This Britain of Ours

• BY DESMOND DONNELLY CommoN Man is about to suffer his unnerving quinquennial experience. Strange, earnest men and women will come knocking at his door. Some will be wearing large multi-coloured rosettes, as if they were going to Wembley or to Cardiff Arms Park. Loudspeakers will boom across hills and valleys, attracting fascinated cattle and repelling voters. Hands will be shaken vigorously, promises made, inanities uttered. And television screens and saloon bars will be filled with vehement argument. At the end of it all, when the tumult and the shouting die, some 630 men and women will arrive at Westminster to queue up to take the oath and become the servants of their party whips.

What manner of people make up a parlia- inent? Is there a discernible pattern? Is it very different today from what it was in the inter- war years? And how much power does the collectiVe personality of a parliament wield upon the direction of the country? Mr. W. L. Gutts- man, in his book ' The British Political Elite,' and Professor Buck, in Amateurs and Profes- sionals. in British Politics, 1918,59,2 both set out to answer some of these questions. Of the two Works, Mr. Guttsman's is much the more sub- stantial and perceptive. This is broadly because he is more ambitious in his approach—Professor Buck confines himself largely to the statistics that fascinate Americans—but also because, I Suspect, Mr. Guttsman has taken great trouble and is better acquainted with British political history.

The significant point emerging in both studies is that the changing function of Parliament has influenced the type of politician who emerges and achieves office. In the pre-Reform Bill period, when the House of Commons acted as a convivial Council of State, there were large numbers of rich landowners or their placemen. As the Industrial Revolution progressed, land- owners gave way in part to manufacturers arriving at Westminster to safeguard their ex- panding interests—sometimes also to join the Establishment.

The last quarter of the nineteenth century and the first part of the twentieth century have seen the greatest changes of all. As the incidence of government upon daily life has widened, the need has grown for a political technocracy to manage the State machine. Fewer and fewer politicians have seen themselves acting as leaders of thought and action. More have appeared as administra- tors and entrepreneurs between 'the system' and the public. All this has led to the decline of the aristocracy and the increasing grip of the middle class upon Parliament. There is also an outer penumbra, into which managerial aristocrats and skilled workers elbow themselves from time to time—but Parliament has become the oligarchy of the middle class in every sense. If this comes as a sad shock to those who are unthinkingly ready to extol in platitudes the virtues of British democracy, Mr. Guttsman quotes a pene-

1 THE BRITISH POLITICAL ELITE. By W. L. Guttsman. (MacGibbon and Kee, 50s.) 2 AMATEURS AND PROFESSIONALS IN BRITISH POLITICS, 1918-59. By Philip W. Buck. (University of Chicago Press, 37s. 6d.) 3 THE BRITISH ECONOMY. By Roy Harrod. (McGraw Hill, 30s.) 4 Tun OUTRIDERS, A LIBERAL VIEW OF BRITAIN. By James Morris. (Faber, 15s.) '131u.rikt POLITICAL FAcrs 1900-1960. j3y David Butler and Jennie Preeman.,(Macrnillan, 40s.)

trating and almost brutal observation by the Earl of Avon, speaking in the Commons thirty- five years ago. 'We have not got democratic government,' said Mr. Anthony Eden, as he then was. 'We have never had it and I venture to suggest to honourable Members opposite that we shall never have it. What we have done in all progress of reform and evolution is to broaden the basis of oligarchy.'

It is true that the emergence of the Labour Party should have introduced a new element into the political package, with Keir Hardie's cloth cap acting as the forerunner of a changing situation. In fact, it has not worked that way: Keir Hardie• was succeeded by the Webbs, who were really interested in telling others what was good for them, regardless of whether the public liked it or not. Even the heirs of the militant Clydeside group of thirty years ago are now men like Mr. Michael Foot, whose background, specific' tastes and daily routine are very far re- moved from the 'people they are supposed to represent. In these circumstances, it is not sur- prising that Mr. Richard Crossman's statement a few years ago, that few trade unionists in 'Parliament were fit to hold office in a Labour Government, should have passed virtually un- noticed by the Labour movement at large and brought about no change in his position on the party's National Executive. The Labour Party is also crashingly middle-class—at least the most militant political wing of it.

As for the rising young Tory or Liberal MP, he is often indistinguishable in background and manner from his 'left-wing' Labour opposite number. The Tories have a preponderance of Etonians, of course, but the domination of the Labour leadership by that place called Oxford is exactly matched by the same Oxford domi- nance within the Tory Party. On the back bench, the affinity applies in its rougher grading.

