BOOKS Accursed Power

By J. W. M. THOMPSON HE passage in British political history Which 1. ended on October 15, 1964, is seen, at even this short distance of time, to have been more richly provided with farce and tragedy, with Public frustration and unconcealed manipulation of the political machinery, than any other com- parable period in living memory. The electorate fell out of love with the Conservative Party and could not bring itself to turn wholeheartedly to Labour : disenchantment was not replaced by a new enthusiasm, respected men fell from grace, scandal and mystery flourished, and the country Which had 'lost an Empire and not yet found a role' was assailed by political campaigns of a crude or uninspiring character. For Fleet Street only was 1963 an annus mirabilis, with the people daily feasted on fresh astonishments—one day as sniggering voyeurs, another as incredulous onlookers at the Tories' bizarre embarrassments at Blackpool. The two able journalists who have produced this book* have gone about the Presentation of all this, and of the consequential events of 1964, with an understandable pro- fessional relish. They have written a smooth Journalistic narrative, replete in the latest news- Paper fashion with the small (and pointless) details which are supposed to persuade the reader that he is getting the inside story; and their book will be widely read as an accomplished Political thriller. If at the end the dominant impression is atour one of cynicism and futility, they are not altogether to be blamed for that.

And yet, by adopting as their model Theodore White's The Making of the President, Mr.

Howard and Mr. West have courted a comparison Which can only reinforce the view that their book is disappointingly superficial and narrow. What, after all, one asks, as the last page is reached and Mr. Wilson is left happily trying out the scrambler telephone at 10 Downing Street, what Was the political struggle all about? Was it really no mare than sets of men scheming and squabbling about jobs and power, that suspect prize which journalism seems increasingly to glamorise? Was it really just a battle of image- builders and propagandists, of television pro- grammes and poster campaigns, of the cunning appeal to this class or that special interest? One Can believe that our politics and politicians were

in an unhappy state without accepting so de-

Pressing a picture. There was a clash of ideas, too, and a difficult groping for alternative ways of bringing about that renewal of Britain which

People generally felt to be necessary and over- due. It was the failure of the politicians if this

Was muffled and ill-expressed, and it is the failure of this book that it is so nearly lost sight of in the crowded scene of plot and manceuvre. Above these pages hover, dispiritingly, Belloc's lines 'On a Great Election':

The accursed power which stands on Privilege (And goes with Women, and Champagne, and Bridge)

Broke—and Democracy resumed her reign: (Which goes with Bridge, and Women and Champagne).

However, on their own level they are most readable pages. Naturally, since both the authors

'THE MARINO OF THE PRIME MINISTER. By Anthony Howard and Richard West. (Cape, 25s.)

are of the left, the sections dealing with Mr. Wilson's activities, and those at Transport House, are the best-informed. They write as 'wary' admirers of Mr. Wilson, although at times their absorption in the processes of political in- fighting leads them to suspend their wariness. The subtle skill of Mr. Wilson's campaign to succeed Mr. Gaitskell, for instance, seems to have blinded them to some of its less pleasing details. Thus, Mr. Wilson, flying back from New York on the death of Gaitskell, and after much anxiety and consultation over his tactics in the coming leadership contest, was inevitably questioned on the subject by the airport reporters: 'I don't think we can begin to think about that when the leader has died only a few hours ago,' he quickly told them.' 'It was just the right note,' comment the authors admiringly. One recalls seeing the words spoken on the television screen, and wincing at the flash of sheer insincerity which accompanied them. Mr. Wilson was de- termined to reach for the crown from the moment it seemed that it might be available.

The Tory succession struggle is described with gusto, but without any important new dis- closures. This account owes much, naturally, to those already published by participants: Mr. Randolph Churchill's The Fight for the Tory Leadership (Heinemann), which gave Mr. Mac- millan's side of the story, and Mr. lain Macleod's best-selling review of that book in the Spectator of January 17, 1964. The total truth of such a swiftly changing and confused episode must always escape the chronicler : with so many

interested witnesses, Baldwin's phrase about 'the many-sidedness of truth' is particularly applicable. Mr. Hogg has already challenged the version of Mr. Howard and Mr. West in general terms. One passage he may be expected to dis- pute suggests that, on the final Friday of the crisis, he was the first of the Maudling-Butler- Hailsham triumvirate to capitulate and agree to serve under the fourteenth earl. The authors have also fallen into an error through a misreading, apparently, of Mr. Macleod's Spectator article. Macleod was not present at the important meeting of Lord Home's three rivals which took place at the Treasury on that final Friday. He caused the meeting, but did not attend it.

