Spectator Symposium

Seven 'Spectator' contributors offer their personal reflections on the events of the past ten days Anthony Burgess

There was a time when I believed that evil and incompetence could not inhabit the same body. Socialism, which is a great reconciler of contradic- tions, has taught me that they can, just as it has taught me that the finest encouragement is dis- couragement, and that an economy can best be saved by being strangled. The new austerity measures, apart from the fact that they will restore only one kind of confidence—confidence in Mr Wilson's ability to apply austerity measures—must be re- garded as wickedly cynical, since they are not accom- panied by the jettisoning of ideological luxuries. Steel is still to be nationalised (who in the country really wants it?); restrictive practices are not to be tooted out; positive incentives are an aspect of original sin, which the party rejects. There was a time when I believed that evil and incompetence could not inhabit the same body. Socialism, which is a great reconciler of contradic- tions, has taught me that they can, just as it has taught me that the finest encouragement is dis- couragement, and that an economy can best be saved by being strangled. The new austerity measures, apart from the fact that they will restore only one kind of confidence—confidence in Mr Wilson's ability to apply austerity measures—must be re- garded as wickedly cynical, since they are not accom- panied by the jettisoning of ideological luxuries. Steel is still to be nationalised (who in the country really wants it?); restrictive practices are not to be tooted out; positive incentives are an aspect of original sin, which the party rejects.

There is less and less to work for. It is as sinful to drink whisky as to look for a fortnight's sun. Ambi- tion is more and more brutally penalised. One is chilled by a conviction that the Wilson philosophy totally discounts the virtue of individual effort, since that is what drives the human community. The human community is not important, but the state is. The machine is to grow more complex and require more tenders. The state is Socialism's substitute for life.

The new measures can do very little good; only a fool has any confidence in a cynic. The pattern of Socialist rule is dismally clear: the next step will probably be, as it was before, devaluation. Nothing that Socialism can do will really work, since Socialism is based on a tangle of false premisses: human beings are totally different from what Socialists think they are. But Socialism can at least modify the human make-up: we are all becoming bitter, disillusioned, obsessed by politics—which should be as unobtrusive as drains. For God's sake leave us alone and let those of us who want to work get on with it.

Randolph Churchill

Not being an economist or Hungarian, I feel some diffidence in expressing my views on our latter-day discontents. As I see it, our immediate troubles stem from one cause above all others: it is that of the Socialist promise to increase enormously the benefits of the Welfare State without increasing taxation or making new economies. 'In an expanding society,' they tell us, 'existing taxation will be sufficient to pay for our armies in Germany and East of Suez and for all sorts of lovely things, as well as to raise all wages annually by 3+ per cent.' (Except for Mem- bers of Parliament and members of the Government, who stood at the head of the queue and took 30 per cent for themselves as an example to the rest of their fellow countrymen.) Of course, despite the pledges, there have been massive increases in taxation. But production has lagged, while wages and all the costs of the Welfare State have burgeoned. But what I still ask plaintively is, If production had soared and our costs had become so high that nobody wanted the stuff we made, how would we be better off?' Production without brilliant salesmanship and distribution seems as dead a duck as Mr George Brown's Prices and Incomes Board; which I suppose can now be stuffed, since prices and wages are to be fixed by decree. Now the order of the day is credit squeezes and half a million artificially procured unemployed. Will these idle hands increase production?

Lord Egremont

The Government has tried to do its best within its scope. But the 10 per cent levy on this year's sur- tax liability will hit many people on whom Britain's industrial future especially depends. It is pointless. It is an odd sort of way to run a country nowadays —by assuming that some people will be appeased by

Stuart Hood

One's first reaction is one of impotence. How helpless the ordinary citizen of a modern demo- cracy appears to be unless he belongs to one of the greatest organised blocs of our society! The prey of social and financial forces he only dimly understands, he is exhorted to sacrifice in tones of calculated sincerity, only to hear the men who hold the levers of industrial power proclaim that they find the idea of sacrifice unnecessary.

The second is to reflect how much a matter of indifference it apparently is who governs this country—Labour or Conservative. The crucial problems they face are the same; their remedies identical; the results in either case depressing.

The third is to wonder naively—for surely it must have occurred to them—that the leaders of the Labour party have apparently not made a realistic attempt to assess this country's true stand- ing in the modern world. They have wrapped them- selves in a motley of faded red flags and tattered Union Jacks. Their judgments are tinged with sentimental imperialism, devotion to the sentimental notion of sterling as a reserve currency and im- mortal longings to play the peacemaker between the truly great powers. Which party, one wonders, will first accept that Britain has reduced capabilities and must reduce its ambitions accordingly? When shall we stop taking upon ourselves strategic respon- sibilities beyond our means and resources? When shall we turn to Europe and take our modest place in it?

