Political commentary
Who wants the rope?
Charles Moore
Roy Hattersley says he is a 'democrat'. This is his explanation why, although he opposed Labour policy on the EEC and nuclear disarmament, he went along with the majority. A 'democrat', then, is a new word for a Trimmer, or perhaps something more than that, for Mr Hattersley did not so much trim his sails to the wind as turn his boat right around (with all the navigational difficulties that that involves).
If Mr Hattersley were a Conservative MP at present he would be behaving intensely democratically about capital punishment. If you ask me personally, he would be saying, I find the idea of hanging distasteful — I make no secret of that — but there is no doubt that this is a subject on which people feel very strongly. Who am Ito gainsay the wishes of 80 per cent of the population (or, he would not add, of the butchers, bakers and candlestickmakers on my constituency association, who keep ringing me up)?
There are a great many aspiring Hat- tersleys inside the 400 suits now crumpling one another on the Tory benches. They very much wanted to be Conservative MPs. They knew that the caricature of the local associations as hangers before anything else is largely true. So they did not find it in- superably difficult to control their not ter- ribly tender consciences, and allow their selectors to believe that they supported the rope.
Not very elevated, no doubt. But not sur- prising, either. After all, for Parliament the death penalty has been almost an academic issue for years. The majorities against have been so great that the debates have had little (more than ritual importance. To an MP, 'the question has seemed both hypothetical and highly complicated. To a pillar of a Conservative association, it is one of the few beautifully simple issues in politics. With self-interest pushing him forward, the average MP has been quite pleased to in- dulge the fantasies of the men and women who put him where he is.
The trouble is that this game could only be played safely if there were a large number of Labour members (almost all of whom oppose hanging), and a reasonable number of Conservative MPs who refused to make the compromises made by the others. In this Parliament, there are very few Labour MPs, a slightly more right-wing Conservative intake, and a good many Tory abolitionists who are fed up with making life easy for their colleagues by making it difficult for themselves.
There is therefore a real chance, for the first time since abolition, that the House could find itself voting for the death penal- ty, almost by accident. The Tory Hat- tersleys are alarmed by this. They don't ac- tually want hanging back, and they do not like trying to pick their way through the un- familiar minefield of moral questions. And they are worried too because, being Hat- tersleys, they very much want to get on. They want to be made PPSs and under- secretaries, and they therefore want to please the Government. When they were candidates at the election, they thought that it pleased the Government to favour capital punishment. Now that they're in, they are picking up strong hints from the Whips that the passing of the vote would be a very great nuisance.
It was Mrs Thatcher who started it. Her campaign in 1979 made much of the Con- servative commitment to Law and Order. This commitment was not supported by many very important policies. Rather it rested on a hint that, since Mrs Thatcher herself was in favour of capital punishment, the voter could reasonably hope for its return if the Tories won, and could be sure of other frightfully tough measures (unspecified). The murder of Airey Neave raised the temperature in her favour. In power, with Mr Whitelaw, an abolitionist without an eloquent command of the arguments, as Home Secretary, Mrs That- cher was able to direct popular frustration at him, not at herself.At the last election, she employed essentially similar tactics.
Mrs Thatcher was able to manipulate the issue in this way because of the convention that the question of capital punishment must be decided by a 'free vote'. She could not force the issue upon her party, and so be blamed for not forcing it hard enough, she could only put her case for it, like any other housewife. But why should there be a free vote on the subject? Capital punish- ment is a matter of public policy. Of course it is a moral question, and a highly emotional one, but so is the possession of nuclear weapons, on which the Whip is freely applied. If Mrs Thatcher and her Cabinet think that hanging is important to the protection of society, they should make it government policy, and apply the Whip. If not, they should not pretend that it is a question with party political importance.
The signs are that, although Mrs That- cher the angry mother-of-two may want to string them up, Mrs Thatcher the Prime Minister thinks that the question is an embarrassment. If she really wants the vote to be carried, why is she saying that she thinks that it will fail? Why is Sir Michael Havers, also a hanger, speaking as if the vote were already lost? She knows the complications. Would there, for instance, be a return to the pre-1957 position of hanging as a man- datory sentence for murder, or to the limbo of 1957-65? What would happen in Nor- thern Ireland, where juries do not try ter- rorist crimes? How would she control op- position from Cabinet colleagues? None of this will necessarily change her mind. All legislative changes arouse opposition and present countless problems. But because of the 'free vote', the Government which would be bound to prepare or make time for the Bill which would follow a vote for hanging, would not be able to exert discipline. The Bill would fail, and the disappointment of the hangers in the coun- try, who do not know much about the workings of Parliament, but know what they like, would be strong and bitter.
So what is most likely is that Mr Brittan will muddy the question. He is an aboli- tionist himself, but also a bit of a Hat- tersley. He is keeping his counsel until the debate. On that night, he will rise and say how much sympathy he has with those who want severe punishment for vicious murderers. But he will have to tell the house, in all honesty, that the question is extremely complicated, and that it would be very difficult to get through the right sort of Bill. That is no more than a personal view, he will say. Enough of the junior Hat- tersleys will take the hint for capital punish- ment to be voted down. Mrs Thatcher will be secure enough to vote for the rope as usual.
With a bit of luck, that will be the end of it. But it may be, especially if the vote is close, that the party faithful whose passions Mrs Thatcher has aroused will not rest con- tent. Deprived of the discussion before the vote that Mr Nicholas Winterton wanted by postponing it until the autumn, they may still use the party conference in October to arraign the Government for its weakness. For on the issue of hanging, the Conser- vative supporters have discovered the pleasures of controlling the choice and views of candidates which the Labour con- stituency Left already enjoy. They are not very interested in the distinction between a representative and a delegate, and they are very interested in hanging. Egged on by Mrs Thatcher, they have pushed harder than ever.
Thanks to the Hattersley democrats in their party, they have pushed quite often at an open door. A number of MPs are mumbling about being 'mandated' to their 'electors' (meaning their associations). Others even pretend that this is a question of numbers, and will claim to decide their vote only on what they think the majority of their constituents want. The Conser- vative Party has a very long way to go along the road to the Labour party 'democracy' which ensured Labour's defeat, but it should not move that way at all. If any Conservative doubts the truth of this, he should ask Mr Hattersley what it is like be- ing a full-time democrat.
Previous page
