Political Commentary
Timing the next election
Patrick Cosgrave
I like elections, with all their paraphernalia of excitement, with all their real and false drama, and with all the sham and knockabout which attends them. So I like talking about them, and writing about them. Such a defensive introduction is necessary because, after two elections last year, and a referendum in a few months at the outside, most of my fellow citizens, and even fellow journalists, are all too likely to want to throw up their hands in horrified boredom at the very beginning of any discussion of when the next general election is likely to take place. The common view, anyway, is that we have a long time to go yet; that Mr Wilson likes governing with a tiny or even non-existent majority, and that he wants no part of a Labour landslide — and that, anyway, he will not risk another contest before he retires from the scene, for he will not take even the smallest risk of leaving politics a beaten man; and even he could not recover from another defeat.
There are other commonsensical arguments against another election before this Parliament has very nearly run its course, though some of them do not have the same force they had at the beginning of the year. Then, for example, the Opposition was so divided that it scarcely dared to risk trying to force Mr Wilson to go to the country again. Even now, of course, Mrs Thatcher realises that there is a great deal to be done before she dares launch an all-out offensive in the House of Commons. She and her party are chronically short of cash; she and Lord Thorneycroft have only barely begun the task of reforming the party organisation; she may well have to watch for the emergence of a divisive cabal among her own backbenchers (it was striking how Mr Heath, in a long radio interview the other morning, went out of his way to avoid making even the most formal profession of loyalty to her); and she has a lot to learn as leader of the party, and a lot to do in devising firm policies. But there is no doubt that the blood has begun to flow in Tory veins again, and they might well be ready for battle sooner than anybody now thinks.
Here 1 had better say a word about the likely pattern of relations between Mr Wilson and Mrs Thatcher. These will hardly be other than glacial, for Mr Wilson is puzzled by and irritated by the new phenomenon of a woman leader, while Mrs Thatcher is unlikely ever to want to develop the chumminess which is necessary for a politician of any party who wants to have easy personal relations with the Prime Minister. On the theme of when we might have an election, however, it is worth mentioning that Mr Wilson is quickly developing the same feeling of casual contempt for Mrs Thatcher that he had for Mr Heath before 1970; he cannot persuade himself that any woman, and especially not this woman, could win a general election and, though evidently needled by some of her barbs, is supremely confident of his ability to defeat her. What he misses, of course, is the rapidly emerging fact that Mrs Thatcher is a politician of star quality.
It is not necessary to have star quality to win an election. Mr Wilson once had it, but very nearly lost in 1964. Mr Heath never had it, but he won in 1970. Nor it is necessary to have right or even good policies. Nor is star quality something that will inevitably win elections, even if by narrow margins. But it is something special, and it is especially useful for rallying one's own troops, especially when one is trying to rescue them from a slough of despond. It is best described by referring to the reaction of an audience when the star appears .before them: they sit up straighter, they attend, they expect something to happen, they are excited. Some politicians of star quality are bad rulers (for example, President Kennedy) and some wholly without star quality are very good rulers (like Stanley Baldwin). Every party needs a star from time to time, to keep the adrenalin flowing, but in recent years there have been few stars: Macleod was one, Mr Powell is one, Mr Benn and Mr Foot — but only among the party faithful — are stars. And Mrs Thatcher is a star.
This is very likely to alter the balance of political development in the next year or so. For all the troubles are likely to arise on the Prime Minister's side, while the essential caution of Mrs Thatcher's approach to policy-making is likely to be overlain by her star appeal. This will give her and her advisers and her followers greater and greater confidence, and especially the confidence to launch major parliamentary assaults on the Government.
Very likely, of course, Mr Wilson will be none too displeased if the Tories upset some of the plans of, say, Mr Benn. How much Mr Benn's Consequent anger will matter will depend on the outcome of the EEC referendum. If this goes against membership of the EEC this will not greatly harm Mrs Thatcher, who shows every sign of accepting such a verdict philosophically. But it will do terrible damage to Mr Wilson. Great reversals of the kind that would be involved invariably damage governments deeply, while they scarcely scratch opposition. Mr Wilson would have then demonstrated that a policy he had come to favour only after the deepest cogitation and the most fundamental 'renegotiation' still could not find favour with the electorate. Of course the Prime Minister is already trying to protect himself from the consequences of such a verdict, by the objective and lack-lustre fashion in which he is approaching the whole business. If the verdict is "No", however, he will be unable to avoid deep wounds: Mrs Williams and Mr Jenkins Will leave his Cabinet — Mrs Williams for good, Mr Jenkins temporarily — and Mr Benn will receive a huge injection of influence.
But things are not a great deal better if the electorate say "Yes" to Europe. For there is no burking the fact that the great majority within the Labour Party are for coming out. If they do not have their way they will be very angry indeed; and it will be Mr Wilson's task, dictated by his understanding of the necessity for unity within the Labour movement, to placate them rather than defy them. This will make him more rather than less left-wing in terms of domestic and economic policy, and less free to resist the pleas for an early election which will undoubtedly flow from Mr Henn if the Tories insist oil trying to wreck his legislation in the House of Commons.
Then there is the general economic situation. Inflation is still running at the rate of 20 per cent, and there is no sign of it slowing down. True, it would probably be worse had Mr Healey not been rather more responsible in his administration of the national purse than one might expect a Labour Chancellor, given the current climate within the Labour Party, to be. But it is still bad, and there is no serious sign of its being choked back. In consequence, unemployment is bound to rise. The Government will then be faced with the unenviable choice of yielding to trade union pressure (which insists that unemployment is unacceptable, as one might say rain was unacceptable), spending more money and causing more inflation and thus eventually larger unemployment or of trying to pursue a responsible economic doctrine and facing strife with the unions. The pressure for trying to avoid this choice by sleight of hand, or of at least ensuring that Labour did not get itself into an impossible position of the kind it was in in 1970, will be immense; and they can best be relieved by an early election. The timing here could be crucial for Mrs Thatcher. For, if Mr Wilson postpones too long, unemployment is likely to be rising so steadily and rapidly that the electorate will come at last to understand that inflation is, ultimately, the greatest creator of unemployment, and the monetarist doctrines she is likelY to espouse will seem far more acceptable.
Once the Tories recover their nerve, moreover — and depending to some extent, of course, on how the other opposition parties behave — it could prove very difficult for Mr Wilson to get on with the Labour Government's present appointed task of changing Britain over into a thoroughly socialist country through legislation. It is widely and correctly admitteo that Mr Wilson chose his election moment iii 1966 brilliantly; but he had to go to the countrY fairly early because under Mr Heath, both as Shadow Chancellor and as Leader, the Tories were making life very difficult for him in the House of Commons, at a time when circumstances both internal and external were turning against him. The same may prove to be the case before the end of 1976. But, you may think, does not the 1966 analogy suggest that Mr Wilson will once again return in triumph? It does not, because in 1966 Mr Wilson and the Labour Party were still arl untried and unknown quantity, and it Was generally felt that he deserved a chance to show his paces with a decent majority. Now we all know Mr Wilson: as Mrs Thatcher has observed, he has been around a long time, and is beginning to look it. She, on the other hand, is indisputably different from anything that has gone before, and there will be a tremendous fund of goodwill for her, provided she makes no great blunders in the meantime. Indeed, the daring punter might suggest that the major question about Mrs Thatcher is not whether she can win a general election, but whether she
; will prove to be a good Prime Minister.
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