The press
An exciting season
Paul Johnson
In politics, said the Observer, this week marks the beginning of 'the most exciting season for many years', and for Labour it 'could be the last year as a party that can hope to govern on its own'. 'Will the Labour Party Break Up?' queried the Daily Mail headline on Monday. It, too, thought we were in for 'a new, more unstable but surely exciting period', and advised voters `to hang on to their seat-belts: they could be in for a bumpy ride' (I remember Quintin Hailsham saying exactly the same thing to me, the day Ted Heath was elected Tory leader; he was right, too). 'Ditch the Left, Say Union Chiefs' was the Sunday Mirror's headline. 'Ban Reds, Say Union', echoed the Daily Express: both were reporting the furious call of Sid Weighell, the NUR leader, for the expulsion from the party of the Militant Tendency and the compilation of a new 'Red List' of banned organisations.
According to the Express, 'many of Labour's remaining moderate and rightwing MPs are preparing to pack their bags and quit the party whoever wins the BennHealey contest'. It thought that 'nothing but a thumping win for Mr Healey will be enough to keep many of the nervous moderates in the party'. The Sunday Times ran the story, 'Callaghan Ready for Comeback in Labour's Crisis', though this appalling prospect was promptly denied by the old bruiser himself. Under the heading 'The Agony Over Madcap Sunday' — 27 September, when the deputy-leader will be chosen — the News of the World reported that 'there will be no secrecy. Each vote is recorded so everyone will know who supports whom'. If the first ballot is inconclusive, it said, 'there will be no pause for wheeler-deeling and the second ballot will be held at once so the entire voting procedure is completed before nightfall'. As for the result, it found that 'talk of Benn gaining a moral victory but still losing has now evaporated and the Party Establishment fear he might win'. The Fleet Street consensus was that the TGWU vote would be crucial.
As a comic side-show to the Benn challenge there was the continuing Ken Livingstone saga, making up for the fact that Benn himself is currently silent and invisible. 'Livingstone in "Army Out" Row' was the Express headline on Monday. The Sun's added: "Oh God! He's At It Again": Party Rebels Launch Bid to Oust Red Ken'. This was a follow-up to another and more plausible Sunday Times story, 'Worried Labour Men Plot to Oust "Rent-a-Quote" Livingstone', which claimed that Labour leaders on London borough councils were planning a round-robbin letter demanding Livingstone's resignation. They fear that otherwise 'Red Ken' will 'destroy their chances of gaining power in the borough elections next May', an outcome suggested by 'Labour's poor showing in recent London council by-elections'.
Considering the amount of really good copy the papers have got out of Livingstone, and at the depths of the silly season too, Fleet Street is an ungrateful lot. Describing him as 'a Fanny Craddock gone wrong — he is continually serving up instant recipes for the nation's ills', the Express thought 'surely it is time our Ken was returned to his natural habitat, the furthest backbench of County Hall.' The Mail relegated him to the ignominy of the Dimbleby lecture. The Guardian, which calls him 'the County Hall caterpillar', pounced on the visit by a group of buskers and advised: `Mr Livingstone could now be left to establish his personal court on the South Bank, adding what he can to the public stock of entertainment, controversy and understanding of the reptile world, while others get on with the boring old job of governing London.'
Personally I hope 'our Ken' hangs on as long, and talks as much, as he possibly can.
I doubt if it is his practice, as the Guardian claims, to say 'exactly what first came into his head'. Robin Day, the most experienced interviewer in Britain, tells me Livingstone is a cool customer. Certainly he is not just a silly eccentric, but represents, albeit in grotesque form, the quasi-totalitarian thinking which is now taking over the Labour Party. Should we not see and hear it in action while there is still time? As the Daily Telegraph put it, `Mr Livingstone is the product of an approach to politics which is not interested in the business of governing in traditional terms, but in power . . . Like a mole above ground, he is blind ed by a glare of public attention. But he is no less of an effective digger underground for that'.
Of course one way to defeat local government moles is by referendum. The Coventry result last Thursday, which showed a seven to-one majority against rate-increases and in favour of cuts in services, was a blow to the Livingstones. The Telegraph was delighted: Mr Heseltine had so far 'failed to stem, let alone reverse, the economic haemorrhage' of local spending. Might he not, it asked, 'look to Coventry for inspiration?' It reminded us that Mrs Thatcher, when in opposition, 'evoked considerable enthusiasm by declaring her support for the principle of referendum'. Such an idea alarmed the Guardian as likely to 'erode the already limited independence of local government'. Yet it feared that Heseltine 'is now considering whether to make such referendums compulsory, and their results binding, when councils wish to raise sup plementary rates'. It lamented that, 'as a politician, he can take some cheer from Thursday night's results'.
An alternative, the Sunday Times reported, was for Heseltine to enact 'in England the powers in force in Scotland, which have enabled the Government to bring the high-spending Lothian region coun cil to its knees'. Under the Scottish system, supplementary rates are illegal. According to the Sunday Times, if Heseltine takes this course, Livingstone is likely to call 'a general strike against the Government's policies'. That would be worth seeing. It in clines me to agree with the mysterious sug gestion made by a letter to The Times last Thursday, which began: 'Sir, the debate Over the constitutional rights of central and local government respectively is disturbingly reminiscent of the weeks preceding the fall of Rangoon in 1942'.
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