Spectator Symposium on 1967

Seven 'Spectator' contributors venture their hopes for the new year

Anthony Burgess

A change in the Tory leadership, alas. A ruthless aggressiveness is needed in the Oppo- sition, but Heath's teeth are still used more for charming than for biting. Political unarmed combat, karate, shin-kicking. Squibs, broadsides, satire, eighteenth-century oratory. A serious programme of discredit launched against one of the worst governments this century has seen. Five minutes' daily meditation by the Wilsonic oligarchy on its responsibility to the electorate not to its party ideology. Money proposed for steel nationalisation and decimal coinage (neither of which anybody wants) diverted to the pur- chase of kidney machines for hospitals. The country as a whole to be consulted through referenda before major innovations, such as decimal coinage, go insolently through. The road- death problem to be taken seriously, with— whatever the cost—restoration of maximal public transport services. Mrs Castle to use only public transport. Members of Parliament to con- sult their constituents rather than their con- sciences on such matters as capital punishment, cigarette advertisements, pirate radio stations. A full and impartial biography of George Brown to be published. Welsh and Scottish nationalism to push on eloquently and boldly. More trees to be planted. A national demand for good bread with possible boycott of the present soggy surrogate. A serious attempt to civilise the licensing laws. The appearance of a poem as good as The Waste Land and a symphony as good as Elgar's Second. And—but one takes this for granted—an honourable settlement in Rho- desia and the end of the Vietnam nonsense.

Desmond Donnelly, MP

The crucial issue is the Common Market. I do not take the view that President de Gaulle is the final arbiter on Britain's application to join. In the last analysis, the opportunity for success and any responsibility for failure will rest almost entirely upon Mr Wilson—and Mr Wilson alone.

If the British government is prepared to sign the Treaty of Rome as it stands—and if Britain is prepared to accept the Common Market agri- cultural policy with a suitable transition period for adaptation—the French government will have great difficulty in preventing the new negotiations commencing next autumn. If the British govern- ment is not prepared to do these things, it will be Mr Wilson and not President de Gaulle who will veto British entry.

British entry into the Common Market will not of itself solve many of the grievous problems that face us—our stagnant economy, our gim- crack trade union system, our flaccid welfare state, our constipated method of government, our tinpot House of Commons, so closely resembling the terraces at Maine Road, Manchester, or Anfield, Liverpool. Indeed, we must face it that membership of the Common Market may accen- tuate temporarily some of these difficulties. But success by Mr Wilson in his endeavour would transform the whole political climate. We would have, at long last, a new sense of national purpose.

The penalty of failure, however, would be grave and shocking. The flight of brains would soon reach down to skilled labour on the shop floor. Thus the Common Market issue, in the coming year, could well determine whether,Britain starts the task of assuming her new role as a modern European power—or whether Britannia sinks beneath the waves, with a giggle, '

Sir Alec Douglas-Home, MP

Confidence in Britain restored. In the last two years so many outside have lost faith in us that we are beginning to lose confidence in ourselves. Lack of confidence is something which is totally uncharacteristic of the British people and it springs basically from the lack of national purpose and therefore from an in- ability of the individual to identify his own personal performance with the interest of the country as a whole.

In such a situation, when none of the new values satisfy, it is not a bad thing to test the validity of the old. They were—work and pride in work; thrift; and recognition of a duty to your neighbour which was interpreted as service. One has only to restate them to know that if they were applied by all and sundry through- out the nation, confidence in Britain would return overnight. But to any such exhortation there is a comeback which runs like this.

Why should I work my hardest—how can I save—why shouldn't I cling to my restrictive practice—when my reward is consistently inade- quate to my effort, when there is no profit in enterprise and when unemployment is round the corner? That can be said just to pass the buck, but it is true that the Government, which has done so much to lose the confidence of the nation, must act to restore it. So let the Govern- ment resolve to lift the burdens which are suffocating the people who want to make the pace for the nation or, in words of impeccable origin and vision, to 'set the people free.'

Jo Grimond, MP

My hopes for 1967: That the Government will at least practise what they preach and stop abusing private motorists while every minister drives alone in a large limousine; stop talk about redeployment when they have provided no adequate retraining for the unemployed; stop telling people to go into manufacturing industry when they have increased the biggest service industry of all—the civil ser- vice—by some 225,000 bureaucrats; stop spread- ing delusions of grandeur when they can't even. settle Rhodesia.

