Political commentary
Over the worst
Charles Moore
Mr Denis Healey has now been Sir Geoffrey Howe's opposite number, in various guises and with one gap, for nearly ten years. In all that time, there can scarcely have been a debate when he has not worsted the 'dead sheep'. Insults trip as lightly off his tongue as do honeyed words from a courtier. On Monday night he was insulting to the top of his bent. Jibes jostled to get out, harmless cracks hugger-mugger with comparisons which, if they meant what they said, were amazingly offensive. Mrs Thatcher was the great She-Elephant, but she was also, by the implication of his simile of the Reichstag fire, Hitler. She was as obstinate as General Galtieri, he said, and added: 'She is now the one who is gambling with people's lives.' Mr Healey is so thoroughly a politician that he cannot see that such a comparison is odious.
Although Denis has won all the battles, he has lost the war. In Monday's debate, he set Sir Geoffrey up as the 'fall guy' and ask- ed: 'Who is the Mephistopheles behind this shabby Faust?' But who, among all our politicians, is more like Faust than Mr Healey? With his vast knowledge of books and affairs, his proficiency in languages and music and photography and reciting Yeats, and his arrogantly high estimation of these achievements, he closely resembles the legendary know-all, and now he has 'but one bare hour to live'. As he turned his heavy body and red face from side to side to pick up the applause of his own benches, and leaned forward on the dispatch box to accuse his opponents, he made a great show, but inside, might he not have been shouting — Latinist that he is — Ah lente, lente currite, foals equi'?
It does not tarnish the glory, or rather, perhaps, burnish the blackness, of Mr Healey's performance to draw attention too to that of Mr Callaghan. Mr Healey is in no danger of being recorded in history for his public amiability; but with Mr Callaghan the risk is there, and it would be an even greater mistake. Where Mr Healey is cheer- fully rude, Mr Callaghan is respectable and polite. On Monday night, he did not insult the Prime Minister, he begged her to see reason. He drew on his experience as a statesman to find a way out of her diffi- culty. He was concerned only to prevent the 'bitterness' which, and here he signed knowledgeably, was 'genuine'. And to all this wisdom and emollience, he added a characteristic trick. He quoted from a document issued by the Council of Civil Service Unions about the despicable methods that GCHQ might use to sack staff and demanded that the Employment Secretary, Mr Tom King, repudiate its sug- gestions at once without looking at it. One must doubt whether the rising generation of left-wing fanatics will be able to keep up the spectacular beastliness which is the hallmark of the dear Old Labour Party.
The debate was a great theatrical occa- sion, and Labour ieserved its rave reviews, but it was not one of the moments when the Mother of Parliaments intervenes in British history to rescue our liberties. On the following morning and, more to the point, the following afternoon, life was much the same. The Opposition occupied its surest ground on Monday when it tried to make the Government look ridiculous, and its weakest when it invoked high principles. Mr Callaghan claimed unconvincingly that the Cheltenham affair 'will colour the whole background of what the Government does' for the rest of the Parliament. Mr Healey said that: 'The whole machinery of government is now seething with discontent.' Well, perhaps a little bit of seething, but, on the whole, the machinery seems to be much the same as usual.
In fact there is a case for saying that the Government's position is now less uncom- fortable than it was. It is difficult and em- barrassing that a proportion of the staff of GCHQ does not want to take the 'bribe' of £1,000 (might it have been worth offering £2,000 — more than twice as hard to resist?), but it is more noticeable that the great majority has accepted it. Mr Healey said that the Government had forced a con- flict for the staff between 'loyalty to prin- ciple' and 'loyalty to their families'. If he is right, it was a shrewd move, because very few people prefer principle to family.
What is more important is that the Government has now passed the classic mo- ment of difficulty in British politics when all wise men propose a compromise. A few years ago, the combination of embarrass- ment at the mishandling, the prompting of conciliatory ministers, a letter from Lord Bancroft to the Times and the resolute moderation of the trade unions would have been fatal. A deal would have been struck which appeared to accommodate the essen- tial demands of both parties. The confron- tation inevitably resulting from different in- terpretations of the agreement IS months later would have been, with a bit of luck, somebody else's problem.
Having resisted the pressures, Mrs That- cher is over the worst. She may well have to face continued unpopularity, but she is not in a quandary. The unions are. In order to convince the public of their case, and to accord with Mr Len Murray's new policy of
The Spectator 3 March 1984 being sensible, the unions have been ready with concessions. They have agreed that it is essential that there is continuous, uninter- rupted work at Cheltenham. If, then, the Government now takes steps against those who have not accepted the £1,000 offer, the unions will either have to go back on their agreement and mess the place up, or, with whatever ill grace, accept the fait accompli. Will the majority that has accepted the money want to risk the new agreement by supporting the minority that has not? For the TUC, the case is even worse. After the humiliation of the NGA in its bat- tle with Mr Eddie Shah, Mr Murray said that he had persuaded his members to turn over a new leaf. Having preparedB the ground at last autumn's TUC in lack- pool, he led his movement in the direction of legality and direct negotiation with the Government. There seemed to be signs of a reward for his effort recently when Mr King announced an agreement over contracting out of the political levy which was absurdly favourable to the unions. By politely hang- ing around in the corridor, Mr Murray was at last beginning to get his foot in the door. Now he has had to pull it sharply back again. Because, wrongly but not surpris- ingly, the trade union movement has &cid' ed that the Government's assault on GCHQ is designed as part of a new attack on unions, it feels honour-bound to resist on all fronts. Its main method for doing so Is the one which has now been tried, testedo and has failed half a dozen of times—organise scaled down versions of a genera' strike: days of action, protest etc to shame or force the Government into capitulation. All that remains for the TUC is t° withdraw from whatever official contacts with the Government it retains after flYe years of Thatcherism. The list of bodies involved is a menu of leftovers frornhe corporate state — the NEDC, the Health and Safety Executive, the Commission. for Racial Equality, the Equal Opportunntes Commission, ACAS, the Manpower vices Commission. By losing the unions, the Government would have its best chance to destroy most of these monuments to dea°, ideas altogether, in which case the unions sacrifice will not have been in vain.
The only orthodoxy common to all sided, of the debate on Monday was that it wo_ be wrong to impugn the loyalty of .trane
o union members. Certainly there is .rin evidence of trade unions acting for foreigst powers, and there is evidence that mon Cheltenham workers have alwaYsbeck, unhappy about disrupting their own worrs But it is a fact that often in recent yeaw', membership of a union has bred disloYaltiLlo to one's job. We have had firemen ,_.„s strike, hospital workers whose disrupt"; delay treatment and may even cause &ed, civil servants who, as Sir Geoffrey defence actually boast of impairing clefe are readiness. If people in the public service prepared to go to such lengths in their oopver".. interests, Mrs Thatcher is governing
ly by trying to devise ways to stop them
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