Ludovic Kennedy

In politics, as in -golf, sex, show-business or any other human activity, timing is all; for timing shows that you arc in control of events, not events in con- trol of you.

The timing for drastic measures to bolster up the economy was not last week, but last April. The trouble with the latest measures is that they caught not only the Government but the whole country unprepared. Many people feel that they have been taken for a ride, that events should haie

the knowledge that others, who by their brain-power and expertise may ensure the future of the nation's wealth and employment, are getting it in the neck too.

This is what we get from a Government who pinned their hope of checking inflation on an in- comes policy which didn't work. The National Plan turned out to be one for building castles in the air. We are now heading for unemployment with the people who are best suited to rectify it, instead of being encouraged, being fined. It will not be be- cause of Mr Wilson, but despite Mr Wilson, that these people will save us.

We shall get out of the mess. We are all to be blamed for having got ourselves into it. Aren't we supposed to be a democracy? When we invented that lovely Welfare State, did we really mean everybody to be nannied and babied along? Well then, sort that out too. It is high time, also, that we sorted out not only what we want, but how to pay for it. Our taxation system is archaic.

Mr Wilson is a guide but not a leader for two reasons: 1, he knows what it is all about; 2, but he can't inspire. We need a true leader. But we also need ability such as Mr Wilson's.

Mr Wilson was once an able civil servant. We have some able civil servants now, selfless people dedicated to the public service—people like Sir Laurence Helsby, Sir William Armstrong and Sir Burke Trend, to name but three. We should some- how find a true leader and then say to Sir Laurence, Sir William and Sir Burke, 'Move over a bit and make room for Sir Harold.' I'm sure they wouldn't mind. been foreseen, that they have been pushed from be- hind without warning.

But there is a further, more serious complaint, which is the way things have been explained, or rather not explained, to us. We all make mistakes, we all mis-hit the ball; and governments in this respect do rather worse than individuals. For this Government the moment of truth came when Mr Wilson faced the nation on television. In five minutes he might have redeemed all. What was needed was total honesty, an admission that the Government had miscalculated, some apology for the measures he had just inflicted on us. And what did we get? Not word of criticism of his milk-white Government, but an indiscriminate passing of the buck to the `scrimshankers' and 'column-dodgers'; seamen and Rhodesians; a patronising familiarity, a sickening plea for 'a time for greatness.' This was not the per- formance of a Prime Minister, but of a con-man in the dock, playing for acquittal with a smooth and practised tongue. It reminded me of Eden at Suez, and was even more disillusioning.

A government revealed as incompetent, and a Prime Minister laid bare. And another four years to go. It is a daunting prospect.

I. H. Plumb

For ten years now we have been exhorted, cajoled, reproved, occasionally slapped, and now perhaps lightly bruised. But is it enough? So far, it has never been. The Rolls-Royces multiply; the parties rarely stop; money-happy crowds sweep through Marks and Spencer's and Boots. We all talk of prices; few feel it. With an overflowing wallet and ample credit, can either the manager or the worker really believe that ruin may be round the corner? Mr Wilson did his earnest best on television, but an image is soon forgotten.

What is needed is psychological as well as economic measures—one great, shocking, over- whelming increase in taxation (say, petrol at 7s. a gallon, with wartime commercial pink back, 'with large fines for misuse); something to bring a real chill of horror. What is the use of less than a penny a pint on beer—over thirty gallons to drink before one has spent an extra pound! And as well as shock, measures are needed to excite the greed for money and stimulate the passion for success for both workers and management. Has everyone for- gotten the Stakhanovites? And nationalise the foot- ball pools; at least, they can't lose money; and away with the dregs of empire that can. Above all, action on a larger, more dramatic scale: combined with a rhetoric that will move the soft-bellied Chelseaite as well as the steel-worker. At present we all listen with one ear, and quickly force.

Simon Rave'

The man who fails in a country which affords `equality of opportunity' has only himself to blame:l i he has had a fair chance and been found wanting. Now, this country is drawing nearer and nearer to ' equality of opportunity, and as it does so more and more people must face the naked fact of their own inadequacy. Face-saving excuses, which for cen- turies have allowed men to attribute personal failure to `them,' the setup,' social injustice,' etc., are no longer viable: these days and in this country a man who stays down in the ruck does so because he deserves to.

But since the ruck is where most men do stay, and since the unqualified sense of inferiority which must now result is intolerable, various systems of make- believe are being hurriedly contrived in order to soothe mass resentment. One such system consists in bribing the masses with enough money to keep theni quiet while pretending, in order to preserve the .illusion of 'human dignity,' that this money is simply a fair wage for their work. Since the price of their good behaviour (always an expensive commodity) has long since soared way above the economic value of any work they are competent to undertake, the nation is heavily subsidising, not just an unfortunate minority, but the bulk of its working population. We shall never be able. to afford this subsidy and we

shall never dare to refuse it: the is there.- fore insoluble.