SPECTAT THE OR
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GO SHE MUSTN'T
on cannot have exactly the same Government for ten years,' Mrs Thatcher told Brian Walden at the weekend. She said this to explain how it was that Cabinet ministers came and went, but the viewer could see, in the frown that creased her brow as soon as the words were out, that she rather wished she had not said it. For the same Government for ten years is, in essence, what we have had, and it is this that Mrs Thatcher's senior colleagues find increasingly hard to bear.
They are not alone. It is now much easier to find Conservative MPs who will say, in private at least, that they rather wish that their leader would take herself off to Dulwich. There are even growing numbers of such rebellious spirits among Mrs Thatcher's strongest power base, the constituency activists. Above all, there are the British people telling the opinion polls in ever larger numbers that they cannot stand the woman and that it is time for a change. It is hard not to sympathise. It does not seem fair that one woman — one repetitious, humourless, hectoring, narrow woman — should be able to bestride the public stage for so long. 'Let the other lot have a chance' is a natural feeling and, in a parliamentary democracy, a good one.
But before it can be right to translate that feeling into action, one must consider what is on offer. There are at present two `other lots'. The first is the Labour Party. It is enough to say of Labour that at this moment in the Parliament its policies are almost non-existent: we do not yet know what it offers. The other 'other lot' is all those Conservatives who appear to be opposed to the Prime Minister in whose Cabinet they serve. They do not form a coherent group and, for obvious reasons, they cannot state their views very directly, but they have widespread support and they seem to be led by Sir Geoffrey Howe.
What do they want? This lot cannot give a satisfactory answer. The one specific thing which they want is British entry into the Exchange Rate Mechanism of the European Monetary System, but this is a shibboleth chosen almost at random, as was the fate of a Somerset helicopter company in 1986. They seek more consen- sus, less confrontation, more 'Cabinet gov- ernment'. They want a smoother rela-
tionship with Europe, a quieter life.
It is important to recognise, however, that this call for Cabinet government is not a constitutional point. A moment's thought will show that modern government cannot be conducted, day to day, by the Cabinet, a large and very unwieldy board of direc- tors whose members are far too busy to act collectively except in very rare instances. A modern Prime Minister, therefore, does not have to choose between prime minist- erial government and Cabinet government, but between being an active chairman and just letting all the bits of government go their own way.
Mrs Thatcher, of course, is an active chairman. To be a good active chairman she needs independent advisers. What is unprecedented about her approach is not her dictatorial power (Mr Heath's was much more marked), nor her politicking through a kitchen cabinet (Mr Wilson held that palm), but her relentless interest in actual policy — in what should be done and how to do it. Most politicians, especially Tory politicians, still think that an interest in policy is a sign of bad manners. They resent her interest in it. They resent her. The call for Cabinet government, then, is simply a protest at this Prime Minister. It is the approved way of saying, 'Let us get rid of Mrs Thatcher.'
Yet it is this interest in policy which is the chief reason why there has been Conservative government for such a long time. For Mrs Thatcher's interest is not the technical one of a gifted administrator, but arises from her strong beliefs and sense of purpose. Government under her never runs into the ground or out of steam. She may be too self-congratulatory but she is not complacent. Her admittedly rather unTory determination to act is what gives the Government its discipline. Without that determination it would collapse.
If only it would, a majority is now disposed to say. But Mrs Thatcher adds to her many irritating qualities the particular- ly annoying one of being right. She was right in 1981 to refuse to reflate. She was right to reconquer the Falklands in 1982. She was right to force through trade union reform and privatisation and council house sales and opting out in schools, and right to oppose South African sanctions, and if she
had listened to the consolidators in her Cabinet she would not have done any of these things. She was even right in the matters over which she and Mr Lawson fell out. Mr Lawson abandoned Thatcherite monetarism in 1985 and his subsequent attempt to link the value of the pound to the deutschmark was an expensive error which threatened much of his good work. Mrs Thatcher saw this quite early on and was .culpable not for poking her nose into the matter, but for holding back.
Finally, Mrs Thatcher is right about the EMS and in her defiance of the mindless orthodoxy of the 'European ideal'. Her truthful and businesslike mind sees that the common market in Europe to which all the members declare themselves to be commit- ted simply does not exist. It sees in M. Delors' Social Charter the reimposition of dirigiste socialism. It fears in the proposals for European monetary union the transfer of political authority. Her opponents have chosen Europe as the ground to fight what they hope is their last battle with her. Everyone who values Britain's sovereignty and good government should fight on her side.
There is only one argument for Mrs Thatcher going, and it is a powerful one. It is that she is too unpopular to win the next election. It is, however, a self-fulfilling argument. She will become much more unpopular if her colleagues choose to make her so. If they support her they will, after all, be supporting the most successful election winner of modern times. We agree, however, that it would be gracious for Mrs Thatcher to concede more than she has done to the current mood. We agree that, for all her protestations of reducing government, she loves power too much. We recommend an important renunciation of power. She should repeal the Bank of England Act of 1946, constitute the Bank independently and give it statutory respon- sibility for monetary policy. This would be a genuinely anti-authoritarian move. But it would of course horrify her Cabinet critics, who guard jealously the power to debauch the currency in time for a general election. The most damaging revelation in Mr Law- son's speech on Tuesday was that he had proposed such a scheme and she had turned it down.
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