POLITICS
The Tories are reduced to hoping that something will turn down
BRUCE ANDERSON
ARussian prince once observed that between the revolution and the firing squad, there is always time for a bottle of champagne. The Conservative party has clearly absorbed this dictum; one of the most remarkable aspects of British politics since 1 May is that whenever the handfuls of Conservative survivors forgather, they disport themselves cheerfully.
One such gathering was held on Monday evening, in honour of Britain's greatest liv- ing Tory thinker, Maurice Cowling, who has just produced a pamphlet entitled A Conservative Future (Politeia, £3). In it, Mr Cowling refers to 'the possibility of recreat- ing a Conservative intellectuality like the [one] . . . which underpinned the Conser- vative party between 1970 and 1990,' and which assisted Margaret Thatcher's govern- ment to win 'the major battles that it fought in the public mind.' Though Mr Cowling is too modest to say so, he played an impor- tant role in creating that intellectuality. It is also indisputable that a Conservative elec- toral revival does, in part, depend on an intellectual revival. Tories have to win the argument before they can win the votes.
In one respect, however, Maurice Cowl- ing's own career provides evidence for the strictly limited nature of the intellectual victories the Tories won in the Seventies and Eighties. John Major's Cabinet con- tained one pupil of Mr Cowling's Michael Portillo — plus at least one promi- nent disciple, John Patten. They joined forces with William Waldegrave and some of the political appointees in No. 10 to try to obtain a knighthood for Mr Cowling. They failed. There is a committee which oversees such matters: the so-called Mae- cenas committee, of which Professor the Lord Briggs FBA is a prominent member. The Maeceneans rejected Mr Cowling.
The Cowling oeuvre is controversial. But his works on 20th-century British history are some of the most powerful of all refuta- tions of the determinist view of history. Their impact has been limited, partly because so many of his professional col- leagues are trying to retain at least some of the prejudices of their Marxist youth, and partly because Mr Cowling seems to go out of his way to write obscurely. Frank John- son says that if he decided to read books on the theory of knowledge, he would expect opaque prose, but if he is merely reading about Lloyd George's negotiations with Seamus O'Hooligan, he does not see why the author should not write clearly. Mr Cowling can write lucidly, as his earlier books — and this pamphlet — demon- strate, so his refusal to do so is wilful.
There are no complexities in Ma Briggs's prose. His books read like extended ver- sions of articles in History Today. We already know that in large areas of public policy, and especially in education, a pre- Thatcherite establishment retained its con- trol throughout the Tories' 18 years. The pre-Thatcherites were also able, it appears, to exercise veto powers over the Honours List. That Ma Briggs, himself full of hon- ours when Maurice Cowling was denied even a professorship, should still sit in judg- ment over Mr Cowling well into the Tories' second decade is further proof of how notional was the Tories' suzerainty over much of official Britain.
Mr Cowling's work is not only difficult, but comfortless. In his recent works, he implicitly wrestles with the paradox of the Tory party's very survival; how could this pre-democratic party, so many of whose intellectual and spiritual roots were anti- democratic, make such an easy accommo- dation with democracy? Mr Cowling is the antithesis of a facile Disraelian; in this pamphlet, most of the Tory intellectuals he cites are anti-democratic ones: Burke, Sal- isbury, Mallock, Eliot, Waugh. Mr Cowling himself straddles a thin margin between anti-democratic and ademocratic.
He believes that English civilisation can- not long survive the decline of Anglicanism as a moral and political force. He has writ- ten an inconclusive work called Religion and Public Doctrine in England, in which he discusses a number of obscure writers and marginal theories, as if to conceal from himself the central and unwelcome fact that, at least until Mr Blair intruded his pieties, religion seemed to have far less influence on public doctrine than did the average television soap opera.
Mr Blair's pieties do not impress Mr Cowling, who believes that 'there is a faint- ly priggish aspect which is concealed by his energy and youthfulness and will not be seen for what it is until something begins to go wrong'. But that summarises the Tories' problem: when will things begin to go wrong?
Around 1988, at the height of Thatcherite economic success, some commentators, including me, were naive enough to believe that the government had abolished the business cycle. Today, some Tories — at least away from jolly parties — are despairing enough to believe that Mr Blair has abolished the political cycle. Several ministers have already committed offences which, had they been Tories, would have led to their being driven from office. Lord Simon, formerly of BP, has been especially guilty. His initial error, of not distancing himself from his BP shares, was trifling, especially as he had given up a very large salary in order to become a minister. But, as so often, the cover-up was much worse than the original offence. Parliament has not only been misled; it has been misled in a contemptuous fashion, as if the ministers in question simply could not be bothered to provide accurate information. Mr Blair may employ the language of piety and humility, but it is hard to remember when any government last behaved in such a sys- tematically arrogant fashion.
The other week, a government minister in the Lords gave a misleading answer to a question. This was not his fault; his officials had provided the inaccurate information, and as soon as he and they found out the mistake, he was determined to put it right. There would have been no question of his embarrassment receiving publicity; their lordships are far too gentlemanly to behave in such a fashion. So the minister told the peer whom he had inadvertently misled that he would shortly receive a letter of apology, with the correction. Then there was a change of plan; the minister arrived shame- facedly in the Tory Whips' office. Would it be possible for the question to be asked again, so that the correct information could be provided without reference to the previ- ous error? 'Mr Mandelson tells us that we are never to apologise to any Tory for any- thing.'
The Cabinet emasculated, ditto the par- liamentary Labour party; the House of Commons treated with contempt — by all precedent this ought to guarantee disaster, for the British parliamentary system has always ensured that hubris is swiftly fol- lowed by nemesis. But for the moment at least, new Labour has changed the rules of engagement, reducing its Tory opponents to a state of Cowlingesque/Micawberite impotence, and the hope that something will turn down.
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