Political commentary

Pact train to Blackpool

Ferdinand Mount

The station platform is a sea of Adam's apples and horn-rimmed spectacles. Girlish laughter echoes along the corridor. In the next carriage, a young man in an anorak is reading a book called Men and Masculinity. Another youth is playing a mysterious game involving matches and computer cards. In comes a lady selling tea-towels depicting Mr Gladstone, followed by a jolly man selling magazines on recycled paper. Later, another hawker appears with coat-hangers gaily covered in many-coloured raffia, 'woven in Southend', we are told — although

subsequent reports have it that the Southend peasants are actually still weaving them in the guard's van, no doubt squatting cross-legged and chanting immemorial Southend weaving songs. In short, dear reader, we are on the Liberal special train.

And to prove it, a laughing young Liberal slaps an orange sticker on the corridor side of the compartment door where only the ticket collector is likely to see it. The sticker says 'Political Stability — Economic Recov ery: you've got to hand it to the Liberals.'

And there beside the message is indeed a hand. It is a willowy almost feminine hand, with a long thumb-nail and tapering fingers.

The thumb and index finger are slightly parted, but genteelly so in the attitude of a Morningside lady reaching for a second drop-scone. No clenched fist, no horny hand grabbing power.

It is still hard to believe that the Liberals are really hungry for power. Despite all their protestations of megalomania, they just don't look as if they sincerely want to be powerful. The delegation in my carriage, from Surbiton, is mostly anti-pact. Like their association? No, their association is pro-pact. Didn't the pact supporters mind being represented by them? Not at all —only fifteen people out of their membership of 200 came to the meeting anyway. Yes, they took a vote at the meeting but as the vote was on an outdated resolution which would not be put to the Special Assembly, it didn't matter very much. This amiable non chalance might seem to be contradicted by the huge turn-out at Blackpool, about 2,500, but the party is free and easy about who comes to their affairs. Any party member may attend, so long as the total from his constituency does not exceed one per fifty paid-up members — giving a mas sive potential total. And it makes a nice outing even if the train is unheated, crowded, late and makes an unscheduled detour round the back end of Birmingham.

The dissidents are in good voice during the debate, bellowing 'rubbish' and 'not true', whenever the loyalists • claim any success for the pact. When David Steel begins his speech by saying that he has some disappointing new, a voicefrom the back of the hall hazards 'you're not going to resign'.

But the party dignitaries almost fill the entire stage of the Winter Garden Opera House. floaters and waverers must be a little daunted by the majestic spectacle (could any other party claim to have had two Presidents with mutton-chop whiskers in successive years?) At any rate, the platform easily carries the day, by more than three to one. And Mr Steel is left to end the

agreement with Mr Callaghan at a time of his choosing, which will probably though not certainly be when the current stage of the agreement runs out in July, thus giving the PM a free run until October.

There was never any real prospect that the matter would be taken out of Mr Steel's hands. This is, after all, an agreement made between two men and not two parties; and whatever the pact may have done to the Liberals, the man who pushed them into it will have to pull them out of it. The Liberals cannot afford to pile up another ex-leader just now with the Thorpe affair boiling up again. And Mr Steel was perfectly entitled to threaten to resign if he did not get his way. The pact may have been signed solely in order to save the skins of the two parties, but Mr Steel has boldly and consistently preached coalition to his party. And, as Lord Byers pointed out in the most effective of the loyalist speeches, if you are not pre pared to enter into an alliance, or a coalition, then you ought to drop Proportional Representation. Yet it was Labour's half heartedness on Proportional Representation that was the main argument advanced by the dissidents for ending the pact. But if you are prepared to enter into agreements, then you must end them with dignity and proper notice — otherwise, how can people ever trust the Liberals as partners again?

The dissidents could not offer such lofty logic. Liberals do not talk about losing votes in quite so vulgar a way as Labour and the Tories. And when they do, they get the resoundingly pi put-down that David Steel administered. To those Liberals who asked 'What's in it for us?' he replied 'Do you know, one of the things that's wrong with this country is that there are groups of peo ple and parties in it who say nothing else but "what's in it for us?".' Liberals are sup posed to be above such gross calculation.

On the other hand, Mr Steel averred that if the pact was so good for the country it must sooner or later be good for the Liberal Party — a more high-minded version of the General Motors axiom. The argument seems like a non sequitur to me but the delegates warmed to it and to him. Mr Steel is an engaging and increasingly assured speaker. His style — low-key, serious, relieved by a dab of irony behind the ears — has a genuine and individual air. His faults are those of a young dominie — a certain priggishness and moral superiority — but so are his virtues.

His appraisal of the pact was remarkably honest but somewhat depressing. Mr Callaghan's famous commitment to Proportional Representation for Europe had, it seemed, never amounted to anything much. Mr Steel himself had never insisted on any particular proportion of Labour MPs voting for Proportional Representation. Yes, there might be something in the Budget for the Liberals, but he did not give the impression that it would be anything nearly as splendid as the Daily Express had prophesied. At the end of the speech, he launched a little attack on the government but his heart did not seem to be in it. So long as the agreement lasts, the Liberals cannot begin to establish any genuine independence. Voting against the government on particular measures like the Green Pound only undermines the party's main claim that the pact has brought political stability. Moreover, there does not seem to be much which divides Mr Steel's brand of mild collectivism from Mr Callaghan's. The only difference is that the Liberals are not tied up with those nasty trade unions. In fact, they are not tied up with anything very much except their own sweet selves. They are a curious mixture of independence and docility. If Labour's National Executive had forced a special assembly, the party leaders would have quaked; the air would have resounded to the crunch of muscle and thud of boot. If the Tory Party had — but then the Tories wouldn't; their brutalities are clandestine. But the Liberals, well, the Liberals are just glad to see each other. Look, there's Clement and Jeremy and isn't that Lord Banks?

In another part of the Winter Gardens the national jamboree of pigeon fanciers is in full swing. 'Pigeons to the right, Liberals to the left', chants the commissionaire. Tiny Andy Capps and huge Florries peer at the mild bright-eyed birds in their (bright-eyed) cages. The parallel is inescapable. The Liberals are too mild, and trapped — and liable to be carved up if they don't fly and fly fast.

In the afternoon the pigeons are auctioned on stage for large sums running into the thousand. The white-coated auctioneer, protecting his voice with sips of cherry brandy, makes rather grander claims for his wares than Mr Steel: 'lot number one sixty-three, blue cock, flies in the hottest company in the country, a genuine 700 miler, another long-distance winner, flies from this first-class Bolton loft right through the dirtiest part of Lancashire, presented by one of nature's gentlemen, you know he would only sell you his best bird, if you want a pigeon from this loft this is the one for you, sixty-two I'm bid, sixty-four, sixty-six, may I say sixty-six, sixty-six, sixtysix, are you all done?' Done.