Westminster Commentary
The Old Men
By JULIAN CRITCHLEY, MP We are not as a nation confident of our future. We have not as a nation been ready to face the reappraisal that must follow the closing of the chapter of imperial power.
THE RT. HON. LAIN MACLEOD, MI'
WILL 1963 be another 1906? This is a question which Tory MPs may not yet be asking each other but which they are certainly asking themselves. There are at first sight many disturbing similarities. A Conservative Govern- ment that will have been in power for twelve years as against Balfour's ten. A Conservative Party that may still be riven by Europe as it was over Protection, a main opposition party which may well overcome its own disputes, as did the Liberals in '06. The parallel can even be extended to the personalities of Balfour and Macmillan, for Macmillan would seem to have had more in common with Balfour than with any other Tory Prime Minister of this century. Only one factor, the Grimond Liberals, mars the symmetry. It is their success, if it is sustained, that will turn 1963 not into an '06 but into a 1923.
For the past ten years the Conservatives have had, at base, two things to offer. First the fact that they were not the Labour Party, and secondly the belief that they could manage the economy more efficiently than anyone else. Time has diminished the first; performance has weakened the second.
It may no longer be possible to frighten the electorate with tales of snoek, rationing and devaluation. It is all too long ago, and besides many of the 'new classes' did not participate in the politics of the late Forties. If politics is, as Adams says, the systematic organisation of hatreds, and people tend to vote against rather than for, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the Conservatives to base their appeal upon anti- Socialism. Indeed Adams's dictum may well now he working against the Government. `Tory Free- dom Works' and 'Invest in Success' were the themes of earlier election victories. The pay pause following on as it did the 1959 election Which was fought and won on strictly materialis- tic terms has made many bewildered and resent- ful. It remains to be seen if re-expansion is not subject to the law of diminishing returns. It is often said that what Macmillan in particular has done is to readjust Britain to her changed position in a changing world, and this is true. What is not so frequently stressed are the risks involved In adapting one's policies, whilst at the same time attempting to retain one's traditional support. Whilst it is necessary that the leadership of the Tory Party should always be ahead of its voters, what is not so clear is how far ahead, and for how long.
Despite Orpington, Blackpool and now Derby there are not many Conservatives in the House Who believe that the Liberal revival will last. There is the example of Torrington (will Mr. Lubbock go the same way as Mr. Mark Bonham Carter?) and there are the built-in contradictions of a party whose activists are of the Radical Left and whose voters are of the Radical Right. Present discontents serve to inflate the Liberal vote, and it is discontented Conservatives that make up the greater part of the support that the Liberals are getting. This makes nonsense of the Liberal claim that they are a party of the Left. They are nothing of the sort. An alliance be- tween radicals of the Left and of the Right is hardly a foundation upon which a worthwhile or lasting political challenge can be built. The Liberal revival has all the characteristics of a monstrous bubble inside which startled but nevertheless delighted Liberals welcome a large number of visitors whose subscriptions are col- lected but whose credentials are not checked. The bubble must burst. The question is whether it will do so before or after the next general election.
If government performance improves then the Liberals will decline; if the support for the Liberals remains at around its present level, then the result must be the return of a Labour Government, certainly on a minority vote and perhaps even dependent for its parliamentary majority on thirty or so Liberal MPs. Such circumstances could only result in an over- whelming Tory victory at the following election, and thus the postponement, if not the abandon- ment, of any radical realignment in British politics that should follow the break-up of the Labour Party. The Liberal revival may serve to preserve the Labour Party, and thus postpone, or even prevent, a recasting of British politics into two new main groupings. Conservative and Radical (together with a rump of doctrinaire Socialists). Two such groups if they were to come about would at least be based upon con- flicting interest, which is more than can be said for the Liberal 'revival.'
But what of the Tories? It will not be enough simply to express one's indignation, for the Tory Party is in danger. There have been times when, however skilfully it has managed its support or however efficiently it has governed, events have begun to move too quickly for it. Then, quite suddenly, consolidation and improvement no longer appear to be enough, for great questions have arisen which demand answers for which the party may be fundamentally unprepared. Such was the repeal of the Corn Laws. Such was Pro- tection. Such may be Europe.
The terms of our entry loom up for the Government as does Becher's on the second time round. But at least there is no question of the horse refusing to jump. To say that we will accept what terms we can get is not to discount the value of negotiation, but, in truth, the party has no choice but to enter. If the Government were to come to Parliament next November with terms that it considered unsatisfactory, then the stuffing would be knocked out of the Tory Party. It would not then be a 1923 in 1963 but a 1906. Too much anyway is made of the terms. It is now quite possible to forecast what they will be. They will be a reasonable compromise between the interests of Europe and the Commonwealth, with preference continued for a transitional period until replaced by world trading agree- ments. It is not the terms but the attitudes towards Europe that MPs have already taken up that will determine their vote.
Since 1951 the Conservatives have been con- cerned to dismantle war-time and Socialist controls and to replace the memories of the Thirties by Tory Affluence. We have been realists enough to surrender our colonial responsibilities, a process of liquidation that has been disguised by royal tours, and by the pretence that Com- monwealth was but the simple magnification of Empire. The realisation that it is not is a welcome consequence of the debate over Europe.
The Common Market is now the opportunity for the Tories to take the political initiative. The Government must proclaim the advantages of our entry, for it is high time that someone gave a blast on the trumpet. Instead of a fumbling de- fence of the increase in the price of the com- muter's season ticket, we need the addition of eloquence to Europe. Up till now the Govern- ment has not given a lead because it has argued that it is not the country but Tory MPs that will have to choose whether or not we enter. This was reasonable for as long as the Government re- tained its popularity, but with the shocks to morale of recent by-elections there is now no choice. The effect upon the negotiations? The 'Six' will have already read all about Mr. Lubbock.
The crusade for Europe is not all that must be undertaken. Much that the Government has done over the last two years has been bedevilled by incompetence, and, as a consequence, the merit, of its approach to the things that really matter, Europe, Africa and the wages policy, has been obscured. The dead wood must go. There are, it is generally agreed, half a dozen Ministers of the middle rank who should be returned to the back benches. They might well be replaced by Members of the 1955 intake. Whilst Macmillan will remain, the Government must be built increasingly around people such as Heath, Macleod, Boyle and Enoch Powell.
It is amusing to see, in all this, how some of the younger Tories of the 1959 vintage, the self- styled Tory Radicals (they no longer describe themselves as liberals) are falling over them- selves to come to the aid of the party. It is they who are clamouring the loudest that something shbuld be done. And why, not? For it is they who have identified themselves most closely with the ends if not always with the means of govefnment policy. They have in the past been content to plot its course, or to defend it from attacks by the party Bourbons, whilst quarrelling occa- sionally with the Government over specifics such as defence or the Federation. But today they consider Europe to be of overriding importance. For if we, are to join the Common Market it will only be this Government that will take us in; thus the survival of the Government has become the first consideration of the party's New Guard.
The next election need neither be a 1906 nor a 1923. The Tories are really rather good at win- ning elections. Neddy and re-expansion may well bring back the liberals; the Common Market is a time-bomb buried in the basement of Transport House, and, if, after the dust has settled, the Labour Party lines up against Europe then that too would be to the advantage cf the Government. A platform of affluence at home, and opportunity abroad, is not a bad one on which to fight. Indeed to sum up in what may well become the words of the Prime Minister, 'we ain't dead yet.'
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