The AmatoIla Ted
Ferdinand Mount
There is only one man in it. Not since Mr Gladstone barnstormed Midlothian (all right then, you try and think of another parallel), has a single individual so dominated an election campaign in this country. From the Amatolla Hotel in Aberdeen to Bournemouth Town Hall, Mr Edward Heath stomps the country, and stomps is the word to describe that familiar will-packed, thumpingly leaden rhetoric. After making twice as many public speeches as any other politician during the general election, he is now making three times as many in the European elections.
Meanwhile, Tory ministers burrow deeper into their departments, and their Labour shadows pretend that these blasted elections — expensive, irrelevant to the socialist cause and liable to turn out badly for them — are not happening at all. What could be more dismal than the bickering inside Labour's National Executive about who should sit on the platform to launch the party's European manifesto? Mr Callaghan, after one of his now typical peeves that he was 'not a wheel-horse to be wheeled out when my support is needed', in the event consented to be wheeled on to give one of the least ringing endorsements any party manifesto can ever have had from that party's leader: 'I wouldn't be here unless I gave it general support.'
No wonder Mr Heath on his grand and lonely progress likes to paint lurid pictures of the dread felt in Strasbourg, Luxembourg and Brussels at the prospect of hordes of Labour Euro-MPs descending upon them. 'Morbleu, comme j'ai peur de cette affreuse Barbara Castle,' they are apparently saying in the Avenue de la Joyeuse Entrée.
There is a massive smugness in the Tory camp, of which Mr Heath is a not unfitting representative. The Conservatives believe that their attitude is not only right but will shortly be proved to be right by the election of a large majority of Conservative EuroMPs — not far short of 50 out of the 78 from Great Britain.
But any such success should not be taken to imply the slightest hint of public preference for the Conservative 'constructive, positive' attitude towards the EEC over the 'obstructive, Little-Englander' attitude of the Labour Party. If the voters made up their minds on the European manifestos and on the candidates presented to them instead of on British domestic issues, there is no doubt that Labour would win hands down. I do not mean that people particularly thrill to Labour's puerile threat to withdraw if they don't get their own way. But, allowing for this flourish of disgruntlement, Labour's manifesto — sharp. pre
cise, in plain not to say bloody-minded English — corresponds much more to the way ordinary people talk and think about the EEC than the effete and frequently equivocal Brussel-ese of the Conservatives.
And the Labour candidates too are recognisable British characters. My favourite is Mr Albert Bore, candidate for Birmingham South, a physics lecturer who gives as his sole hobby 'political organisation' — a man to watch. Most of them are failed British parliamentary candidates — cashiered shop stewards and superfluous fitters' mates, part-time polytechnic lecturers and full-time ranters — a querulous, quarrelsome brood no doubt, but essentially a political force dedicated to making trouble, which is what parliaments are for. The Conservative candidates by contrast represent a conglomeration of bureaucratic interests, most notably that of the Community's own bureaucracy. Half a dozen or more have actually been on an EEC payroll; another sizeable clutch are retired diplomats or public officials from international agencies. Far from strengthening the democratic voice in the European Parliament, the election of scores of these ex-civil servants might well weaken it, for the appointed members in the last European Parliament did at least include a decent number of contentious professional politicians, as will other countries' MPs in this elected Assembly — men like Willy Brandt and Francois Mitterrand. The Tories' most glittering catch is Sir Fred Catherwood.
The answer to Mr Heath's question — `What's the point of voting for somebody who's going to get Britain out?' — is that where the scope and nature of an enterprise are still unsettled, not only do its wholehearted opponents have a right to be represented, so do those who believe that any further extension deserves critical examination. And the virtue of Labour's manifesto is not its ultimatum but rather that it presents coherent and serious arguments against extending the Assembly's limited powers and in favour of reducing the powers of the commission over national governments.
Labour says, 'The Common Agricultural Policy is a monstrous farce, forcing us to accept, at one and the same time, high food prices and vast food mountains.' The language may be vulgar, but is the Conservative counterpart any more accurate as a reflection of reality? The Tories claim that 'a sensibly administered CAP should provide the best way of ensuring a secure supply of food at stable prices' — yet at the same time concedes that 'in its present form, the CAP penalises many efficient
farmers in Britain and elsewhere; forces consumers to pay unnecessarily high prices; and imposes a huge burden on the Community's taxpayers.' Can these considerable disadvantages really be the result of mere un-sensible administration? If the administrators — these outstandingly brilliant commissioners and their high flying chefs de cabinet — have failed hitherto to see sense, why should they suddenly get it right? A temporary freeze and a devaluation of the Green Pound are surely scarcely the `fundamental reforms' the Conservatives say they would press for. It looks rather as if it is the intrinsic nature of the Common Agricultural Policy to breed these high prices and recurring surpluses and to discourage efficient farming and the elimination of inefficient peasants.
What the Tories mean by 'goodwill' seems rather to be a series of hypocritical politesses. The Conservative manifesto says that it obviously makes sense for the Member States 'to co-operate more closely in the economic sphere' and therefore 'regrets the Labour government's decision alone amongst the Nine — not to become a full member of the new European Monetary System' — the kind of rebuke issued to the only matron who arrives not wearing white gloves.
You might think from this opening that Geoffrey Howe would therefore be plunging straight into the EMS. Not so. At most, it appears 'we shall look for ways in which Britain can take her rightful place within it'. In other words, we would like to join but not yet — because we cannot guarantee to keep the exchange value of the pound within even the most generous limits without damaging Britain's own economic recovery. Which is exactly why Denis Healey declined to join too. But if you want the economic arguments spelled out, yoU have to read them in the Labour manifesto.
There are good arguments for joining the EMS. There are good reasons for arguing first for joining, then for staying out, as Samuel Brittan has in the Financial Times. But there is no excuse for refusing to enter into public argument at all. These elections are a moment of real historic importance and the level of debate ought to rise to meet them. Those who complain that the public is not excited enough have often only themselves to blame. Mr Bore has strong competition.
The paradox is that the Tories begin to sound convincing only when they return to the language of the Treaty of Rome and start talking about breaking down barriers, liberalising exchange controls, sweeping away national restrictions on competition and fair trade, in short, about opening I.11) the market. That is, after all, the language ef Margaret Thatcher and John Nott. What a pity that the Conservatives have not chosen more candidates who know how to spealt that language. The people may be Thatcher's people, but the voice is the voice of Ted.
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