POLITICS
The realities of political struggle help create a work of faction
SIMON HEFFER
The two things needful for Cabinet in- fighting are a weak prime minister and an even weaker opposition. British politics now has both. No one should be surprised, therefore, that almost every issue provides a new battlefield. The factions owe more to personality and ambition than to ideology; though that, occasionally, plays a part. The Prime Minister is too preoccupied with cri- sis management, suing for libel and doing the arduous jobs of both the First and Sec- ond Lords of the Treasury to squash the squabblers. Her Majesty's Loyal Opposi- tion is too inept and divided to provide a force against which all Tories can unite. It seems all to be getting out of hand. Mr Major has even told his colleagues to stop being beastly to President Heseltine.
The present antipathies within the Cabi- net are diverse. The grandest is about the economy. Some ministers think Mr Major is running it. Last week's cut in interest rates was his doing, as was the panic state- ment this week of no more cuts before the Budget. Mr Lamont is said to be cross about Mr Major's interference. 'I'm thrilled Major has taken over,' one minister told me, however. 'It's really carved up those f—ers at the Treasury who want to run the economy without any reference to political reality at all.' Needless to say, Mr Lamont, and, officially, Downing Street deny Mr Major has 'taken over'. On Tuesday in the Commons, Mr Major said there were no differences between him and the Chancel- lor. This may have been as accurate as his praise for Mr Lamont, to whom, he said, credit belonged for the interest-rate cuts; cuts we owe solely to the speculators who, against the wishes of Messrs Lamont and Major, kicked sterling out of the ERM.
Next month's Budget looks certain to be Mr Lamont's last. The jockeying to succeed him has begun in earnest. Because of the mood of the Tory party, candidates need two qualities: opposition to ERM re-entry (if, indeed, there is an ERM to re-enter by then), and a ruthless desire to cut public spending. Mr Clarke, the best politician in the Cabinet and for the moment Home Secretary, is not famed for these traits. However, he is the favourite. He may, though, have been unsettled by reports of a `stop Clarke' movement allegedly including several of his colleagues.
Mr Clarke can see good reasons to be Chancellor. With interest rates at their low- est since 1968 and a competitive exchange rate, a credible Chancellor might be all that is now needed to ensure recovery. Mr Clarke's friends say he is that man. He could spend the rest of this Parliament pre- siding over rises in house prices, wealth, employment, human happiness — and inflation, but never mind. What better preparation for one who would be Prime Minister? And how better to avoid the next Home Office task, two tiresome years fight- ing with Mr Plod and his friends in the Tory party over reform of the police?
It may not have been coincidental, there- fore, that Mr Clarke has this week mutated his line on the ERM. He had been, with President Heseltine, the foremost advocate of re-entry. Pragmatism, or what looks sus- piciously like Thatcherism, has taken over. Mr Clarke has said this week that ERM re- entry is not in prospect. He is also reported to have joined up with that other notorious right-winger and former health secretary, Mr Waldegrave, to attack their successor, Mrs Bottomley, for failing to pursue with sufficient vigour the health reforms .they invented. Mrs Bottomley is wasting billions on bureaucrats who, with the opting-out of hospitals from local authority control, have no useful function. Now Mr Clarke, deter- mined to show he believes in cutting public spending as zealously as the next man, has allegedly taken up this fight.
The 'stop Clarke' faction's candidate for Mr Lamont's job seems to be Mr Howard, the Environment Secretary. Given the liti- gious nature of this Government, and that Mr Howard is a very good lawyer, it is important to stress that he is not promoting himself for this post, or conspiring to get it. Nor is Mr Lilley, the second choice, who is better at economics but less well equipped in the smarm department than almost every other member of the Cabinet; smarm is another vital attribute for the next Chancel- lor. Both men instinctively dislike spending public money; both have ample chance in the months ahead to prove their sincerity. Mr Howard must push through reform of local government that will strip away a tier of bureaucrats in precisely the way Mrs Bottomley has failed to do in the health service. Mr Lilley, as the Government's biggest spender, must try to contain a bud- get of £75 billion while another 400,000 people are about to lose their jobs.
By contrast, the anti-Heseltine faction unites probably the whole Cabinet. 'I feel a bit sorry for Hezza,' said one minister, Pal' pably lying. 'It was John Wakeham who screwed up on the pits, not him. John was too busy interfering in everything else to spot that he should have been running a closure programme long before Hezza turned up.' No one is against Lord Wake- ham, though, mainly because his inaction at least provided a rich opportunity to get the President stuffed and mounted at last. Those Cabinet ministers who have ever had the adjective Thatcherite' attached to then' names — Messrs Lamont, Howard, Lilley, Portillo and Mrs Shephard — are said to be fuming at the prospect of Mr Heseltine securing a coal subsidy. This predicted return to Heathism, to be confirmed soon, sums up the inconsistency of a regime that cannot decide whether it wants to be prin- cipled or temporarily popular.
However, even greater than the faction- alism bred by the existence of Mr Heseltine is that bred by Europe. The inexorable pro- cess of closer European union is continu- ing. In three years' time another intergov- ernmental conference will be convened to discuss the next step on from Maastricht, unratified though that still is. Like Maas- tricht, it will waste two or three years of time and money, and divert this and other governments away from more important issues. Mr Tristan Garel-Jones, the retiring Minister for Europe, has just told the Cabi- net that he is to launch a programme of re- education in the Tory party to change atti- tudes on Europe.
As the ERM collapses, the German economy implodes and the French CI about our failure to inflict the same costs on industry that they have, attitudes will no doubt change quickly enough. They will not, one can be sure, change in the direc- tion Mr Garel-Jones would like. The urge to survive has prompted an every-man-for- himself attitude in the Prime Minister. No economic policy in modern times has been so thoroughly anti-communautaire as this one. And sauve qui peut, as Mr Garel-Jones would no doubt prefer to put it, will increasingly characterise the relationshiP between ministers as the various battles of ambition and doctrine are fought in the months ahead. As he wades away from that blood-bath, Mr Garel-Jones will no doubt reflect that he could not be retiring at a better time.
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