Where is the story leading? Professor Buck is more concerned with what has happened than with the future. It is left to Mr. Guttsman to point the discussion towards the impact of the meritocratic educational system as an indication of the trend. I forecast that the new Parliament when it assembles is much less likely to be differ- ent in class terms from its immediate predecessor than would be supposed by any substantial turn- over of votes. Thus the same problem of parlia- mentary management will be with us in 1964 as we had in 1959 and Mr. Harold Wilson may find himself in the position where he, too, has to heed Grey's advice to Russell during the latter's attempt to form a Cabinet in 'December, 1845. Grey wrote to him, 'To press upon you the extreme importance of the utmost caution in the step you take . . . you cannot afford to lose any strength by not filling your offices as well as you can. You therefore really owe it to the cause, to yourself and to your friends to allow no deference to the personal objects of others to interfere with your making the arrange- ments best calculated to secure for your govern- ment the largest possible measure of public con- fidence and support.'

Perhaps anticipating the general election, Sir Roy Harrod's publishers have persuaded him to write a simple primer on the economic facts of Britain's life in order to supplement the political scientist's assessment. The British Economy' is a book to be read by every candi- date before the election as the prophylactic to hustings hot air. It shows with clarity the narrow margin for manoeuvre that faces any future British Government and how little opportunity there is for expansive as opposed to expansionist schemes. If anybody doubts that a future Labour Government's first priority is industrial invest- ment before widespread welfare, they should read Sir Roy Harrod. And if the quaint dino- saurs of the so-called 'left' believe that they can manage a mixed economy without first securing the confidence of enlightened board-rooms, again they should study the conclusion Sir Roy Harrod draws.

Thus it is regrettable that Mr. Jo Grimond did not read The British Economy before he embarked upon his introduction to Mr. James Morris's essay The Outriders.' 'He wants a society full of light and air,l extols the Liberal leader in commending Mr. Morris. Alas—this is almost an exact description of the author's gusty rhetoric.

Yet it would not be right to condemn the 'Liberal view of Britain' without closer examina-

tion. Mr. Morris's principal thesis is that he wants to create an 'exciting' society, full of gushing romance. In fact, he is a Sergeant Blimp, using modern jargon to invest his commendable choleric enthusiasm with the mantle of the twentieth century. He does not appear to have grasped, like Mr. Guttsman, that politics is now a technocrat's job. The scientific revolution ex- cites him, but he does not convince me that he knows why. He demands 'guts and style,' but dOes not show how. In short, in this cold nuts- and-bolt age, the author is more old-fashioncd than he realises. His last sentences sum up his emotional philosophy: 'Ours is not a nation gone sour—curdled a bit at the edges, perhaps, but still exceedingly palatable. It only needs good men in command, honest policies, and a little dash. Dash in particular, together with a pur-

pose, with young men at the top, and a recog- nition that we are only a part of an immense, alarming, maddening, but always noble world. It is the army that moves on 'in splendour, with its weight of artillery and its great wagon trains: but the outrider, a cloud of busy dust on its flanks, hears the blare of the distant trumpets

and raising his eyes from his binoculars, or perhaps disengaging himself from the girl upon his knee, he waves his lance in cheerful recog- nition, and takes his share of glory.' No doubt this is what a number of well-intentioned Liberal candidates will be saying this autumn and the election results will underline just what the con- temporary electorate thinks about it.

Finally, as the election thunder draws nearer, I commend a certain best-seller by Mr. David Butler and his research assistant, Miss Jennie

Freeman. British Political Facts 1900-1960' is a remarkable compilation and a standard work. If

you want to know who became Chancellor of the Exchequer on August 8, 1902, Mr. Butler and Miss Freeman will tell you. They name every junior Minister in the past sixty years. They give you potted biographies of all the leading politicians. They provide the landmarks of foreign treaties, home legislation and even quote the statistics of the telephones and public library loans. Not since Wisden's Almanack first provided talking points for the Long Room at Lord's has there been anything like it.

Parliament has risen for the summer recess. Mr. Macmillan is alleged to have used the Stratford-on-Avon by-electidn as 'his political dipstick for an autumn election gamble. New challenges will sweep across the political stage, leaving lvanov, Rachman and the other sordid fauna behind. The sobering thought for all of us who go forth into the fray is that we are merely transitory expressions of a general trend. Each of us will contribute his grain of signifi- cance, but very few will take steps that change events or move political mountains. Individual politicians are just cogs in the wider machine that Common Man himself will have to operate by placing a cross on a piece of paper in some bare, dusty schoolroom that is used as a polling booth.