POLITICS
After the raid is over, after the break of day
FERDINAND MOUNT
Not for the first time, the Americans seem to have somewhat misunderstood us — almost as much as we have misunder- stood them. I can only recommend that they refer back to the pages of George Mikes's How to be an Alien, in which he explains that the two rudest phrases in the English language are 'I'm awfully sorry but . . .' and 'I'm afraid . . .'. In the pre- sent context, when we said that we were `upset' or 'rather concerned' by the Amer- ican raids on Libya what we meant to convey, as politely as possible, was not that we were scared stiff but that we were furious and disgusted. Our feelings were, I think, not much influenced by fear of being blown up in a Libyan reprisal; on the contrary, we were more inclined to re- proach the Americans themselves with a lack of fortitude in such matters. We have, after all, already had one or two bombs to put up with over the years. However, we must not slip back into that hauteur which maddens.
It is plain enough that Mrs Thatcher is well aware of how a large slice of opinion in this country has reacted, With her back to the wall immediately after the raids, she was fiercely Churchillian, downright and forthright; it was 'inconceivable' that she could have given any other response; half-a-dozen times she repeated that to have refused the Americans would have been a 'supine and passive' response to terrorism. Supine, Passive and Co sound like a firm of West Country solicitors (I'm afraid Mr Supine has not been active in the firm for some years now'). Within a couple of days, though, we were given to under- stand (a) that it had been an agonising decision, (b) that this was not likely to prove the best way of crushing terrorism, and (c) that any proposal for a fresh sortie would not be covered by the original permission and would be unlikely to re- ceive the same answer. At the very time that Mrs Thatcher was receiving the ap- plause of American press and politicians for her lonely stand against terrorism (surrounded by a bunch of fainthearts, bleeding-hearts, etc), she herself was mak- ing it clear that, at heart, she belonged to her people: 'The best basis for a foreign policy is what is in the British interest.'
I cannot think of a single government decision which 21 Cabinet ministers out of 22 have been so eager to distance them- selves from, while the 22nd, the Prime Minister, has been equally happy to let it be known how much she disliked taking it. In the last few days, some ministers, such as Mr Hurd and the Prime Minister herself, have been inching back again towards public enthusiasm for the raid, on the grounds that public opinion may be chang- ing — and might change further if Gaddafi really has been weakened, let alone ousted. Even so, the gap between these reactions and the triumphalism on the other side of the Atlantic could scarcely be wider.
It is all very rum. Here we have a Prime Minister still at the peak of her powers, quite unlike those of her predecessors who have managed to survive five years or longer; Asquith, Churchill, Macmillan, Wilson — all were physically exhausted or out of touch with the times. It seems to me that Mrs Thatcher's instinctive understand- ing of what most people want is quite undiminished. Yet as in all relationships going through a bad patch, you cannot miss the atmosphere of drifting apart, even if you cannot always put your finger on the precise explanation. She seems a little like a first-class driver at the wheel of a car which has a first-class engine but also a slipping clutch.
Most of this may be due to bad luck, but then, as Goethe is supposed to have said, `it is extraordinary what fools attribute to luck.' The Libyan raid might appear to come as a bolt from the blue, but with hindsight (surely the most irritating phrase in the English language), since the furore about the US bases has been mounting over the past five years, and so has American indignation about Libyan terror- ism, a more energetic British diplomacy would have suggested that it might be a good idea to establish rather clearer ground-rules for the use of American bases. It might also have pointed out that Britain had quite decided views about the correct way to defeat terrorism, which did `Mind if I passive smoke?' not include bombing the Lebanese coast- line or the centre of Tripoli. Mrs Thatcher's allies in Parliament have made life no easier for her. Whenever the Government loses — and there can seldom have been a more spectacular government defeat than the defeat of the Shops Bill it is said by some to justify Mr Pym's claim during the election campaign that a large majority is bad for a government, because it encourages the luxury of rebellion. This is surely a fallacy. On an issue where you have strongly entrenched views — e'g' among Sabbatarians — the size of the majority is irrelevant; if there are more Tory MPs, there are likely to be more Sabbatarians, and vice versa. Whatever the size of the Tory majority, it is likely to be unduly at risk from a minority which is unrepresentative of popular feeling; on any impartial observation of the way people spend their Sunday, it is they who are out of touch, not Mrs Thatcher. What makes the present situation all the more unlike the difficult patches experi" enced by previous governments is that the usual questions of economic management do not come into it much. Far from there being runaway inflation or a sterling crisis' the Government seems to be steaming through a benign patch of water; inflation is behaving nicely, the fall in the oil price has boosted activity, and at last interest rates are coming down to within striking distance of the 5-8 per cent range which made life so much easier in the 1950s and early 1960s, though still a long way blmt. that glorious two per cent bank rate which prevailed prevailed unchanged between 1932 and 1951. Only unemployment still lowers over" head, like one of those terrible pieces of weather that pursues skippers in Conrad s South Sea tales. It is at moments like these that old hands in government tend to become twitchy about all controversial proposals and start, saying, along with Lord Melbourne, 'Can t. you let it alone?' It is not in the nature of the present Prime Minister to let anything alone for very long. And indeed, she cannot afford to, since in politics the habitual avoidance of risk is so often the, beginning of the irremediable collapse °I the will. What Mrs Thatcher needs now once again to give people, in Mr Enocn, Powell's phrase, 'a tune they can whistle. — and it is not 'The Star-Spangled Banner'.
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