Political commentary
An amazing coincidence
Ferdinand Mount
Why now? Why did David Steel choose last Thursday to withdraw, no, sorry, to announce his intention to withdraw from the Lib-Lab Pact at the end of July, no, sorry again, must get these things right, at the end of the parliamentary session, probably in October? What is most alarming for the Liberals is how few people feel inclined to ask this or any other question about Mr Steel's decision, which was greeted with widespread outbreaks of indifference. Liberals themselves received the news with an impressive show of unity-in-apathy. Even the City, notorious for its liability to panic at the twitch of a non-event, remained cool. After all, the ending of the Pact — when it finally materialises — does not commit the Liberals to vote against the government in November or at any other time on a motion of no confidence or a motion of anything else.
Mr Steel's decision is a symptom, not a cause. And the question Why Now is the only question that matters. Mr Steel himself, engaging as ever, a little sleeker round the jowl but not puffed up by his brush with power or the appearance of power, lets it be known that he chose Whitsun because it was a nice quiet bank holiday weekend and• Parliament was trotting off for a breather but Mr Callaghan had not yet left for the Bonn summit, so it didn't look as if the Liberals were ratting while his back was turned. Yet only the previous weekend he had been setting out conditions for a renewed pact? Ah, but those were conditions for a pact after an election. Had Mr Steel pressed Mr Callaghan to include proportional representation or any other Liberal ideas in the programme for next session? Not really, it seems.
Did the Prime Minister press Mr Steel to continue the Pact? Not really, again. Did the Liberal MPs press Mr Steel to end it? No, he just told them that he was calling it off; he didn't really consult them at all, as he was quite entitled to do..
There was, you see, a total absence of pressure all round. The Prime Minister might press Mr Steel to take another cup of tea. Mr Steel might urge the Prime Minister to try Mrs Steel's drop scones. But that was as far as the arm-twisting went. It was all as genteel as a Morningside Sunday. And yet somehow one feels, does one not, that there must be a little more to it.
The view, strongly held in the Tory camp, is that Mr Steel has got wind of an October election not merely in the sense that we have all got wind of it as the most likely of possible outcomes but as an odds-on bet supported by an ever-increasing weight of circumstantial evidence. Mr Steel himself claims to have always been an October man. And if it is to be October, he needs every extra day of independent campaigning.
The rumour of an impending Cabinet reshuffle does not unambiguously fortify belief in an October election. Mr Callaghan would need to freshen up his placement to face the electorate at whatever time he picks. Nonetheless, the rumour charges up the electoral atmosphere and must impel the Liberals too to dust themselves down and present a fresh face. Mr Callaghan is said to be toying with the idea of giving Denis Healey his long-promised switch to the Foreign Office, putting David Owen at the Home Office, Shirley Williams at the Treasury, Merlyn Rees at Defence and sending Fred Mulley to the Lords where he could z... no, we must restrain ourselves. The objection here is that this would represent demotion for Mr Rees, Jim's trusty lieutenant, so another possibility would be to put Fred Peart out to grass and make Mr Rees Leader of the Lords.
There remains one other reason for Mr Steel to declare his independence now. Arrests in the Norman Scott case, so long heralded, are now said to be imminent. The routine interview with Mr Thorpe apparently represents the final tidying-up of the investigation. These arrests are.expected to involve serious charges and to include several people connected with the Liberal Party. Such an event could not fail, however unfairly, to affect the party's election chances. The case has already done far more damage to the Liberals than is publicly recognised.
If the end of the pact were delayed there would be a danger that it could be associated, quite unfairly, in some people's minds, with any court proceedings that might be taking place. If there are arrests, it is possible in any case that there will be an extra clutch of Liberal votes up for grabs this October, no doubt a tiny fraction of the total but a potentially vital fraction. It is of course no more than an amazing coincidence that in these circumstances both major parties should have abruptly begun to hymn the virtues of family life. Only the unkindest observer would imagine that the prospect of an October election had anything to do with it.
On the other hand, it might be a kindness to attribute to election jitters the recent The cover price of the Spectator will be Increased to 30p with effect from the 10 June Issue. This is our first price rise since October 1976 and unfortunately can be postponed no longer.
spate of leaks from the inner councils of the Tory Party. In reality, the cause is the continuing underground war between Mrs Thatcher's office and the Conservative Research Department. You expect this kind of thing in the Labour Party where the party leadership is usually rightish and Transport House is usually leftish. But in the post-war Tory Party up to the time Of Mrs Thatcher's accession, Rab Butler's young men were everywhere. Michael Fraser, now Lord Fraser of Kilmorack, entered the Research Department at the same time as Macleod and Maulding and went on to mastermind it for roughly II quarter of a century. Harmony prevailed, so much so that the back-room boys came to be regarded as a marvellously adaptable bureaucracy with no views of their own. In fact, most of them were and are mostlY devoted to the Keynesian, Butskellite, Macmillanish views of the age. And they d° not take to new ideas any more readily thel' any other entrenched bureaucracy But it would be wrong to assume that Chris Patten's removal from the job of See" retary to the Shadow Cabinet is part of this war, as claimed in The Times — which has some eccentric political reports these del's' Mrs Thatcher denies it. Mr Neave and Sir, Keith Joseph deny that they ever alleged that Mr Patten didn't putwhat they said down in the minutes. The truth really does seem to be that Mr Patten is a busy man, being candidate for the marginal seat of Bath, as well as directing the Research Department, and had to give ur something. He is besides an indispensable patcher-up and paperer-over, much valued bY Mrs Thatcher. The more delicate bridge: passages in The Right Approach are generellY attributed to him.
The Times then attempted to recoup fingering Mr Alfred Sherman of Keit" Joseph's Centre for Policy Studies as `the eminence grise to the eminence gyise of the , Leader of the Opposition'. This for the unstoppable Mr Sherthall represents success in spades. Grise he isn'li The Svengali of Wilfrid Street does n°5 suffer social democrats or upper-clas paternalists gladly. He likes a good knock.; down ideological argument. And 11,1 declared mission in life is `to teach the TO,,„" Party about cause and effect.' Now yoU 0'; see why he might be a trifle unp010r here and there. But as a matter of fact, Sherman too is not concerned in this leakirl„° business which has once again exposed til'e underlying division of opinion inside the party as a whole and not merely in
Shadow Cabinet.
Not that the party documents now heil sprayed around with the regularity of a f sprinkler are much cop. What is the point e/s drawing up a league table of Trade Chli_91/1. Most Likely To Cripple The Nation? rl° does it take a genius —or Lord Carrington; to deduce that the Government might win another confrontation with the uni°10 After all, they didn't win the last on0. politics, ask a hypothetical question and Y° usually get a banal answer.
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