—could not overcome the damage done by the disputes over the leadership, the monumental tactlessness of Mr. Quintin Hogg, who suc- t,:eded, single-handed, in raising the spectre of the Profumo affair, and the curious indiscretions of Mr. Butler. We could never decide whether to play it hot or to play it cool; to rely upon prosperity or to modernise Britain; to face for- ward or back. We paid the penalty. At least the lesson to be learnt is clear.
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