Political Commentary
The winter of their discontent
Patrick Cosgrave
No Conservative politician, in or outside the House of Commons, can contemplate the present situation of the party and the Government with anything approaching equanimity, unless he or she is bent on bringing down the Prime Minister. This is principally because unhappiness with Mr Heath's leadership which was virulent before the last general election, is now becoming institutionalised. That this is the case is at least as much the Prime Minister's own, personal, fault as it is a consequence of his Government's various failures and changes of direction in matters of policy.
The most dramatic — though not, probably, the most important — episode in the winter of Tory discontent was the vote on Commonwealth immigration last week. I have no wish to dwell on that vote, which has already been analysed out of existence, but there are one or two things about it worth emphasising. The first is the failure of Sir Alec Douglas-Home, who wound up for the Government, to make slightest difference to the size of the Tory revolt against immigration regulations which seemed to many backbenchers to make the position of white Commonwealth immigrants to this country inferior to that of continental Europeans: that failure marked an important erosion — which took place in about a fortnight — of Sir Alec's command over the affection and loyalty of the backbenchers. On November 9, when the House debated Rhodesian sanctions, a number of backbenchers made it perfectly clear that they were supporting the Government only because Sir Alec asked them to: on November 22 a much larger number made it more clear that even his intervention could not persuade them to enter the Government lobby. And Sir Alec himself, who was, to put it mildly, unhappy about having to wind up on immigration, is known to be increasingly discontented with his recurring role as long stop for the Prime Minister. What he has had to do has offended his sense of what is right policy too often; and his own political intuition tells him that the more often a part is played by the same actor, the more steadily it dulls the already jaded appetite of the audience.
More disturbing was the almost total miscalculation by Mr Francis Pym and his junior whips of the size of the revolt. It was still likely, party managers told radio and television journalists striving to catch late night bulletins, that the Government would squeeze by; and it seems that the whips really believed this. The only Tory who got the vote more or less right, and who did this early in the evening, was Mr Neil Marten, and he was a rebel. Most disturbing of all is the stated and reiterated conviction of the Home Secretary — who made an appallingly unconvinced and unconvincing speech in
the debate — that he can get the regulations through next time, with only "minor" alterations. He cannot, and will not, get through the House of Commons regulations which establish citizens of the old — white — Commonwealth in a lessfavoured position than Europeans with regard to immigration to Britain. That he seems to think he can merely demonstrates a shocking misunderstanding by ministers of the mood of their own backbenchers.
That mood has some important general causes. Principal among them is the growing conviction of Tory backbenchers that they are in the hands of, and regarded as the servants of, a Leader who has little regard for their affection or their principles, and who considers them as cattle to be driven through the gates of the lobby. Even this might be forgiven if the Leader were himself consistent in his policies and actions, and if he and his henchmen did not take the lowest possible view of human, political, motivation. Take the example of Sir Robert Cary, a gentle and courtly senior Tory backbencher, one of whose principal causes is the health of pit ponies. Sir Robert abstained on the immigration vote. Whips were amazed that he did so, because he is expected to resign before the next general election, and was as well guaranteed a peerage as a man could be, until his rebellion. It is significant, not just that a man like Sir Robert should have been expected to swallow his convictions for a title, but that it should now be believed that he will not get that title.
You cannot expect preferment, or even merited reward — so the belief increasingly goes — if you disagree with, or oppose, the Prime Minister. And that this is so is not merely because Mr Heath is a difficult fellow, but because those are his tactics of management. "During his years in the Whips' office," wrote Mr George Hutchinson, in perhaps the most striking paragraph ever written about the Prime Minister, "he had come to know every single Conservative Member. He was able to weigh them all up dispassionately. He knew their hopes, ambitions, feelings of good-will and deficiencies, strengths and weaknesses (over women or drink or money or whatever): Heath knew them, and he knew what they were capable of." He no longer knows this, because, when people become aware of themselves as part of some clinical compound, they get bloody-minded.
And if the avenues to glory that they prefer are cut off, they find other avenues. By the declared will of Tory backbenchers three men whom Mr Heath has blacked :lave found new roles for themselves. Mr du Cann has become chairman of the 1922 Committee, the man charged with telling the Prime Minister what his followers in the House think. Mr Nicholas Ridley, who has openly stated his belief that he was dismissed from his job at the DTI because he still believed in those economic policies on the basis of which in part, Mr Heath was elected, has been chosen as chairman of the backbench finance committee. And Mr John Biffen has been elected chairman of the Industry Committee. 1.3iffen is one of the most able of younger Tory backbenchers, and his views on economic management are very similar to those of Mr Ridley. He once wrote a general essay surveying politics of which it was said "The voice is the voice of John, but the hands are the hands of Enoch." He has never received as much as a nod from Mr Heath. His own MPs are building siege outposts around the Prime Minister.
All this might be overcome if Mr Heath were a genuine Gaitleiter. Unfortunately, his willingness to tack is becoming notorious. We can easily leave aside both the actual, though unavowed, tack on industrial relations legislation, and the turnabout in economic policy, because there are two more specific instances of retreat in response to manifestations of backbench discontent available for inspection. Through the Industry Act the Government intended to abandon its lame duck philosophy, and adopt a Labour-style system of general grants. Now, just after Mr Biffen's election, Mr Chataway, the minister responsible, has announced that, instead of grants being available for all development, industrialisation and modernisation schemes, they will in fact be available only to firms acquiring nevi premises. Readily though the Tory right will welcome any reduction of outlays under the Act, they will also recognise the confusion into which this will throw a large number of firms, and will scorn the DTI explanation of the muddle, to the effect that the guidance notes issued under the Act were simply misunderstood.
My second example is of more immediate consequence. It is the Government's willingness, after the immigration regulations vote, to accept an Opposition motion, and not seek to gain Commons approval for the operation of European heavy lorries in Britain. The action itself is laudable; and it is consistent with the unremitting efforts of Mr Peyton, the Transport Minister, to persuade the Brussels Commission to restrict the operation of such juggernauts. But the manner and timing of the Government's enlightenment suggests that it proceeds not from intelligence, but from pressure.
Many similar clashes are already in the pipeline. They arise from the series of orders it will be necessary to implement because of EEC membership. Almost any one of those orders can be expected to arouse the kind of public storm which defeated the Government on immigration. Most immediate is an order regulating the export of live cattle; most fundamental Will be the orders required to implement Value Added Tax. In each case the Opposition will exploit sentiment and Opinion. In each case the Tory antimarketeers will be the defenders of Parliament and public feeling.
In a sense all this was unavoidable, because of the abbreviated nature of the EEC bill, and the manner in which it was carried through Parliament. But, in another sense, matters might have been very much easier had the ad hoc committee for scrutinising orders and legislation having reference to EEC membership — which the Government undertook to establish — been already in existence. That it is not is due to another attempt by the Government to bully — this time, to bully the Oppositon. Ministers knew that Labour Was extremely anxious to have the ad hoc committee set up as soon as possible, because it would give them a chance to scrutinise the effects of EEC entry closely. But ministers delayed, in a misguided attempt to coerce the Shadow Cabinet to send representatives to Strasbourg, by hinting that the appointment of the Committee woud be delayed until they did so.
So we have a situation in which rhuddle has been created by an excessively Pugilistic sense of parliamentary politics; and compounded by a too evident Willingness to crack under pressure. Can one wonder that the Tory winter is one of discontent?
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