REFLATION AND REFORM
Mr Barber's return to economic common sense
Ambition is no bad thing, particularly in a Chancellor of the Exchequer. There is no doubt that Mr Barber had to set his sights high. Had he not done so, he would have missed the target that others had put up for him, whether he wished them to do so or not. His budget had to justify the trust that Mr Heath had placed in him when inviting him to succeed the late lain Macleod; and it had also to justify the trust that the country had placed in Mr Heath when it invited him to form a Conservative administration to succeed the Labour ad- ministration of Mr Wilson. It can be said quite categorically, therefore, that under these circumstances of political trial, an unambitious budget, whatever. its com- plexion, would have failed utterly. In terms of personal and party ambition and per- sonal and party success, Mr Barber's budget had to be a thing which stretched itself, which dared, which took risks. The country, too, needs to dare, to stretch, to take risks. Mr Barber's first budget will be judged on how it meets these personal, partisan and national needs. The standing ovation he received from the Tory benches after he sat down on Tuesday afternoon—the first such ovation for several years—was itself proof that the Chancellor had at least hit one target. This was the easiest target. When a man is sud- denly placed in very high office, and subse- quently appears to lack the stature for it, the House of Commons, like other such benches of judges, warmly responds when against expectation he shows he may well possess the requisite stature after all. Pro- vided Mr Barber survives the Finance Bill (and this will be much easier for him to do now that he has triumphantly survived the baptism of his Budget speech) he will have proved himself. In doing so, he will also have proved Mr Heath's judgment. The present administration, the Conservative party, and the country will all benefit from having a Chancellor of the Exchequer who can no longer be regarded as a lightweight. This will remain the case even should it prove, in the light of subsequent events, that Mr Barber's 1971 Budget was a mis- take. An administration, a party, and a country are all so much, the stronger when one of its politicians proves himself in the Commons. The country at this moment is not so replete with figures who have scored parliamentary triumphs for it to turn up its nose when a new victor comes upon the political scene. Mr Barber is to be wel- comed, belatedly for a Chancellor but nonetheless warmly, into the front rank of politicians. He has fulfilled his first ambi- tion.
The same can be said of Mr Heath and his administration. It is their first budget as well as Mr Barber's. Although the Cabinet and Prime Minister have far less to do with Budgets than they ought to have, and in any well-regulated system of Government would have, it remains the case that Budgets make and break cabinets almost as easily as they do Chancellors. A Chancellor's parliamentary triumph is also a Prime Minister's and an administration's triumph; and the Prime Minister and his administration have been scarcely less in need of such a triumph than has Mr Barber.
His Budget dares, stretches, takes risks. It has been a personal and a partisan triumph. If it were nothing else than-these, it would be a good Budget for the country. It is too soon to know whether the risks will be worthwhile, whether or not too much has been dared or stretched. But here is a Budget which reflates the economy more than the pessimists had hoped. Here is, more importantly, a Budget that holds out hope of great fiscal reform to come; which suggests that common sense will be introduced into the financial dealings between the taxpayer and the state; which anticipates simple scales of duties and rewards. Here, for once, is a Budget which does not play around with tobacco duties and pennies on pints and tanners on petrol and ridiculous rearrangements of the percentage tariffs on washing machines and refrigerators. Here is a Budget boldly saying 'we cannot do everything at once, but this is what we will do next year, and this is what we will do the year after that'. Some may have liked more done now more must have preferred that more would be done next year, but none could object that nothing much would ever be done; and it has been this response that nothing much would ever be done about the heavy burden and the com- plex nature of our system of taxation, that has been the curse upon virtually every budget since the war.
For the country, as much as for Mr Barber and his party, the Budget is a proclamation. The country has needed such. Mr Harold Lever may describe Mr Barber's Budget as 'cautionary, reflation- ary' and say, wisecracking, that 'Mr Barber has taken his Treasury estimates of what he can do and doubled them.' The country will reply 'and about time fo'. Mr Harold Wilson may say that the Budget 'fails to rise to the occasion' and that it is a 'two-nations Budget'. The country will welcome his description. Socialists will howl about the injustices contained within the Chancellor's reforms, and will say—as Mr Vic Feather has already suggested— that if Mr Barber is to 'give away' £500 million, then it is not taxpayers who should benefit. It has always been a curious view that when a Chancellor declines to take £500 million he has given it away. Nothing much can be done about those who possess the invincible ignorance of this view, except to affront them. Their outraged noises could prove the Budget's efficacy as well as any ovation from the right.
There is much to be said for Mr Wilson's interpretation that 'the country is spiral- ling down into the deepest recession since the war'. If any Budget is likely to stop such spiralling, this is such a Budget. It proclaims a sense of direction. It declares the mind of a Chancellor—and therefore of a Prime Minister and an administration —who knows what to do and and where to go. This Budget could renew and release the energies of the country. Once we cease to be constipated by our Common Market application, we will at last, thanks in no small measure to be Mr Barber's Budget, be able to advance.
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