Another voice
Endangered elephants
Auberon Waugh
A friend walking down Regent Street the other day was surprised to see a notice in the Russian Intourist Agency window advertising trips to Russia for British football fans. For a mere £281 each, they are invited to travel by plane and by charabanc to Tbilisi in Georgia, where, on 18 November, Wales is to play the Soviet Union in the World Cup. It would seem that the Russians have either not been told about British football fans, or they are the only nation in the world actually prepared to welcome them.
It is quite possible, of course, that Soviet censorship has not allowed Russians to read about British football hooliganism, or that they have actually believed their own Spartist explanation: that such behaviour is produced by the semi-articulate yearning of the masses to be free of capitalist oppression, that in a socialist society the anti-social urge will automatically fall away and be replaced by respectful optimism. But a more convincing explanation might be that their socialist paradise is rather better equipped to deal with any outbreaks of hooliganism, with its 200,000 full-time KGB employees, not counting paramilitary organisations and civilian militia, and they really have nothing to fear from a few British drunks. I would be interested to know how many British football fans apply for the jaunt. If, as I suspect, it is fairly well subscribed, this will reinforce my growing suspicion that the restlessness and intractability which are evident among sections of the working class, and which manifest themselves equally in football hooliganism or infantile left-wing politics, are part of a semi-conscious yearning to be disciplined.
A few weeks ago I mentioned the view of the English most prevalent in France, that we have become a nation of unemployable, semi-imbecile football hooligans. Last week Tottenham Hotspur fans did their thing in Amsterdam, holding a pitched battle with two hundred darkies from the former Dutch Guiana. But by far the most significant rally of unemployables was held on Saturday in Birmingham's Aston Park Hall, when 5,000 demonstrators turned up to shout down Mr Healey and cheer Mr Benn.
Generally speaking, of course, one is quite happy to see politicians being shouted down. They are very boring people, con cerned chiefly to bolster their own feelings of self-importance. Free speech should be sacrosanct, but I have always had difficulty in accepting that it must invariably protect those who speak too long, or too often, in public. Moreover it concerns itself only with the free exchange of ideas in debate. Where oratory is used, as it must be in any rally of this sort, merely to whip up crowd emotion and demonstrate unanimity, then dissenters surely have a duty to register their presence, even to the point of stopping the speech. Organised heckling can be a thuggish and frightening thing, but I do not see that it is much more frightening than the suggestion that we must all listen in silence to whatever anybody wishes to say to us.
So I saw no reason to grieve that Mr Healey had been shouted down. Nobody can have been much interested in what he had to say. His purpose in being there was to be cheered, to assure us that everyone present agreed with him; instead, he got the bird. And quite right, too. What alarmed me rather more was the applause given to Mr Benn. Two images occurred to me throughout. When Mr Healey was being heckled and shouted down, I had the familiar image which the Left often manages to excite, of a crowd of naughty boys making a lot of noise to draw attention to themselves and knowing full well that the only attention they will receive will be unpleasant. They seemed to be asking for punishment. But when Mr Benn was rapturously received I had an altogether more sombre image, of the entire British working class, like some gravely wounded elephant, dragging itself to the edge of a precipice: it has had its fill of freedom, of life in the wild, and decided it can't cope.
Mr Benn's greatest appeal to the public, as with Enoch, would appear to be that he is hated by the press, by television, and by the consensus of serious politicians. He has not been slow to realise this, and has produced his own definition of a free press: publicly-owned newspapers which are bound to print whatever (left-wing) opinion they are given, regardless of whether anyone wants to read it or whether anyone agrees, simply because those opinions are held. That, he thinks, is democracy; that is freedom. Not many people can be impress ed by his ravings. Benn's public hates the press and responsible politics because both reflect the unwelcome fact of life that a bankrupt can't solve his problems by spending his way out of them. Benn seems to offer an escape from this unpleasant fact of life, with his plausible manner and unshakeable conviction that he is right. They are happy to be convinced.
But what unemployables are unable to face is that it doesn't matter in the least what views they hold. Mr Benn may have persuaded himself that if enough people can agree to accept his idiotic proposals he will somehow have power to put them into effect, but I am afraid he deludes himself if he imagines that any substantial proportion of his own supporters seriously agrees. He is a noise, a heroic gesture, a posture of defiance against the encroaching waves. Everybody knows perfectly well that his programme of national salvation would end in calamity. So, of course, would the FootHealey platform, as determined by Conference, but Benn's posture at least has some heroic elements in it.
It would seem to be the case that the only question remaining is whether the elephant will actually throw itself over the precipice or not. The elephant would love to think we were watching with bated breath, but the suspense is phoney. Of course it won't. The elephant, in its sad, inarticulate way, is just trying to draw attention to itself. It is imploring us to save it. The real question is whether anybody can be bothered.
I know I can't. What discourages me from any veterinarian adventures is partly the stupidity of the beast. It also has a horrible smell, of course. But my main reason is a feeling that it is doomed in any case. The traditional British working class may be a picturesque anachronism, but it has become too expensive for any but the richest to enjoy. Some may envy Benn his role of elephant boy, sitting on the poor brute's head and urging it over the precipice — certainly Mr Foot envies him — but it seems to me that the sanest role for the private citizen in our national drama is that of a spectator. There is still a little entertainment to be derived from the sight of baffled and frustrated politicians being shouted down at their own political rallies.
At all costs one must avoid the temptation to take sides. It is this horrible propensity to take sides, I am convinced, which is responsible for most of our national ills; from the virtual collapse of our manufacturing industries to the failure of our political system and the prevalence of football hooliganism. Nobody can seriously believe that Labour's policies would work, any more than we should have believed that a Conservative government would have been able to reduce government expenditure. But there is an uneasy suspicion growing up in the country that the only way we will be able to watch a football match — or run our industrial and political systems — is under the Russian Rules. And that, really, is the best joke of all.
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