Political Commentary
Tory Rumblings
By ALAN WATKINS
How much longer can Sir Alec Douglas- Home continue as leader of the Conservative Party? After the loss of Roxburgh the question does not really have to be asked. It asks itself. One MP compares the situation today to that pre- vailing immediately before the abdication crisis. Everybody knew that something was wrong, but no one was prepared to say so. No one, that is, until the Bishop of Bradford innocently set things moving. Who will be the Conservative equivalent of the Bishop of Bradford? It needs only one respected knight—preferably a blunt, honest fellow who has no time for these clever chaps—to bring the doubts about the Con- servative leadership into a more exposed posi- tion than they occupy at the moment. It needs only one speech attacking the leadership for the misgivings about Sir Alec to become semi-public property. And sooner or later this is going to happen.
Not that signs of the doubts about Sir Alec have been altogether absent. There was, for in- stance, the copl reception Accorded "him at the annual luncheon of the 1922 committee. There was the fact that the party chairman, Mr. Edward du Cann, could publicly say that Sir Alec's television image was appalling and that something would have to be done about it. The Party chairman is appointed by and is respon- sible to the leader. When he can talk about his master in these tones, and can, moreover, get away with it, then something strange has clearly happened inside the Conservative Party. A proper respect is lacking. No Conservative would have dared talk about Mr. Harold Macmillan in this way.
The basic cause of the trouble is that the Con- servatives are puzzled. They are puzzled because, in the country, they are not doing as well as they should. One opinion poll has disclosed that people think Mr. Jo Grimond would be a better leader of the Opposition than would Sir Alec. Another Poll has given Labour a nine-point lead. No poll has shown anything like a clear majority who are satisfied with Sir Alec. While these depressing tidings were being published, there came increas- ingly gloomy reports from the intrepid.corre- spondents at Saffron Walden and at Roxburgh and Selkirk. The result of the Saffron Walden 4-election, it is true, is more encouraging. But it is not likely to put an end to the doubts about the impact the Conservatives are making in the Country.
Yet why should this be so? ask some Con- servative back-benchers. The Government has made some bad mistakes. Why should the Oppo- sition not be reaping some of the benefits? Surely the answer must lie in the character of the leadership of the Opposition? This may not be altogether fair to Sir Alec, who has made some fluent and well-constructed speeches, particularly On foreign policy and defence: but it is a penalty of being a leader that one gets blamed when things go wrong. Furthermore, however lucid his speeches in the House may have been, not
One of them has looked like seriously embar- rassing the Government, despite the talk of eagles, ducks, eels and other strange inhabitants of Sir Alec's metaphorical menagerie. But a murmur of discontent is one thing; pro- claiming that discontent is quite another; and actually going on to doing something about it is
something else again. How safe in reality is Sir Alec's position? He has, it should be remem- bered, publicly announced, in a speech at Hamp- stead, his intention of leading the party at the next eleation. If the election is to be held in May or June there are few Conservatives who are disposed to quarrel with this. There is simply no time to elect a new leader and make him known to the public. However, as soon as it be- comes evident that Mr. Harold Wilson has no desire to go to the country in either late spring or early summer, then we may expect the grumbles about the Tory leadership to take on a new vigour.
One argument which is produced against the success of any such movement is that it is always difficult to get rid of a Conservative leader. Think, so the argument runs, of the way in which Mr. Macmillan withstood all his critics through- opt 1963. It was illness, not opposition, which finally forced him out. But there is one simple difference between Mr. Macmillan's position two years ago and Sir Alec's today. Mr. Macmillan was Prime Minister; Sir Alec is not. Mr. Mac- millan handed out the jobs; Sir Alec has to depend upon much more tenuously based good will.
There are few recent precedents to go on when we are considering the replacement of a Conser- vative leader in opposition. It may well be that
the operation is not nearly as difficult as it is sometimes made to sound. Certainly in the present situation it is hard to see any one seg- ment of the Conservative Party—any one power centre, if you prefer it—which is wholly com- mitted to Sir Alec. Take, first of all; the National Union, which was at one time the most pro- Home of bodies. The Executive Committee of the Union feel badly let down by Sir Alec. They think he should have ensured them a much bigger say in the new leadership election procedure. All they have at the moment is a walk-on part at the crowning ceremony: this, they hold, is not good enough.
Or take, again, the Whips' Office. As Chief Whip, Mr. (now Sir) Martin Redmayne was a loyal Macmillan man. Subsequently he played a large part in the selection of Sir Alec. But Sir Martin is no longer at the Whips' Office. His successor, Mr. William Whitelaw, is rightly con- cerned not so much with protecting Sir Alec as with keeping the party united and winning the next election. Move across to Smith Square, and you will again find no great devotion to Sir Alec. And the Shadow Cabinet? Mr. Selwyn Lloyd is there, loyal as ever. So is Sir Martin Red- mayne. But the Shadow Cabinet, to put it mildly, is not united in its admiration for Sir Alec. Then there are Heath, Macleod and Maudling. I place them in' alphabetical order partly for convenience, partly because no one knows what the true order is. All three hopefuls are convinced that they could do Sir Alec's job better than he does it himself. They may well be right. And one of them may have the opportunity of putting his belief to the test much sooner than anyone imagines.
Previous page
