Crossman and the truth
Alan Watkins
The Crossman Diaries: Selections from the Diaries of a Cabinet Minister 1964-70 Introduced and edited by Anthony Howard (Hamish Hamilton and Cape £8.95; Magnum Books £2.50) The following story does not appear in the Diaries, either in their original or in their new, admirably edited form, but the late Hugh Gaitskell was once staying the night with the parents of a friend of mine. My friend's mother arrived at breakfast saying she had had an extraordinary dream about Dick Crossman. Gaitskell expressed polite though perfunctory interest. `Yes,' she went on `he was dressed in a short white coat. I was sitting in a dentist's chair and he was going to take my teeth out or something. "But Dick," I said, "you know perfectly well you're not a dentist." Dick replied: "Of course I know I'm not a dentist, you fool, but I can work it all out quite easily from general principles." ' Gaitskell expressed the view that, for once, this was a useful and instructive dream which, among other things, illustrated one reason Crossman would not find a place in any future Labour Cabinet presided over by him.
This was a view Crossman himself took (that Gaitskell would not give him a job, I mean, not that he could extract teeth at will: in fact Crossman rather paraded his lack of physical 'skills). But Mr Howard has an interesting footnote, derived from an interview with Lady Gaitskell, to the effect that Gaitskell would indeed have given him a Cabinet post. This, however, is not the immediate point, which concerns not Crossman's prospects under Gaitskell or anyone else but his attitude to reasoning, to action and to truth.
His grounding in ancient philosophy produced contradictions. Perhaps it always does. On the one hand, it made him suspicious of mystery-mongering whether in government or in other areas. He could reduce economists to silence (and sometimes close to tears) by asking them why precisely, on what evidence, they claimed that people were going to behave in suchand-such a fashion: he, for his part, intended to behave in exactly the opposite way as far as the financial administration of his Banbury farm was concerned. On the other hand, his philosophy — or it may have been his natural cast of mind — led him int° paths of speculative reasoning which had the most tenuous connection with the real world. Empiricism was called in aid or not, as the case might be, according to the mood of the moment or his general predilections. Thus he would never countenance the view that constituency Labour parties were unimportant when it came to winning or losing elections. His attitude to truth was adversarial or Socratic. You could not say 'It's a nice day, Dick' without starting an argument. Though his opinion both of lawyers as a class and of the law as a concept or an ideal was a low one (of which more later), in this, if in no other respect, he was at one with the English legal system. Once, when he was editor of the New Statesman, he had travelled to London as he frequently di with his local Conservative MP, Mr Isla, Marten. Mr Marten had informed him 01 some new procedure for selecting Cons er v ativ e candidates. Crossman arrived at the office in an excited condition, sun.m' moned me (as his political correspondent). said Central Office was assuming dictatorial powers which would change the nature 01 the Conservative Party and suggested 1 write a column on the subject. As it was 3 thinnish week, I agreed readily enough. On making a few inquiries, however. I Ills, covered that, though changes were indeeu being made, they were neither so simple nor so fundamental as Crossman had supposed. He perused my column with evident distaste. 'But this wasn't what I told you,' he said; 'But Dick, what you told me wasn't true. 'Never said it was true,' Crossman replied huffily, 'only interesting.' In fact Dick's approach to political journalism was always that of the politician —of' as he once put it in relation to another journalist, of 'someone who is part of the political process'. It was not exactly that he imposed his views on his contributors, though sometimes he tried hard. It was more basic than that. To him it was eccentric, aberrant, for anyone to write to entertain (though he himself could be highlY entertaining); to earn money; to tell the truth; or just for fun. He did not advocate untruth. He simply believed that the objeet was to influence people, whether polio cians, readers of the NS or voters more generally. This was clear when the paper first urged and then supported Sir Harold Wilson's apparent change of line on Europe .in 1970-72. Crossman's aim was to keep Britain out of the Common Market. He responded violently whenever anyone suggested, as I sometimes tentatively did, that Sir Harold might not in fact do what Crossman hoped. This was one of my few Predictions that have turned out to be cor rect.
There was another aspect of Dick which affected truth. This was his desire to shock. He was once a guest at dinner of Mrs Peggy Jay. The hostilities in Cyprus were in progress. Mrs Jay's son Peter was doing his national service in the vicinity. 'I shan't Crossman said, 'if that beautiful son of yours gets killed by the Cypriots. In fact I hope he gets killed.' Whereupon he was Ordered from the room — presumably from the house too — by an understandably distressed Mrs Jay. Such, at any rate, was Crossman's own version of the episode. In later years he was the kindest of men where other people's children were concerned. The interesting thing, however, is not only that the Jay incident presumably occurred but that Crossman chose to boast of it afterwards.
This story is not told by inadvertence. For Crossman's desire to shock marched with his wish to expose shams and fictions; and the one acted upon and reinforced the Other. If he discovered a political fraud, he would first exaggerate its extent. He would then, almost imperceptibly, come near to lauding the 'reality', dismissing all else as moralising humbug affected alike by the Establishment and by canting dissenters. I will give two illustrations. More could be Produced.
Like Orwell, he hated international utopianism of the Bertrand Russell or H. G. Wells kind. Nationalism was the most powerful of all political forces. But unlike °rwell, he then came perilously close to approving the uglier manifestations of .rationalism. Not only would the thugs win: It was correct, in an odd way, moral, that theY should win, in Northern Ireland as Inuch as in Cyprus or Palestine. Might, in tille last resort, was right. Likewise with the W. The law was an upper-class conspiracy ased on fear, force, fraud and mumboJutttho. Not only was it normal for democratic politicians both to despise and to abuse the law: it was proper, anyway inevit,ab, le, for them to do so. No doubt this ulsPosition of his, in regard to both international relations and domestic law, could *Plausibly be represented intellectually as tYPical English positivism of the Hobbesian 1r1ety. But there was something else. ctillere was a sense in which Crossman took a helight not only in human frailty but in "Man wickedness. t*,The purpose of all this is not to controvert 'r Howard's view of Crossman as a writer Padmirably wished to reveal the truths (11' government in a democracy — to expose shams. Still less is it to dispute the essential accuracy of the Diaries as a record of the events of 1964-70. It is to point out only that there were several aspects to Dick's quest for truth. Nor are we quibbling, Wilson fashion, about his abilities as a reporter. Those who wish to learn more should read not merely the Diaries but also Mr Howard's valuable Introduction which, among other merits, provides much new biographical information about the man.
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