Pity the poor wives
POLITICAL COMMENTARY AUBERON WAUGH
These ten days of holiday enabling Members of Parliament to celebrate Pentecost according to their various inclinations can have been no fun for the wives. When the House adjourned last Friday discontent was at its peak—among Tories, taking the form of rebelliousness and uncouth noises, on the Labour side a self- righteous despairing drawn-out whine. Parlia- ment, they all say, is a shambles. Tories and socialists alike maintain that democracy is being flouted, because measures are passed of which they disapprove. Parliament, they say, is held in universal contempt for the same reason. There is an ugly air of disaffection with parliamentary institutions in the country, they hint darkly, meaning that they feel over-worked and under- appreciated. For ten whole days they will have no one at whom to holler or moan. Pity the poor wives.
It has been a miserably boring session to date, with everything of interest happening away from the House of Commons: devaluation; the collapse of Labour's standing in the polls; by- elections and local government elections; the Wilson Cabinet Mark Two; the sacking of Mr Powell and Mr King, both guilty of that most unforgiveable crime in the present climate— pessimism. Of all the dramas to which we have been treated, only two could be said to have happened in Parliament—the Budget and the resignation of George Brown. The January measures, if anyone can remember them at all now, were published in the press long before Parliament heard them; it was not until last week that the House managed to debate pre- scription charges, by which time they had been watered down to exclude nearly half the population. When the crash finally comes, when there are five million unemployed queuing for their free medicine and when millionaires are landing on the pavements of Park Lane like so many autumn leaves—then, perhaps, the Government will squeeze in a two-hour debate on the economic situation, somewhere between the University of the Air and the Local Gov- ernment (Scotland) Bill (remaining stages).
But will anyone be interested in what the Commons have to say? If anything said there had a significant bearing on government policy, and if there were even such a thing as govern- ment policy, rather than a succession of un- coordinated reactions to events outside the Government's control, then such of us as belong to the small minority of people interested in these things might reasonably wish to hear what the Commons have to say. So long as we suspect that one—or both—of these conditions is unfulfilled, then interest in Commons pro- ceedings is bound to remain a rather specialised taste. Opinions are two a penny—or at any rate fivepence each in the cheapest national dailies, rather more in the Sundays, and free as air in any pub, if you can stand the boredom of listen- ing to them. MPS' opinions are by no means cer- tain to be better informed, better expressed or more influential than those of anyone else, nor, for that matter, have they ever been. All that has happened as a result of their enormous pay rise in October 1964 is that they spend more time in the Commons and tend to attach more importance to themselves—and also, perhaps, -to retaining their jobs.
It is no part of my argument to say that the
public would be wrong to hold Parliament in disrespect; merely that the public is insufficiently interested to have any strong opinions in the matter at all. Those who imagine a large popular demand for strong, purposive government, and see the public as impatient with parliamentary niceties to the point of welcoming a dictatorship, are surely deluding themselves. The stronger and more purposive the government the more un- popular it becomes. The only popular resent- ment I have been able to trace against Parlia- ment as such concerns the pay rise, and in this matter the public is surely right. The present salary of £3,250 is exactly wrong—too little to attract the first-class man in full-time employment, too much to allow members to treat it as a part-time hobby. A case could be made that the proliferation of committees and meaningless, unnecessary legislation is just an- other example of the workings of Parkinson's Law. The fact remains that while Labour was in opposition and the Tories were busy looking after their own affairs, there was no need for anyone to realise quite how unimportant a backbencher's function was.
Perhaps I will be thought wilfully paradoxi- cal in suggesting that the way to make MPS happier is to halve their salaries—or even to reduce them further; our travel allowances, after all, are now the same as in May 1949, and many other things seem destined to return to the way they were in those good old days. Of course, one is familiar with the contrary arguments, and one would not like to be thought untouched by compassion. Exceptions would have to be made in the case of Nies who were elderly, chronically sick or nursing mothers. A certifi- cate of unemployability signed by their doctor or local Ministry of Employment and Produc- tivity would ensure that they received the full salary as of right. They need suffer none of the embarrassment of not paying for their meals in the canteen.
