A Spectator's Notebook
Britain has only had a minority government twice before in this century, in 1924 and 1929, both periods when Labour were in office. I ignore the period from 1910-1915 when the Asquith government received the support of the Irish Nationalists in return for Home Rule. The Conservative Party was bitterly opposed to Home Rule to which the Liberal Party had long been committed and therefore the government was in no danger of defeat. In 1924 and 1929 the Labour governments remained in power at the favour of the Liberal Party which was abruptly withdrawn in October 1924. Indeed out of 158 Liberal Members of Parliament less than a dozen, who included my father Reginald Berkeley, voted with the Labour government in the vote of censure on its handling of the Campbell case. The government was overwhelmingly defeated.
I do not recall a period when a government could be defeated not only by a combination of the Conservatives and the Liberals, but also by a combination of Conservatives and Ulster Loyalists or even, if the other smaller parties abstained, by a combination of the Conservatives and the Scottish Nationalists.
A minority government, such as we now have, is by no means bad. It serves to remind the public and, perhaps more pertinently, the Whips, that no government is obliged to resign unless it is unable to raise the funds without which the country cannot be governed; although in recent times it would also be unthinkable for a government not to resign having been beaten in the House of Commons on a vote of confidence. That the public and the Whips should have been brought to realise the true constitutional position is wholly good. In 1961 when I was a Conservative MP my Whip gravely informed me that the government would fall if I voted in favour of Tony Wedgwood Benn (briefly Viscount Stansgate) being heard at the Bar of the House or if I voted in favour of the right of a peer to renounce his peerage. Here he darkly hinted that the very existence of the monarchy might be at stake. I voted in favour of both but the government was not beaten; its majority of a hundred was merely halved. I gave my Whip a short but heated lecture on correct constitutional precedent which I hope stood him in good stead. He afterwards became Parliamentary Private Secretary to Sir Alec Douglas-Home — the principal beneficiary of the measure which was eventually passed enabling peerages to be renounced.
Electoral fairness
Mr Heath fought the 1974 general election on the entirely false issue of the need for strong government. The real need is for a strong Parliament, and that for the time being we have got. How can it be preserved? I have for long believed that the alternative vote is the best method of choosing Members of Parliament. This proposal does not depart from the single-member constituency which, despite Miss Enid Lakeman of the Electoral Reform Society, surely the holder of the prize for the most prolific and tenacious letterwriter in the world, I believe to be infinitely preferable to multi-member constituencies. It is a method of voting which is easily understood. If no candidate receives an overall majority, the second preferences of the lowest candidate are redistributed. The most interesting speculation is what would be the second choice of those who voted Liberal where their candidate came bottom of the poll. I will take two constituencies by way of example. In Basildon, the Labour candidate received 33,499 votes as against 22,832 for the Conservatives and 17,794 for the Liberal. In Bexleyheath the Conservative candidate received 18,541 votes as against 14,695 for the Labour candidate and 9,575 for the Liberal.
Surely it is quite unfair for the six million people who voted Liberal to have an effect only on the fourteen seats which the Liberal Party won. Can anybody say what would have happened in Bexleyheath or Basildon if the alternative vote had been the rule? I support the alternative vote not merely because it would achieve the result of enfranchising six million people who have effectively been disfranchised because of their perverse desire to vote Liberal but also Lecause Conservative and Labour constituency parties would be less willing to choose extremists of the right or left for fear of losing the Liberal second preference. It would also enable a candidate who has fallen out with his party caucus to stand as an Independent Conservative or Labour candidate without the accusation or effect of splitting the vote and letting the other side in. I would also have fixed term Parliaments of five years, subject only to the necessity for a general election to be held if a government were defeated on a vote of confidence. These two proposals would greatly strengthen the position of backbench MPs without dangerously weakening the power of the government.
Selection of candidates
A few weeks ago I appeared in front of a Labour Party Selection Committee. I was given precisely ten minutes in which to speak and five minutes to answer questions. The proceedings were conducted with scrupulous fairness and politeness. But how can anybody put himself across in a period of fifteen minutes and how can his audience acquire .anything but the most hazy impression of the man himself? I do not suggest that a prospective candidate should be under scrutiny for a week, his mannerisms being carefully noted, a record kept of what he ate or drank, the clothes he wore, the salaciousness or otherwise of his language, the hours at which he rose and went to bed. But for the most part MPs, whether Labour or Conservative, are chosen in less time and with less care than I would devote to appointing the telephone girl in my office.
Selection meetings, although almost always brief, are sometimes far from courteous. A friend of mine appeared with his wife (obligatory in the Tory Party, if you have one) before a Conservative Party Selection Committee. After he had spoken, a member of the Committee said, "We have seen your wife from the front. Would she please stand up and turn round so that we can see what she looks like from behind?" Perhaps fortunately this constituency, which has hitherto been regarded as rock-solid Conservative, went Liberal in the ensuing by-election and the top functionaries were turned out of office. They were, I hope, succeeded by people of better manners.
Christopher Chataway
I am sad that Chris should have decided to give up politics. I first met him in 1956 when he was covering a Conservative Party Conference for ITN. He and I entered Parliament in the general election of 1959. We became close friends and I am the godfather of his daughter. He was, for many in politics, the object of envy, gaining office, so they said, through his athletic record and his good looks; seeming almost too good to be true. As I came to know him and Anna his wife well, it seemed to me that they both, though agnostic, came nearer to practising the Christian ethic than any couple I know in politics. With two children of her own at the time, Anna became foster mother to many children who were products of broken homes, a member of the Community Relations Commission, and more controversially a leader in the movement for abortion law reform. Chris was for three years the Leader of the Inner London Education Authority, undertaking, without private means, an unpaid, virtually full-time job.
If I give the impression of priggishness it is not my intention. Chris can be gloriously and hilariously funny. He is also curiously and disarmingly innocent — the sort of person who would actually have to see a man with a dagger in his hand covered in blood before he believed his guilt. Through his innocence he was sometimes duped and exploited by scoundrels. It may be that his absence of guile would have prevented him from reaching the top rank in politics. Political differences in no way impaired our friendship. During the last general election I thoughtlessly caused him some embarrassment for which I hope I have been forgiven. He will probably be replaced by some pompous worthy bore as Member for Chichester. He and those few like him cannot easily be replaced in the House of Commons.
Getting it right
As the possessor of not merely one but two names which are frequently misspelt I find that I am quite unreasonably angry when this happens. I have so far escaped the injury inflicted on Lord Luke, Treasurer of UNA when I was Chairman, who together with his wife was announced as "Lude and Lordy Lake" on their arrival at a function. Nor have I had the indignity suffered by Arthur Bottomley whom I heard quite innocently called "Mr Commonly the Bottomwealth Secretary" on Zambia Radio in 1966. It is a small comfort.
Humphry Berkeley
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