The logic of lunatics
Jo Grimond
'Gentlemen of the Jury, you have seen my client —he looks a very stupid man, you have heard him and you may well think that he sounds a very stupid man, certainly he behaved like a very stupid man. Gentlemen of the Jury, do not be taken in, my client is a very stupid man.' Substitute 'mad' for 'stupid' and the opening words of Lord Birkenhead's address to the Jury apply to Britain today. The danger is not only from the behaviour of those in charge, it is from the disbelief of the country that its behaviour is as crack-pot as it looks.
We have a Post Office which beseeches us not to post letters. We have 14 million unemployed but no one available for essential services. We have the journalists of The Times demanding a 61 per cent increase in salaries they get for doing nothing. We have the heads of nationalised industries getting large rises, though their operations make large losses or are in chaos. In addition, the Government allows substantial cuts in taxation to the level of incomes to which these unproductive managers belong while hoping that much less well rewarded producers hold back their claims. The taxpayers subsidise porn, and an industrial court censures officials for behaving with decency to old ladies instead of making their lives hell. Almost every day some new evidence of insanity pops up. Much of it goes back to the simple delusion that you can make us all richer by paying out more money, even when production is not rising.
So we have this crazy tail-chasing led by the Boyle Committee on pay. Indeed, everything is now moving in full circle. I was told recently by some workers in industry that they must have more money to keep up With civil servants, who had themselves been awarded an increase to keep up with tndustry. Promoting everyone to the top of the tree is a harmless piece of childishness besides comparability studies when the Public sector is the size of ours. Mark that all this madness bears the stamp of true insanity; it is promoted by the top brass with Perfectly straight faces and defended by the kind of logic practised by lunatics.
Some years ago I mildly suggested that the top people', starting with the apparatus of the Crown, might take no more money. I reeled under the fury such a suggestion released. Indeed I might have spoken ill of dogs or horses. When I murmured some good old upper-class sayings, the kind we are always preaching to the 'lower orders' — setting an example, noblesse oblige, responsibility of the officer class —it became apparent that these sentiments have a limited application. When I asked whether, as far as industries and services were concerned, did we not believe in payment by results, wages related to productivity etc. I was quickly instructed that none of these criteria applied to poor results. Finally, the lip service accorded to ideas of greater equality must now be abandoned: differentials, I was told, had been squeezed enough. And this was said regardless of the fact, which believers in the market at least should respect, that most people would much rather take responsibility than go to sea in a trawler or clean out lavatories.
What conclusion can we draw from our recent dervish dances as organisations leap around demanding more, gashing themselves and everyone else with the knives of higher salary claims? Inflation will increase. That is inescapable. If the Government itself is prepared to approve increased payments for everyone, starting at the top, regardless of productivity, who can blame the dervishes for even wilder dances? And so the prospect of an income freeze next winter grows more and more likely. But what then? An incomes freeze after all, gives us no long term solution. May there be a germ of hope in The Times's solution — minus, of course, the 61 per cent claim? Further large cuts could be made in top management, once there is no need to manufacture any end product. The profitable parts of the company could continue, and the rest of the car workers could add to the economy by 'moon-lighting.'
What of those services which are genuinely needed? For them we could perhaps look to other services for inspiration. Not even the most dedicated of modern fashion followers has proposed to run the Army as either a Quango or independent mercenary company. In fact, people like the type of life the Armed Services have to offer.They take pride in being a member of such organisations. This was true, at least until recently, of the Post Office. I used in the House of Commons to sit next to a member who was as proud of the Post Office as any Guards Officer of the Brigade. Though privately owned, the old railway companies also inspired their men to polish engines and tend stations with a zeal which few cavalry regiments surpassed. If only we would reduce the size of the public sector, split it into manageable units, and confine it to those jobs which are real public services, then we could perhaps once more imbue it with the pride and obligations which it ought to maintain. If it is considered appropriate that Royal Duchesses should be at the head of regiments — why not of other services?
At any rate, some dramatic gesture might shake us out of our smiling toleration of insanity. A sense of humour, on which the British pride themselves so complacently, may well turn out to be an over-rated virtue. It is all very well to shrug off our constant strikes and failures but this easily leads to indifference over even more serious issues — Northern Ireland, for instance, cruelty to children, now a far worse blemish than low productivity, the slaughter of whales, violence in the streets, the conduct of the Vietnamese. Once corporate thinking takes over, people acquiesce in stupidities and cruelties which they would never condone as individuals. Holding on to each other's coat-tails is not even a very agreeable way to slide down hill.
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