Labour after the deluge

POLITICAL COMMENTARY A UBERON WAUGH

A commonplace of politics in the last eighteen months has been the supposition that the Labour party is something capable of total destruction. It has been applied, in the normal cut and thrust of political dialectic, to such bizarre and unrelated issues as our application to join the Com- mon Market, prescription charges, the school leaving age, false teeth and spec- tacles, trade union reform, Rhodesia, free milk for teenagers, devaluation and almost anything else which happens to occupy the attention of parliamentarians at any given moment. Its basic fallacy lies in the sug- gestion that Labour has ever represented, in fact, anything more than a class interest. Our democratic system demands that there should be an alternative government of some sort, however unconvincing it may seem, and electoral psychology within the same system also demands that there should be an occasional change of govern- ment.

What people mean when they talk about the destruction of the Labour party is its destruction as a credible alternative party of government—the loss of any admin- istrative hope it may possess. Yet when the Labour party was elected in 1964, nobody had any idea of its administrative potential. It produced a plausible leader in Mr Wilson, and was elected on that basis. Nobody had any knowledge of the military genius hidden in Mr Healey's ample breast, nor of the economic wizardry to be expected from Mr Callaghan, the foreign touch of Mr Gordon Walker, the educational ex- cellence of Mr Stewart, the way with aero- planes of Mr Jenkins, the house-building of Mr Crossman, the ruthlessness to be ex- pected where sick cows were concerned from Mr Peart or where motorists were concerned from Mrs Castle. All these developments were part of the unfolding pageant. The electorate merely signified that it was fed up with the sickly incom- petence of the Tories, their odious manners and their disagreeable smell.

As soon as the Labour party, in opposi- tion, can find itself a plausible leader, the electorate will feel free to indulge its natural human preferences again—most especially if the'Tories appear hell-bent on making exactly the same mistakes as before, without having profited from their period in opposition even to the extent of finding a new set of mistakes with which to beguile the electorate. Of course, it is arguable that if the Tories show themselves no more competent than Labour at solving economic problems, then the country will turn to some extra-parliamentary solution, throwing all constructive alternatives into the Thames, which would be understandable, and setting fire to the Palace of West- minster, which would be a great shame. But if the Tories make a tolerably good job of it, dropping their wilder schemes for voluntary wage restraint and reoccupa- tion of the Far East, then plainly the elec- torate is going to look around for more congenial leaders as soon as things improve.

Meanwhile the question which must exercise Labour activists outside Parlia-

ment—and Labour sympathisers of all sorts—is what sort of parliamentary party will be left to carry Labour's banner through the days of opposition ahead. Opposition is, after all, the role in which Labour is traditionally happiest and most effective. Anything which threatened to destroy the existence of an effective parlia- mentary opposition would be almost as detrimental to the Tories in the long run, since the loyalty and cohesion which are their main characteristics would be pro- portionally under-employed, and through unemployment, might languish.

If Labour were to lose its main body of those with administrative experience it would clearly be in no 'position to offer the sort of constructive, well-informed and responsible opposition which the Tories have attempted for the last four and a half years. Now it can be argued that this is not the most effective type of opposition, in any case: that the Government will always be better informed, and will at any rate be able to masquerade as being more constructive and responsible than the opposition. All that is required for opposi- tion, on this reckoning, is debating skill coupled with a certain moral perception, and these qualities, at least, should somehow survive.

No power on earth will ever remove from parliament the real rump of the Labour party, those with a majority of more than 60 per cent. Michael Foot is there, from Ebbw Vale, and Ian Mikardo, from Poplar, not to mention the ever youthful Mr Shinwell. Mr Foot can be shadow spokesman for employment and productivity, because he has such an easy manner with the working classes. Mr Mikardo for foreign affairs, since he seems to take rather a lot of holidays in Eastern Europe, while Mr Shinwell is just getting ripe for Judith Hart's portfolio, watching over youth, devolution, participation, Wedg- benn and ministerial co-ordination.

