Wedgwood pink
For reasons, which are perhaps in the final analysis inscrutable, the UCS affair has done much to advance Mr Benn's standing inside the Labour party. He now has a solid base of support in the Labour stronghold of Scotland and he has nicely linked his support of the UCS workers with a denunciation of the Industrial Relations Bill which is just coming on the Statute book. Furthermore whilst Labour leaders have been at each other's throats he has been seen to be doing something positive and constructive.
An intriguing question is to ask how much of this activity, such as appearing at Euston to meet the special train that brought the demonstrators to London at an ungodly hour of the morning and the slightly potty idealism of workers' control in the yards which he has supported (but one suspects will play down in future), is due to the brand image people like to put on Mr Benn as being a sort of electronic Baden-Powell. Or how much is political calculation? Political correspondents usually err by adding up all the bits of a person and imagining that every action is a calculated political manoeuvre. The un derstanding of whimsy, eccentricity, spontaneity, or even the workings of the digestive tract have never been strong points in the trade — that is for historians. As a prime example, when Mr Frank Cousins sat with his trade union delega tion on the floor of the Labour party con ference, when he was a Cabinet minister some years ago, there was widespread speculation at this division in the Labour party accompanied by pictures of Mr Cousins seated among the proletariat.
In fact a secretary had forgotten to give Mr Cousins his platform ticket. Nobody believed it, any more than anyone believed the Cabinet minister in the last government who slipped deep into the arms of Morpheus at a Cabinet meeting and woke up deep in the arms of collective responsibility for a decision which made the sleepy minister look like a devious plotter to the party as a whole.
It is hard to escape the conclusion that Mr Benn's intensity and whizz-kid manner is absolutely sincere. I can remember him, when he was one of his government's " superministers " sitting on the end of a coffee table at a party conference lecturing a mystified, and largely uncomprehending, young secretary who had just been in troduced to him, on the wonders of tech nology. But those who try to dimiss him as being light-weight, or a Peter Pan figure, could be making a grave error. He has shown immense toughness over the UCS issue — and a lot of political sense as well. And he is well placed in terms of his age to become a leader of the Labour party, or even a future Prime Minister. He need not be too worried about looking young for did not Mr Wilson himself grow a moustache to look more mature when he was President of the Board of Trade? There is indeed a bright future for Mr Benn — but I counsel him to remain cleanshaven.
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