The present Government, of course, shows very little concern for the happiness of back- benchers and will probably not adopt my sug- gestion, although it would certainly win much popularity if it did. If the Cabinet is seriously worried about the unpopularity of Parliament, this is the only sure way to make it more popular—and the survival of a complaisant rubber-stamping House of Commons is essential to the survival of Cabinet government. On the other hand, of course, Mr Wilson has to con- sider his left wing. A Bill or an Order to reduce MPs' salaries by half is without any exception the only issue on which one can be absolutely sure that the Government would fall. Radical consciences can be pushed only so far.
So that leaves Mr Heath with the responsibi- lity for restoring public confidence in Parlia- ment. It will not make him very popular with all members of his party, of course, but after the next general election he will have endless patronage to dispense (if he doesn't, it won't matter anyway). And even more important than restoring popular confidence in Parliament— this, as I have tried to show, is a negligible con- sideration at any time—it might impress a few voters on behalf of his party. The root of the present discontents is not to be found in the suggestion that people are fed up with parlia- mentary institutions. Knowing very little about them, they care even less. Popular disillusion- ment is really focused on the political parties, and on politicians as a class.
Disillusionment with the Tories will probably not prevent people from voting for them while everything continues to go wrong for the present Government, but it will certainly prevent people from transferring their loyalties in any perma- nent way, allowing Mr Heath the benefit of the doubt over such setbacks as may be in store. Its roots are to be found in the 1964 balance of payments deficit, and before that in Sir Alec Douglas-Home's little joke about matches. Disillusionment with Labour stems from reflec- tions which are too obvious and too painful to list, but if one has to name the one event which contributed most to the general disenchantment, I should choose Mr Wilson's post-devaluation broadcast on television.
So far as regaining popular confidence is con- cerned, I should have thought that Labour has very little chance—certainly with Mr Wilson as leader, probably with anyone else. No promises will carry conviction unless accom- panied by the most abject, Buchmanite confes- sion of failures, and any such confession will be bound to undermine the very credibility it hopes to sustain. This is not to say that Labour could under no circumstances win the next election: the Tories might blot their copybook somehow; the Jenkins miracle might be speeded up by some sleight of hand; last-minute electoral reform might somehow give Labour the edge. But so far as popular identification, loyalty and enthusiasm are concerned, I should have thought that Labour has already shot its bolt.
What the Tories need is a single, magic cure for all our economic ills. Labour produced one in 1964, and again in 1966, called Planning. This has been discredited to such an extent that even among politically unsophisticated audiences it produces no more than a wry smile. Reform of the trade unions might be accepted as such a panacea, which is what will make the publica- tion of Lord Donovan's Report—and Mrs Castle's reaction to it—so interesting. All that really remains to be seen is how Mrs Castle will wriggle out of it in Cabinet deliberations under the stony gaze of Mr Ray Gunter, from the Ministry of Power and Glory; and how much time will be allotted by the new leader of the House, better known as Foot and Mouth Fred, to debating such innocuous and watered-down recommendations as Mrs Castle may select.
No, the most interesting feature of the next few months might easily prove to be the de- velopment of the Ermine Power Movement, under its intelligent and amiable leader, Lord Carrington. His proposal to send back to the Commons any ill-digested or incoherent legisla- tion which has not been properly debated might easily, at long last, set the cat among the par- liamentary pigeons. This reversal of the Upper House's role whereby the Lords become an additional implement of the people's will, rather than act as a restraint upon it, is some- thing which one would normally regard with caution. But the main reason why people are no longer interested in Parliament is that nothing ever happens there. At present, execu- tive decisions are learned in the newspapers and not debated in Parliament until long after there is any serious hope of changing them. If the Government is really concerned to improve our opinion of Parliament, there are two possible courses of action—either to cuts its wages or to give it a say in affairs. With the present stan- dard of debates, I should have thought that the first would be the wiser course of action.
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