Election Aftermath

Reflections on defeat

Derek Coombs

Is it really a month since the result of the general election? It only seems like yesterday, remembering the count and the Yardley result.

Suddenly it was all over. "I, the returning officer ..." Such ordinary words, you think, flat and unemotional: and yet what you were feeling at that time was cold, numb rejection.

The people have voted and they have decided not to decide. Collectively, around the country, the people said: "We have listened to all the words, all the arguments, all the accusations. We have noted all your enthusiasms and having done so, we declare you all null and void — Liberals, Socialists, Conservatives."

It was a salutary lesson in democracy. One stood there, personally defeated in a place where such defeat was not to be countenanced: personally affronted by the verdict; and in the bitterness of that moment the hurt is compounded.

They sang the 'Red Flag.' The whole at mosphere was unreal. I remember thinking, "What about my 1,600 constituency problems?

Surely ..." But they are gone too. They are now someone else's problems and good luck to him, you think.

Of course, at that stage one was not thinking rationally. Like bereavement. Or what one imagines the ending of a deep love affair would be like. "Could she have gone off with another man, without a word, without a real explanation, when I have given to her all that was in my nature to give?"

Maudlin sentiment, of course. Once the shock has begun to wear off, the mind sharpens and begins to observe its own inquest.

Who really won Yardley for the Labour Party? Surely, the Liberals, and yet those Liberal votes came virtually without a real campaign on their part. Did we campaign sufficiently? Surely so. I, my wife and all our supporters worked to the point of exhaustion and beyond exhaustion. Did I pay sufficient attention to the Liberals? The self-examination could well go on for weeks. Or months.

Meanwhile, a little more awe begins to intrude. What is this mysterious groundswell that moulds the electorate together; that makes it move like a glacier, in a particular direction at a certain time — unobserved by pollsters, political commentators and so on?

On the morning of the election all the leading polls were forecasting a comfortable Conservative victory. As we now know, opinion polls are dangerous bedfellows, particularly if they are in your favour. Undoubtedly many Conservatives saw a clear victory for their own party and felt free to have the luxury of voting Liberal, and some Labour supporters sensing defeat, took the opposite' view and decided that they had better vote Labour after all.

Yet the total Labour vote was actually below my figure in 1970 and lower than the number of votes which they themselves polled that time even with a bigger turnout. So, was this deadlock not the nation's will? And if it was there i seems no particular point in objecting to t or condemning it. But what was it meant to achieve?

Presumably the vast majority of people throughout the land were saying: "We do not believe in the extremes of political thought, wherever they might emerge. We move down the moderate centre. If the country is in as big a mess as we are led to believe, then we must have a wartime sense of unity, and this unity will not be achieved if one particular party, of whatever hue, is given a strong mandate." I accept that but equally I would exercise my own democratic right to comment upon it and differ from it. If unity is, indeed, the nation's wish then only the nation can provide It. Unity is not established by the legislation of any party. The will of the people is beyond all legislation in the long term.

What began this whole process of voting? The miners' issue. This has been bitter and protracted. The miners get more money, and there, some may say, is the end of the matter. But is it? Labour's new Government virtually scraps Stage 3. So, what does it put in its place? An understanding with the TUC? This is not a bad thing in theory. Not bad at all. But one's natural cynicism here suggests that there is nothing in any such manoeuvres that would not unleash a flood of inflated wage claims. Surely, no party in its right mind could allow a free-for-all.

The Common Market? Much was made of this. Conservatives entered it. Liberals are in favour of it. The centre of the Labour Party is in favour of it. So where does that leave uS now?

Prices? Everyone is in favour of getting them down. Is the Government's policy now 3 matter of method or cosmetics? Isn't it true that all the Labour Government can do is tan( about restricting the increases but that the flood will be at an even greater pace,' stimulated this time by wages as well as work' prices? Have the British public been deceived by all those pre-election promises? If, in one's personal dilemma, bright sigrl,s were observed they lie in the Labour Party, inability, now, to follow the dictates of their left. Further disastrous nationalisation ar pears to be ruled out. The Liberals are truly concerned about the volume of their votes and the fewness of their seats, but they can take comfort from the fad' that they are not in any way being put to the. test as the result of an election. Their untrieeL policies remain untried and may for ever remain untried. In principle there is sortie fairness in that: because if more than,3 handful of those who voted Liberal can recite, Liberal policies from beginning to end, would be amazed. What came out of WI election, therefore was complete indecision. I find it personally chastening that, know ing that we were the party best equipped t° deal with the frightening stresses in our economy — brought about by world factors — the electorate should decide otherwise. I have lost sleep over that. And I will cer tainly lose a great deal more. For a convictiofi of any strength cannot be turned off by 00e result in the electoral processes. The frustra. tion of being an observer rather than a Pa4I ticipant in the vital decisions that must made in the next few weeks is alrna,5 unbearable, but the strength of the frustatl is also the strength of the will to return. An I believe I will return.