The details are perhaps not of great present significance. Mr. Macmillan had his way, Mr. Butler was excluded, and the aristocratic novice in affairs of haute politique emerged smiling from the almost unbelievable confusion. The story of his year in office is scarcely touched on; but on their own chosen ground the authors might have said more about one immediate re- sult of Sir Alec's 'emergence' (and that absurd word in itself helped to discredit the process)— namely, the damage it inflicted upon the morale of the Tory Central Office. Many of the party's most loyal officials were openly shocked at Mr. Butler's treatment (so, one recalls, was Sir Alec's mother, in a small gem of television interviewing around this time), and there was much talk of resignations in protest. However, party function- aries inevitably have to adapt to changes in leadership much as civil servants must. The organisation men's struggles to cope with the

radically different situation, and to 'manage' their inexperienced new leader, would have been rewarding material for these authors.

Labour politicians were pleased to the point of bewilderment by their opponents' contortions. Mr. Howard and Mr. West report that Mr. Wilson held a poor opinion of the leading Tories before the leadership crisis, and 'like Hugh Gaitskell before him Wilson never wavered in his belief that lain Macleod was easily the Tories' best electoral bet as their next leader.' Many Labour politicians quickly came to feel that most of the other Tories would also have been harder to beat than Sir Alec. Yet through 1964 the Labour lead in the opinion polls dwindled, and the country s habitual reluctance to turn to the Labour Party reasserted itself. (An agree- ably exact remark by Mr. Maudling is quoted: 'We're a Conservative country that votes Labour from time to time.')

Within their chosen limits the authors' account of the election campaign itself is lucid and inter- esting. They seem puzzled by Sir Alec's concen- tration on 'whistle-stop' tours, which exposed him at his weakest, whereas he had learned, by the time of the election, to make an adequate Prime Ministerial speech to a Tory audience. This they rightly regard as a blunder. The curious thing is that it was at Sir Alec's insistence that these unsatisfactory open-air meetings, often with hostile interruptions, dominated his cam- paign. The original stratagem was to seek to display him as much as possible as the Prime Minister rather than as the party leader: this was upset by his preference for whistle-stop in- formality. The nightly contrast on television, with Sir Alec shouting at a street corner and' Mr. Wilson addressing large audiences with im- pressive authority, was damaging to the Tories.

It was a strange misjudgment. Mr. Howard and Mr. West also make a point of Sir Alec's with- drawal from the scene in the final days. The truth is that there was no mystery about it.

Knowing that he would find his final solo television appearance a difficult ordeal, he had kept his programme clear so that he could con- centrate upon this possibly decisive effort. It actually took Sir Alec an exhausting day and a half to make the film.

In the chapter entitled 'The Adman Cometh,' the authors write at some length about the parties' propaganda and advertising, although they are uninformative about the actual.expendi- ture incurred. The Tories, in fact, spent the sum of one million pounds,on press and poster advertising in the eighteen months leading up to the election, and the Labour Party, starting their campaign within twenty-four hours of the Tories, were also lavish it not so lavish. It would have been worth while to attempt some assess- ment of the value of this form of electioneering, for it is hard to believe that this great expense paid proportionate dividends.

Like all good thrillers The Making of the Prime Minister ends in suspense, with the best brains on both sides believing that their party had lost the election, with Mr. Wilson gloomily reading defeat in his slide rule and Lord Poole insisting that Sir Alec, up in Crieff, be warned to expect the worst. Perhaps through exhaustion, perhaps through disappointment, Mr. Wilson seems to have lost his confidence in the final hours. Sir Alec preserved a stiff upper lip in seclusion. And only a few hundred votes decided which way the decision went. The electorate, with a splendid instinct for irony and for a fitting conclusion to so much confusion and machination, simply declined to give a firm vote of confidence to either side.