POLITICAL COMMENTARY

A Change in the Weather

By ALAN WATKINS

WHAT is the atmosphere like these days in those overheated corridors of the Palace of Westminster—apart, that is, from being hot? For those of us who, unlike most of the MPs that returned to work this week, devote their entire time to British politics, resting neither by night nor by day, one of the major consolations of the business is its unpredictability. No one can be sure what will happen next. As recently as two weeks ago Mr. Harold Wilson could do no wrong, and Mr. Edward Heath could get nothing right. Today Mr. Wilson is thought to be in difficulties. Whether he really is in difficulties is another question, to which we shall shortly return. Nevertheless, that he is thought to be in some kind of trouble is itself a political fact of some importance. It means that temporarily at least the initiative has slipped away from him.

Not that the initiative is with Mr. Heath. Though he has done slightly better recently, he has yet to plant himself firmly on the political landscape. Mr. Wilson, however, is not now making the weather. It is being made by all man- ner of wild forces of nature outside his control, such as Mr. George Brown and the National Union of Railwaymen and Mr. Fred Lee and the electors of North Hull. And Mr. Wilson, despite his by now frequent excursions into the upper atmosphere of international diplomacy, knows •vcry well that it is domestic discontent which wins or loses elections.

Before we go into the nature of this possible discontent, one point should be made in order to put matters in perspective. Though Con- servative MPs are happier than they were before the recess, and though ministers are perhaps slightly more gloomy, ordinary Labour MPs are

(as Alfred Austin wrote of the then Prince of Wales) much the same. Throughout the past few

months they have observed Mr. Wilson with a mixture of admiration and scepticism. They did not really believe that he was doing as well as the papers said he was. Still less did they believe the public opinion polls. Their experience in their constituencies told them that there was no great swing to Labour, and this was borne out by the results of the by-elections. The present political situation, then, comes as no great surprise to the parliamentary Labour party.

The central figure in this situation is, of course, Mr. Brown, and his immediate concern is the national rail strike. Rail strikes, or rather the threat thereof, are by now a familiar enough phenomenon. The cast changes but the play remains the same. Threats are made, harsh words spoken, and then there is a settlement. Mr.

Sidney Greene at some stage appears sad-faced on television and says that before committing himself he will have to consult his Executive.

Indeed one feels that when and if he is con- fronted by St. Peter, Mr. Greene will still .ask

for time to consult his Executive. In fact Mr.

Greene is the most pacific of union leaders. There is nothing he likes less than a strike. What, he was asked at a recent gathering of corre- spondents, was his personal attitude towards the current threat? 'I can only answer,' he replied, 'with a line from a Beatles' number—Help.' Mr. Brown, so one gathers, takes much the same view. His belligerence, which has lately been considerable, does not extend to the NUR. He too wants a settlement.

And what will be the political effects of a settlement? Some ministers, led by Mr.

James Callaghan, have no doubt that it will mark the end of the prices and incomes policy, particularly in the eyes of the foreign bankers.

They argue that the railwaymen ought to be resisted even if this means a strike. Other ministers, again, think that a railway strike, how- ever caused, can do the Labour government nothing but harm. Yet another view is that what- ever happens the Government is bound to emerge with some discredit : hence it does not very much matter how Mr. Brown or Mr. Ray Gunter acts. Much of the long-term difficulty, of course, lies in the nature of the prices and incomes policy as expounded by Mr. Brown. As far as prices are

concerned, his attitude appears to be that any in- crease is ipso facto a crime against the people.

His methods of making this clear to the erring manufacturer have caused some comment. Recently, in the full hearing of a number of DEA officials, he called the chairman of a refractory flour milling firm by a name that could not pos- sibly appear in these chaste columns.

But„ Mr. Brown's rough and ready ways with recalcitrant manufacturers are a fairly minor problem. The real charge against Mr. Brown and indeed against the Government as a whole is that the incomes policy has never been properly worked out and explained to the electorate. At worst it has appeared as a Crippsian wage freeze; at best as an inferior reproduction of Mr. Harold Macmillan's famous plateau. It has failed to

operate properly not solely because of any excess of original sin in trade unionists, or even simply because manufacturers have offered high wages for scarce labour, but also because it has not seemed to be just.

The Prices and Incomes Board is currently recommending substantial increases for mem- bers of the armed forces and for senior civil servants. Why is it doing this? And why, if it is doing this, cannot railwaymen have a more modest rise? Mr. Brown does not explain, and it is doubtful whether he could give an explana- tion that would satisfy the unions. Mr. Aubrey Jones may be satisfied, the Prices and Incomes Board may be satisfied, but it remains difficult to justify large rises for soldiers and civil servants when railwaymen are to be given hardly any- thing. Or so, at least, it will appear to the rail- waymen, and even perhaps to the public. So much, then, for the rail strike. No doubt it will somehow be settled. But even though Mr. Wilson himself may suddenly descend from the clouds in his favourite role of great peacemaker, it does not appear that he or anyone else in the Govern- ment will emerge with very much credit at the end of the day.

The railways are not the only problem. The Rhodesian crisis goes on and on, and in this connection we should pay particular attention to the position of Mr. Reginald Paget. Mr. Paget, like Sir Hugh Beadle, believes that Mr. Wilson will have to negotiate direct with Mr. Ian Smith. If Mr. Wilson does not come round to this point of view—as he may yet do—Mr. Paget is thought to be prepared to vote against the Government.

Then there is Mr. Lee, touring the gasworks in a bowler hat and not looking likely to inspire confidence in anyone. Fuel and power is under- standably a sensitive spot for Labour govern- ments. Memories of Mr. Emanuel Shinwell and the great freeze-up of 1947 are still clear. After all it was then, in that annus horrendus, as Dal- ton was later to describe it, that the 1945 Labour government began to exhibit the first signs of decline. Is 1966 in this sense likely to be another 1947? Probably not. Mr. Wilson is a more resourceful Prime Minister than Lord Attlee ever was. Despite some boundary disputes (such as one between Mr. Gunter and Mr. Brown), his colleagues in the Government get on remarkably well together. More important, they are still excited by office and its trappings. And yet . . . and yet . . . re-reading Mr. Richard Crossman's essay 'The Lessons of 1945' one is conscious of some distressing similarities between that government and this one. Though individual ministers—such as Mr. Anthony Crosland, Mr. Fred Peart, Mrs. Barbara Castle and Mr. Cross- man himself—are going about their business briskly enough, there is a certain lack of collec- tive drive in the Cabinet.

Partly this is due to a genuine shortage of ideas about what this Government, as a Government, is trying to do, apart from remain in office. Partly it is due to Mr. Wilson's method of operating as Prime Minister. Certainly he is liked by his ministers, for the understandable reason that he lets them get on with their work and does not interfere. But one sometimes suspects that he refrains from interfering, not so much because he thinks this is the best way of obtaining results (which it often is), as because he is not really interested in what his ministers are doing. Mr. Wilson is interested in himself. He sees himself as a star player rather than a hard-working cap- tain. He provides thrills, he provides glitter, but he does not provide leadership. So far, admit- tedly, he has managed extremely well. But in the past week there have been signs that this may not always be so in the future.