Men of Power
By IAIN MACLEOD
HAVE always regarded Philip Swinton as a I wise man. He was one of the two men (James Stuart, now Viscount Stuart of Findhorn, was the other) to whom I would often turn as a young minister for criticism or for confirmation of my view. I owe him much. Particularly in the years of the wind of change, when back- bench Tory opinion in the House of Lords was moulded by Swinton and by Salisbury, his more moderate and sympathetic viewpoint often en- abled me to escape with no more than verbal bruising. He was President of the Board of Trade as long ago as 1922, and when we remem- ber the few who won the Battle of Britain, Swinton is entitled to his place with them. He was a great Secretary of State for Air and it was both a folly and a pettiness of Neville Chamberlain to dismiss him in the face of ill- informed criticism in May 1938. But the expan- sion programme remained and, with the aid of the year bought at Munich, proved sound enough to hold in 1940 and to triumph in the later years. Churchill's comment to Swinton is quoted: 'We were both sacked for the two best things we ever did. I was sacked for the Dar- dandles . . . you were sacked for building the Air Force that won the Battle of Britain, and they couldn't undo what you did.' One may have reservations about the Dardanelles, but Swinton's brilliant tenure of the Air Ministry cannot be challenged.
Yet it must be said that this* is a dull book. Perhaps because it is nothing in particular. It is based on no papers and it throws very little new light on the history of political life over sixty years. It is a random collection of memories and jottings, without theme or weight. There is, of course, a great deal in it worth reading, and here and there an interesting idea begins to engage one's attention. But the collaboration of a most skilled journalist in James Margach, and the wisest of the Tory elder statesmen, has not been as fruitful as it was happy. I suspect that the reason is that they are both too kind. In consequence, the judgments tend to be too generous. It is almost impossible to find a single sentence of harsh criticism about any of the actors in the sixty-year drama, and though this is a welcome change from most political memoirs, it is barely credible when one surveys the roll of disastrous decisions which mark the period. So one mourns the book that might have been —and will perhaps one day be written.
One turns first and inevitably to Lord Swin- ton's accounts of the Tory leadership crisis of 1963 and of the disputed succession to Lord Avon. He was, of course, particularly close both to Harold Macmillan and to Sir Alec Douglas- Home, and both of them came to him for advice. The only point at which Lord Swinton may he said to differ from what has been written and generally accepted is that he suggests that Harold Macmillan did more to further Lord Butler's career than others (including myself) have ad- mitted. But even this arguable comment is destroyed by Swinton's interpretation of Mac- millan's mind : 'I think his personal assessment of Rab was that he would certainly make a good Prime Minister, but he was doubtful if Rab would make the requisite appeal to the party and the country.' If he did not do so he could never become Prime Minister, and there was little point
SErry YEARS OF POWER. By the Earl of Swinton. tHutchinson. 35s.)
therefore in making him party leader. I share with Swinton a deep admiration for Harold Mac- millan as Prime Minister and as politician. It is scarcely likely that if Swinton's judgment of Macmillan's view is sound—and I have no reason to doubt it—Macmillan could have advo- cated the claims of someone he judged lacking in appeal to the Tory party and the country.
Lord Swinton studies twelve Prime Ministers and writes about eleven of them. Perhaps because I am a politician I am fascinated by the way other men exercise power. A few men are in politics because that is the tradition of their family. A few more as a sort of long-service and good-conduct medal for their contribution to the affairs of their trade union. But the vast majority of us would admit that we seek mem- bership of the House of Commons because that is where power begins. It ends in the Cabinet and (increasingly) in No. 10 itself. 'Power-drunk maniacs,' as Malcolm Muggeridge invariably calls us. There is, of course, a scintilla of truth in it. But power to what end? To achieve one's purpose, whether it be the nationalisation of the iron and steel industry or the creation of a capital-owning democracy. Hitler and Mussolini sought power, but so did Kennedy and Mac- millan. Both tyrants and wise men follow the deem of power, for without it politics is a charade.
Lord Swinton has served or been close to so many Prime Ministers that his most important contribution to our understanding of the fairly recent past lies in his judgment of them as Prime Ministers, and especially as chairmen in the Cabinet Room. Most of them can be roughly classified. There are the dictators: Lloyd George, Churchill and, in a different way, Neville Cham- berlain. The managing directors: Bonar Law, Baldwin and Macmillan—these also the shrewdest politicians. The team captains : Attlee and Douglas-Home. But this still leaves the enigmas: Balfour, MacDonald, Eden. James Margach is probably right in his introduction when he com- ments: 'The moral is that Prime Ministers reflect the spirit of the nation at the particular moment of history which carries them to power.' We get what we deserve, and I can think of no gloomier thought about our country in this year of grace 1966 than that.
My own journey through the corridors of power started by chance. I was on leave from the army in the Hebrides when the 1945 general election was announced. There was no Unionist candidate, and at a meeting consisting of my father and myself I was adopted. I finished bottom of the poll, but the itch had begun to affect me. I had no particular political philo- sophy other than a romantic attachment to the principles of Tory Radicalism for which I looked way back to Disraeli and Lord Randolph
Churchill. I had infinite confidence in myself most of the time and some administrative ability. These served me for my time as Minister of Health and then of Labour. But I did not taste real power until I became Secretary of State for the Colonies and I found it, as I suspected, greatly to my taste. The winds of change were blowing the Empire into a Commonwealth and I was immensely fortunate to have Harold Mac- millan in his very best years as my chief. It was at the Colonial Office that I found myself as a politician and that my hazy ideas suddenly froze into a purpose. I seek power still, but now for a clear purpose. 'The purpose of power is to serve,' I told the Conservative party conference. In their own very different ways, I think all twelve of the Prime Ministers studied by Lord Swinton would agree.
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