Political commentary
Maggie May in June?
Colin Welch
'Now tell me Colin — when's the election to be?' This oft-asked ques- tion tends to bore, embarrass and irritate me. Embarrass, because I have yet again wetly to confess that I am not in Mrs Thatcher's confidence. Who is? Mr Tebbit? Mr Parkinson? Has she made her own mind up yet? I doubt it. Like lesser mortals, she may be waiting for the local elections. These should present a fair guide to voting intentions, subject to two reservations: one, discount some Tory gains, because the last local elections were held on the same day as the general election, which drew out more Labour supporters than usual; and two, discount some Labour gains at the expense of former Labour councillors who defected to the Social Democrats without taking all their supporters with them.
I suspect that the election question ir- ritates Mrs Thatcher too, very much a 'what's-it-really-about?' rather than a 'when?' lady. She amuses Parliament and exasperates others with her playful teasing and uncharacteristic indecision. The Times calls it 'foolery at the dispatch box' and reminds her that it is 'no laughing matter'. Vexing others, may she not really be vexed herself? The timing of an election presents none of those great issues of principle, none of those clear-cut decisions between right and wrong, which she finds congenial and is so good at. Despite it momentous impor- tance, it is at root one of these fiddling, tac- tical, on-the-one-hand-on-the-other-hand smoking-room questions, with wise heads, subtle considerations and base calculations all nicely balanced, with no romance or high drama about it.
A boring question? Not if we consider what is implied in the answer. An early elec- tion could mean either great threats from the Opposition coupled with complete con- fidence that they can be defeated, or a gloomy suspicion that things are going to get worse, and now is therefore the time. A late election could mean either complete confidence in victory at any time, later or sooner, or a gloomy suspicion that defeat is likely and should therefore be postponed in the hope of a miracle.
This last suspicion surely has no place in Mrs Thatcher's sanguine temperament. Let us try to enter her mind — not perhaps the most difficult task, since what she feels and thinks is normally exactly what she says. From a vast ideological distance, Graham Greene attributed to her the virtue, lacking in Wilson and Callaghan, of honesty. Is it partly because she is a woman? It could be, at least to this extent — that women, being till recently barred from the higher reaches of politics, have not yet acquired that pro- pensity for half-truths, evasions and prevarication, smooth non-answers and downright lies which often passes for tradi- tional male statecraft.
What has Mrs Thatcher been saying lately? 'There are signs,' she declares, 'that we may be entering a period of more general and more sustained recovery'. It may be 'patchy: all recoveries are'. There may be 'fluctuations'. But, asked whether she ought not to go to the country in June, before the economy begins to deteriorate again, she replied firmly, 'I don't believe things are going to get worse afterwards. On the contrary, the recovery which is star- ting very cautiously will build up steadily.'
I am not here discussing whether she is right or wrong, though signs that she is right are not lacking. I suggest only that this is how she sees things. What her policies were designed to produce they are now, in her view, slowly producing. If this is so, there is no hurry for an election. The later the better: by next spring the outlook should be more auspicious still. The more confident she is the longer she can wait.
Personally, for what it's worth, I've always been a June man. Labour's menac- ing shadow threatens the currency, the sav- ings, the defence and alliances of the na- tion. The sooner this spectre is exorcised the better. A modest rise in inflation is in- evitable this year. It would be tragic if such a minor setback (which this Government above all can hardly afford to laugh off as minor) were allowed, by electoral delay, to improve the prospects of an Opposition which feeds on inflation as an addict on heroin. Public spending is rising dis- quietingly, though indeed the malign conse- quences of this incontinence will fall out- side the term of this Parliament, however protracted. There may be a fuss with Europe about our rebate, starting in June and gradually making an unfavourable im- pact. It is hard to defend against Opposi- tion attacks our membership of a club which is apparently trying to swindle us.
This Government, moreover, has little more to do. Not that it has run out of ideas and steam; but for whatever great reforms it has in mind, in welfare, health, educa- tion, the trade unions, local government, a new mandate is required, another term or two. If it went in June, a few measures would be lost; few of them would be miss- ed.
Apart from all this, an election is by now surely expected in June, and could be justified as urgent to remove damaging uncertainties in the economic, military and international fields. Yet 'it would be a cut- and-run election', declares Mr Foot, 'if she did it in June'. Mr Healey ominously asserts that 'the British electorate has a habit of punishing governments which run for cover before the storm breaks'. All such talk strikes me as arrant nonsense. It might fit poor Nicholas II abdicating in his train, or Kaiser Wilhelm flitting across the Dutch frontier in hopes ofi a nice cup of English tea. The pressure of dire events had got too much for them; conscious of failure, they cut and ran. In no way is the pressure too great for Mrs Thatcher, or she conscious of failure. She is not secretly longing for the fireside or kitchen, or a stab at her memoirs.
Hugo Young once noted of Wilson, Heath and Callaghan that, after a few years of power, they all looked and sounded like broken men, exhausted and depressed by futile struggles with the British econornY, looking for scapegoats, dominated by the insoluble complexities of making Britain work. He found Mrs Thatcher by contrast after nearly four years with a face as unscarred as her self-belief, confident that the phoenix is about to rise, her convictions unimpaired by experience. So long as she is in charge, she sees no storms ahead. The wise course she has set has averted them and will continue to do so, given the chance. If storms should nonetheless arise, they would not frighten her. She doubtless thinks herself best fitted to weather them, to steer the country info 11.1, weather as in fair, to mitigate damage an prevent disaster. She seeks not leave to flit, but power to carry on. No coward she. But even the bravest of us sometimes have a i secret fear of looking cowardly. And it s conceivable that these ridiculous taunts about cutting and running might, were she to brood on them, influence her against the June election she might otherwise think prudent. In the nation's interest as in her own, vic- tory is imperative. Maggie May, according. to the erudite Mr Heffer, was a Liverpool prostitute who stole sailors' trousers. Our Maggie has to steal Foot's trousers. For her to pick the best moment and means to do so is her duty rather than privilege, no more opportunistic than, say, Maggie May trYllig. to look and be at her best for an important client. To sum up, it could be June and, Ithinki should be. It could be next spring• wouldn't personally put much money on October in between. All sorts of little local difficulties may make it look less attractive as it approaches.
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