Other stalwarts are less easy to place, Albert Clifford Williams, BEM, from Aber- finery, lists his interests as watching sports and Rugby football. Harold Josiah Finch, from somewhere called Bedwellty, enjoys gardening, but he once issued a publication under the title: Industrial Injuries Act Explained. A. Beaney, from Hemsworth- a youngster of sixty-four—prefers hiking, fishing and reading. The two Rhonddas produce a Davies and a Jones, one of which is interested in cricket. Both prob- ably sing, too. And Dearne Valley, York- shire, produces another coalminer, Mr Edwin Wainwright, who enjoys gardening and also reads with pleasure. In short, we have a potential shadow cabinet of all the talents, and I still haven't mentioned Mr S. 0. Davies, who has represented Merthyr Tydfil for the last thirty-five years, gaining useful experience all the time, and who enjoys walking and swimming at the venerable age of eighty-three.

I think all the people listed above are still very much alive, as they say. If not, there are always another seven members of parliament with majorities of over 60 per cent. Their qualifications for high office

may not be quite so spectacular but there is always room for less glamorous workers in any balanced administration. Nobody, after all, had ever heard of Michael Stewart in 1964, and even in .1966 he was only a rumour but that did not stop people voting Labour, and nowadays he is invading foreign countries and slaughtering friendly natives with the best of them.

But the swing is surely not likely to be quite as severe as that. The last forty years provide two examples of a landslide—in 1931 and in 1945—but at this stage, on the evidence of the opinion polls and recent by-election results, it seems rash to predict an average swing of more than 10-15 per cent. Of twenty-one commoners in Mr Wilson's Cabinet, nine will disappear or be in danger of disappearing, if the swing against the Government settles around 10 per cent. They are, in no particular order, Mr Stewart, who will presumably turn his attentions to schoolchildren again, Mrs Castle, who can always take up the important work of a housewife, 1■Ir Callaghan, who has friends in the police force, Mr Crosland, who can easily find another university post, Mr Thomson, who has been doing nothing for seven months anyway, Mr Greenwood and Mr Cledwyn Hughes, who will scarcely be missed, Mr Diamond and Mrs Hart, who have only just arrived. Another three Cabinet members will find themselves dangerously close to the wind: Mr Healey, Wedgbenn and George Thomas. If the swing settles around 15 per cent our old friend Foot-and-Mouth Fred disappears, and so does young Mr Richard Marsh, the tough guy from Green- wich, while Messrs Crossman and Jenkins will have to fight for their lives.

Who, then, is left? Mr. Wilson might look fairly impregnable, needing a 17 per cent swing to dislodge him from Huyton, but there are special reasons for doubting his ability to stay the course. So, if Mr Wil- son bites the dust—and Labour's showing at the local elections in Huyton certainly suggests he will—we are left with Mr Peter Shore, Mr Willie Ross, wild Ted Short and Roy Mason. Other notable survivors include Mr Harold Lever, the gifted Financial Secre- tary to the Treasury, and Mr Ray Gunter, the former Minister of Labour. Poor Mr Brown disappears from Belper at a very early stage—on a swing of only 3-1- per cent. The most senior of the survivors as well as the most intelligent, and probably the most amiable, is Mr Peter Shore.

It is, admittedly, hard to imagine Mr Shore without Mr Wilson, just as it is hard to imagine Ralphaers child without an attendant Madonna. He might recruit John Mendelson, who will be the only one left among the less venerable left wingers, as a mother substitute. Among the brighter young right wingers, who have been resolutely kept out of government by Mr Wilson's paranoia, only Mr- David Marquand will survive. One can see a party of sorts group-

ing around him and Mr Lever, but it could be that Labour is going to settle down with- out the support of intellectuals as the party of grumpy, discontented trade unionists in their middle age—a substantial propor-

tion of the politically active population after all. Whether such a party would he more or less-disastrous in opposition—or even in office. if it comes to that---than the present collection of intellectual giants remains to be seen. Conceivably, it would make no difference at all.