Mr Brian Walden took a jaundiced look at the Tory
party in an article in the Times last Saturday. It was entitle 'The Harsh Vulgarity of Modern Toryism' and the main thesis was that the Conservative party, which had once been associated with 'epicureanism and noblesse oblige', was now in the hands of the 'carnivorous section of the lower middle class'. Mr Macmillan was mentioned with approval, as were Lord Butler, Lord Boyle, Walter Monckton and even Earl Baldwin. None of these, asserted Mr Walden, would be acceptable to the present Tory party which had provided a 'knee in the groin government with no chivalry about it'. It was all due to a new breed of 'Tory scholarship boys' who must find a 'clear relationship between effort and rewards'. The article was written with Mr Walden's customary in- cisiveness and acerbity, and whilst Conservatives will obviously disagree with the tone of the piece they might well accept at least some of its conclusions, and see no reason to be ashamed of the fact. Equally Mr Walden would surely accept that if the Tory party has strayed sadly from the paths of 'epicureanism and noblesse oblige' his own party has hardly been a shin- ing example of the stoicism and brotherhood which characterised the pioneers of Socialism. Indeed one of the reasons for the present move of the Tory party to the right is surely that bright young Labour scholarship boys like Mr Walden, who fought his way from West Bromwich Grammar School to the Presidency of the Oxford Union, were much happier wallowing in the • mud at The centre of politics with such political hip- popotami as Lord Butler, Lord Boyle and Mr Reginald Maudling, than reading Clause 4 of the Labour party constitution with Mr Eric Heifer or Mr Mikardo. It is little wonder that there should emerge in the Tory party a distaste for a political struggle which amounted to convincing the nation that one set of decent chaps would humanely manage the nation a little better than the others. Of course homage had to be paid to the sacred cows of each party, but eventually the protagonists became lost in loving admiration for each other. Paul Foot, in his biography of Harold Wilson, tells of an encounter between Mr John Junor, editor of the Sunday Express, and Mr Wilson not long after the Suez crisis. Mr Wilson ex- pressed his admiration for Mr Macmillan: 'You know, John, the man's a genius. He's holding up the banner of Suez for the party to follow, and he's leading the party away from Suez. That's what I would like to do with the Labour party'. And that is what he did. An examination of the Labour record in office reveals just how far the party moved from their canons of political belief. For ex- ample there is the question of international brotherhood which once inspired all worthy Socialists. Who, in his right senses, would place in a Labour manifesto a tax to help overseas causes? Indeed the proportion of the GNP spent on overseas aid steadily decreased under Labour. By 1968 it was 0.42 per cent compared to 0.56 per cent under the Conservative government of 1960. One of the reasons why the ?arty was unable to cope with the developing racialist state of Rhtglesia was because the bulk of the party, and particularly the trade union section, could not care less about the plight of the black majority in Rhodesia after the initial wave of sentiment. The leadership was well contented with this view. When a group of MPS forced the issue of Rhodesia before the party con- ference at Blackpool in 1968, it was tacked on to the race relations debate, and Miss Joan Lestor was invited to reply for the platform. It was earnestly hoped that Miss Lestor would linger over race questions and leave little time for debating Rhodesia. In fact she went through her speech like a tobacco auc- tioneer, whilst Mr James Callaghan sat behind whispering for her to take her time. The conference then called for an un- negotiated settlement of the Rhodesian con- stitutional question which the leadership promptly ignored and the party equally promptly forgot. It was also during the Labour period of office that the `patrial clause' which has caused so much offence in the present Conservative legislation first saw the light of day. Clause 1 of Labour's 1968 Com- monwealth Immigrants Bil I—ma inly designed to deal with the threat of an influx of Kenyan Asians—laid down the principle that a British grandad was the open sesame to this country. It was unashamedly racialist in tone, yet Labour opposition to the same principle expressed in current legislation has caused the clause to be removed from the Tory Bill in committee. Apart from international brotherhood it would not be unreasonable for a voter seek- ing a choice between the parties to expect Labour to place the relief of poverty by state intervention as a priority. In fact just after the Labour party left office the number of children living below the poverty level as defined by the Supplementary Benefits Com- mission had doubled to a figure of one million from 1966. Professor Peter Townsend, whose work in revealing the ex- tent of poverty in Britain had been such a trump card for the Labour party but who subsequently became disenchanted with their efforts, also asserts that the number of people in Britain with incomes less than the supplementary benefit scales probably num- bers around 3,500,000, an increase of something around a million from 1966. One certainly hopes that this government keeps its knee out of the groin of these people because their groins must be rather sore from the attentions of the last ad- ministration. No doubt Mr Walden, and other young intellectuals, could advance elaborate reasons why the problems of poverty would have been solved in time when economic difficulties were overcome. But what of the inexpensive reforms which the honest voter might expect political left-wingers to be ad- vocating? For example there is the question of reforming the House of Lords. Here the front benchers were locked in yet another loving embrace. It was the simplest of jobs for Mr Michael Foot, for impeccable left- wing reasons, to join forces with Mr Powell, who harboured equally impeccable right- wing motives, and destroy the Labour Bill. In addition only the feeblest of efforts were made by the Labour administration to tackle the question of public schools, and one might at least have expected the spiritual descendants of Keir Hardie to abolish the use of titles as being socially divisive. Far from it. When I asked a young Labour backbencher, whose views are so similar to Mr Walden's that he might be the same man, why he did not advocate the abolition of titles he replied, 'The people like them'. It might well have come from the lips of one of the unit trust lads on the Tory benches who no longer love a lord, but know who does. Mr Walden should in fact be grateful for the new-found vulgarity of the Tory party for it will surely cause his own party to look at itself more critically, since it must now provide a viable alternative to the present brand of Conservatism which he admits is popular in the country but, he believes, will eventually alienate the majority. Among the facts the Labour movement must ponder is the way the parliamentary party has lost contact with the grass-roots left wing. Men such as Mr Eric Heifer, who was a carpenter, recognise that they are the last of the in- tellectually able men to emerge from the ranks of manual workers. Mr Walden himself is the son of a glazier but arrived in the House with high academic qualifications, and the proportion of university men in the Parliamentary Labour party has risen from 52 to 60 per cent between the 1966 and 1970 elections. The trade unions are in the hands of left-wingers like Mr Scanlon or Mr Jones but are just as ready to take on Mr Wilson as Mr Heath and are more interested in wage rates than socialist philosophy. Bright young men who came into the Parliamentary Labour party over the last ten years or more have been able to pour scorn on some of the fundamentalist views of the Tribune group and happily occupy the centre ground. Now that the Tory party has moved off to the right and the unions, for long the power base of the leadership, have gone to the left, outside the Commons, the centre ground is beginning to look a rather lonely place. 'We are all lower-middle class now', says Mr Walden. True enough. But not Butskellites or MacWilsons. The Young Lions will have to think again.
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