That the newspaper industry will cease preach- -1 ing efficiency to other people while itself cherish-i ing the most antiquated, inefficient and selfis1/1"1 trades union practices; and that it will ceasoll

falling for every Government publicity trick, andrIL give us far better news of world affairs. - - That we shall rally to an alternative politicalur policy based on: pulling out by stages from this ludicrous independent role East of Suez and cut- ting

Government expenditure overseas; announc- ing unequivocally that we accept the basic con- ditions of the Treaty of Rome, making it clear what we require over transitional periods, etc., at the same time asking for further particulars of Eastern European proposals for a European Conference; pressing the Americans to stop bombing North Vietnam and to clarify their

aims in Asia; announcing that we do not intend to sacrifice for ever our own industry to the needs of maintaining a world currency at exactly the present parity—if other countries want that they must help on a permanent basis.

No more nonsense about `Challenges,' Years of Decision,' Telling People the Truth,' World- roles,' etc.--but I am afraid I am doomed to disappointment all round.

Ludovie Kennedy

If I choose something as obvious as a return to constitutional rule in Rhodesia, this is only because it is immediately realisable. It has always been immediately realisable. We have to make up our minds about the Rhodesians. Either we have responsibility for them or we do not. If we do not, then the time has come to wave goodbye to them for ever. But if we do have responsibility, then our duty is to bring the rebellion to an end by all the means we have. Sanctions are not the way to do this. Sanctions are cowardly, immoral, and unworkable. They are cowardly because they seek to avoid frontal collision, they are immoral because they are analogous to withholding meals from a naughty child, and they are unworkable because there will always be cunning entre- preneurs to circumvent governmental decrees.

At the time of UDI, I said in print that the only way to restore the situation was the im- mediate dispatch of a strong military force. I see no reason to alter that There are those who say it would be unthinkable to fire on our kith and kin. But this argument works both ways. The onus of aggression is on Mr Smith. He would know that if we sent in a strong enough force, it could not fail in its objective. He would know, too, that if he gave orders to fire on it, he would be committing high treason against the Queen. He would, whatever he may say to the contrary, hesitate a long time before taking so grave a step.

True, there are more likely to be casualties now than a year ago. Even so, these would be marginal compared to what may happen in Africa if we pursue our present lunatic policy. Such an operation could be mounted next week, and the rebellion ended the week after. Why then do we not do it?

J. H. Plumb

Single events, single years, mean very little in the context of history—they are bits of flotsam and jetsam on the swift-flowing tides, arousing curiosity and often distracting attention from the general flow. One can only wish for the improbable—Smith's regime in ruins, LBJ suddenly blinded like Paul of Tarsus with a new vision of mankind's needs, India freed from fatuous fakirs and sacred cows, Mao depressed by his own verbiage, Salazar in jail, Franco deposed, the Pope passionately in favour of the Pill, Kosygin roaring with laughter at a novel satirising the party, a civic banquet for Jews and Negroes in Omaha, Nasser in London and Holt in Hanoi, and so one might go round the world again and again in foolish hope. And for ourselves —the pound booming, trade unions conscious of their arthritis, managements aware of their in- competence, tax incentives dangling, everyone working, London swinging higher with Mug- geridge silent, Pitman without a column and the worst year yet for Sir Cyril Black—no birch, pornography galore, abortion legal and homo- sexuals walking hand in hand in Piccadilly Circus. Above all, a world of sweetness and light, tolerant, magnanimous, alive with social and economic hope, and somewhere a voice

burning words into the heart of mankind and changing it—if only an inch away from greed, egoism, suspicion and hatred of the poor, the deprived and the sexually doomed.

And you can be sure that we shall get none of it, only another year like last year and all' the other years, enlivened, maybe, by the trivial and the unexpected, like the Train Robbery or the ascent of Everest, or winning the World Cup.

Simon Raven

An end of pussyfooting in popular attitudes and vocabulary. Let us all try to realise that . . .

Lavatories are not `toilets' (which are some- thing very different), and they are used by men and women, not by ladies and gentlemen. Black men are visibly black and are correctly so called. They are also 'coloured,' it is true, but, then,- so is everyone else, and the word can therefore provide no useful distinction. People do not pass on, pass away, pass over, or go before. They die. Children, and others, are not 'handicapped.' They are mad, lame, deformed or limbless, as the case may be.

If women are up to men's jobs at men's salaries, then they are up to paying for their own dinners. It is not compulsory to get married or to have children. Young and prematurely fer- tile couples have only themselves to thank for their own predicament, and have no cause what- ever to complain of it. Education, is wasted on the uneducable. The police are neither fascists nor thugs but servants employed by the public to keep good order, an exacting and honourable task. While it is true that the Jewish race has been savagely persecuted throughout history, this does not make it the sole repository of wisdom and righteousness.

And finally, for the benefit of our American cousins: people do not have 'unfortunate per- sonalities'; they are just plain nasty.