The princess and the pea
POLITICAL COMMENTARY AUBERON WAUGH
A feature of political life nowadays is that whereas when a Labour man speaks in public nobody believes him, whenever a Conservative speaks nobody listens to him. This may or may not be an advantage. In Heath- style Conservatese, opinions are known under the pseudonym of Distinctive Policies, and it is a sad fact of life that Distinctive Policies, when- ever comprehended, are liable to be electorally expensive. Yet these Distinctive Policies are to politicians what hay is to horses: without them they languish and die. Hence, inter alia, the Distinctive Conservative Agricultural Policy.
This, reduced to its essentials, is a scheme to withdraw deficiency paypents to farmers over a period of three years, thus saving the Exchequer £150 million a year, to impose levies on imports which will bring them roughly up to the present guaranteed prices, thus earning the Exchequer a further £100 million a year. and to use this £250 million to reduce taxes (or to keep a British military presence East of Suez, as the case may be). The only person who will suffer as a result will be the housewife. who will have to pay commensurately for her food, but it is generally agreed in Conservative circles that she pays far too little for it at the moment, and will scarcely notice the difference, since she is so used to rising prices as a result of Labour's incompetence. Moreover, if Mr Wilson tried toti)oint out that the Conservatives were actually facing the country with a proposal to raise the cost of living, nobody would be- lieve him.
A further advantage of the new system is that it would bring us closer to European methods, and make our entry into the Common Market easier when the great day arrives (although, of course, we should then have to pay our £100 million levy back into the com- munity's Agricu1tura1 Fund, where it would be used to featherbed French peasants and others). Finally, Conservatives stoutly maintain, it will encourage production (and import substitution) in a way that the present system can't, since any increase in production nowadays means a further inroad into public funds, thus forcing the Treasury to reduce its guaranteed prices.
Then, like a thunderbolt from heaven, came last week's resolution at the annual general meeting of the National Farmers' Union, unanimously condemning the Tory proposals. There had been a few rumbles earlier from Lord Woolley. the NFU'S former president, but never anything like this. Farmers, as we all know, are electorally insignificant in that, with only 4 per cent of the country's work-force employed on the farms, the agricultural vote determines the result in very few constituencies indeed. Of course, Conservatives have always felt rather sentimental about farmers, just as Labour has always felt sentimental about coal- miners. But the significance of last week's NFU vote is that the small farmers of Britain. in their leather jerkins and baggy trousers held up with binder twine, are sitting on an elec- toral volcano.
Almost every poll, whetly.r produced by Gallup (praise be to the Daily Telegraph) or by any other organisation, is discouraging for the Government, and the one issue on which
they are united in showing universal con- demnation is the Government's record on
prices. This is arguably the deciding factor in most elections but never so obviously as now, with 80 per cent of the electorate condemning the Government's record in this field. Under these circumstances, it might be thought fairly bold of the Conservatives to produce as one of their main distinctive alternatives a policy for raising the cost of living. This boldness can be explained only within the context of the phenomenon I mentioned, whereby politicians are nowadays either disbelieved or ignored. The only development which could disturb this state of affairs would be if some outside body—like the NFU—were to start drawing attention to Mr Heath's distinctive alternative.
It would be profoundly dishonest of the NFU to pretend that its opposition to the import levy system derives in any part from concern for the housewife's pocket. As a matter of fact, the NFU has always suggested that a larger pro- portion of its members' income should come from the market, thereby mitigating the un- certainties of total reliance on the government. Indeed, one of its major objections to the Tories' levy system is its feeling that prices for the housewife may not rise high enough. But, as they explain at Agriculture House with sly bucolic looks, they can't very well stop any of their members who haven't understood this point from expressing concern about the house- wife.
The Tories' response to this so far has been to deny that farmers need suffer the slightest adverse effect from the new system, and the matter could be argued indefinitely.- Farmers point to the fact that milk consumption dropped with the last price increase. The Tories reply that this was largely caused by Mr Jenkins's cruel intervention, whereby older British child- ren are no longer given bottles of milk to pour down the drain in the traditional recreation- time manner. Farmers point to the collapse of the levy system in Europe, where an over- supply position has been reached and levies give no further price guarantee. The Tories reply that the Common Market started at over 90 per cent of self-sufficiency, whereas we are under 70 per cent. The farmers say that increased production must tend further towards self- sufficiency, where import levies give no price guarantee. The Tories reply that there is no question of reaching self-sufficiency in all fields of farming, that even when we do the interven- tion (buying-in) price will be only fractionally lower than the target (import plus levy) price; and this will be subsidised at least in part by the Government.
Of course, none of this is really the point. Nobody doubts that British farmers must be largely featherbedded. Under a completely free trade system, most farming activities in Eng- land would come to a halt, leaving only poultry, pigs, milk and potatoes. Most of the land would then revert to sporting and recreational activi- ties. The reason for this is that grass grows for ten months of the year in New Zealand, as against our own six or seven, that Canada is really a much more propitious place for grow. ing wheat, and everything is most unfair. The only question is how much featherbedding they
Continued from page 131 are in a position to demand. Quite suddenly they are presented with almost total powers of blackmail over the next Government.
The present system of featherbedding is an extremely complicated one, involving import quotas and import levies as well as production grants (which will be retained) and deficiency payments. However, everything nowadays de- pends upon the level of the deficiency pay- ments, and this is determined by the annual price review, which starts next week. The Tories hope that the prices offered will be so poor that farmers will be disillusioned with the whole system of deficiency payments and turn with shouts of praise to the levy system instead. Yet it is hard to see why the Government should decide to economise in this particular way at this moment. Production has not risen so markedly that the sum involved will cause em- barrassment—although productivity in English farms rises by a spectacular 7 per cent every year, actual production only rises by about 1.7 per cent. And increased farm production, which can only be brought about by higher guaran- teed prices, is an important feature in our battle for economic solvency through import sub- stitution.
Farmers argue that without guaranteed prices they could never have that con- fidence necessary if they are to invest further capital sums in increased production. The Tories reply that no other capital investment is completely without any element of risk, and that the farmers have no right to expect that theirs should be. But, of course, the Tories are completely missing the point, which does not concern anything so sublime as the rights and the wrongs of the matter. It concerns what each party can get away with, and the farmers hold all the trumps, as they have seldom held them before. The only cards in Conservative hands are the unpopularity of the NFU with many farmers, and the unpopularity of the present deficiency payments system; but so long as the NFU is in a position to demand both the levy system and a continuation of the present system of guaranteed prices (not to mention import quotas as well) there is no chance of the Con- servatives appealing over the heads of the NFU to the farmers themselves, even if the machinery existed for them to do so. No matter how high they pile the feather mattresses, old Farmer Weingarten, who is the NFU'S chief economic adviser, will still be able to detect the pea underneath.
So all that remains to be seen is whether Mr Godber is prepared to introduce some arrangement whereby guaranteed prices are re- tained as a standby in the event of the market falling, or whether the Shadow Cabinet pro- ceeds with its plans and faces an all-out war with the NFU. Mr Heath is particularly wedded to this scheme, since it gives him a quick answer to those who ask how he is going to reduce taxation and public expenditure. A well- attended meeting of the Tory Agriculture Com- mittee on Tuesday came out thoroughly in favour of ignoring the NFU. Only Mr Robin Turton seems to favour the 'belt and braces' view of agricultural support, and Mr Godber will certainly not be faced by any significant back-bench pressure from agricultural mem- bers to change his policy. However, doubts are likely to increase as the general election approaches. It is only a question of whether the Shadow Cabinet will lose its nerve. Already, one hears dangerous words like 'flexible' creep- ing into official Tory pronouncement on the sub- ject. And bang goes another Distinctive Policy.
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