AS I WAS Si AYING _ _
So long as there are more sinners than saints, there's hope for the Tories
PEREGRINE WORSTHORNE
Inclusion' is what New Labour is all about. I have this on the best authority, that of Lord (Ralf) Dahrendorf, distinguished sociologist, warden of St Anthony's Col- lege, Oxford. 'New Labour isn't actually about social justice at all,' he writes in the current Prospect, 'it is about inclusion. In so far as there is a coherent approach, it is about accepting the competitive conditions which have been created, while at the same time paying more attention to inclusion.'
On first reading those words I was a bit baffled as to what 'inclusion' meant, vaguely supposing that it referred primarily to New Labour's plans to get the young unemployed included in the workforce. If that was the case, I concluded, it did not really mean very much, since by far the most effective way to do that was to continue the Conser- vative policy of allowing firms to offer them low wages and even less security. According to Lord Dahrendorf, however, inclusion means more than just being included in the workforce; it means inclusion on hon- ourable terms. The young French unem- ployed, he argues, are more 'included', in spite of having no jobs, than are their young British equivalents who have bad jobs. For at least the state, by looking after them, recognises their worth as human beings, even if the market does not.
This could well be true. If inclusion is the top priority, then it probably is true. It may make no sense economically but it does socially. Something similar could be said about New Labour's plans to allow non- lawyers to have a say in the appointment of judges. It probably would not make the sys- tem of justice better, but it may well make the hitherto excluded groups feel that at long last they have a legal system of their own choosing. One is reminded of the old anti-colonial refrain about self-government, however bad, being better than alien gov- ernment, however good. Probably most peo- ple prefer to be tried by a judge of their own kind who is legally less skilled and experi- enced than by a judge of a different kind who is legally more skilled and experienced.
New Labour intends to transform the House of Lords with the same broad pur- pose in mind. The intention is to get not so much a more skilled revising chamber than the present hereditary House of Lords as one from which the people feel less exclud- ed. That, too, is the purpose behind devolu- tion: to make the Scots and the Welsh feel more included. They may not get better government but at least it will be bad gov- ernment of their own choosing.
So it is with New Labour's much-publi- cised intention to have a Christian-name Cabinet. The intention is not to improve the efficiency of British government. It is rather to reduce the difference between 'us' and 'them'; to bring the two closer togeth- er. New Labour's Cabinet, like New Labour's judges and New Labour's second chamber, will have less in common with the Crown but more in common with the peo- ple. Nor will this process of including the people in the great institutions end there. My guess is that what we have been promised so far is only a foretaste of things to come.
After citizen Cabinet ministers and citi- zen judges and citizen peers will come citi- zen chief constables. After all, if the public is to be given the right to have a say in who administers one aspect of the criminal jus- tice system, why not in all aspects — a citi- zens' constabulary as well as a citizens' court of justice? And perhaps in the next parliament a citizens' army and a citizens' Church as well; even, eventually, as a crowning act of inclusion, a citizens' monarch.
No, I am not joking. I would take a sub- stantial wager that before New Labour is done there will be a plan to let the people have a say in deciding who is to be the next monarch. The succession, under New Labour, won't automatically go to Prince Charles. New arrangements will be initiat- ed to allow the public to express a prefer- ence for one of the other royals — Princess Anne, say, or even one of the younger gen- eration. For if the people are to be includ- ed in the running of every other institution, it would be illogical to stop short of includ- ing them in the most important institution of all. It won't be called republicanism, of course, but that in effect is what it will amount to.
In an earlier column during the election I suggested that there would be no new great source of raw energy to fuel the engine of Mr Blair's grand design — nothing compa- rable to the entrepreneurial energy released by Mrs Thatcher or the proletari- an energy which old Labour unavailingly sought to release. I was both right and wrong. New raw energy there won't be. For what inclusion is seeking to do has more in common with the sculptor who seeks to release the angel in the marble than with the civil engineer looking for a new oil well. The angel in Mr Blair's dreams, of course, is the good citizen (just as the angel in Dis- raeli's was the deserving working man), the active citizen, to be found in all classes, eager to take a lead and shoulder responsi- bility. Come on board New Labour's ship of state and take your turn on the quarter- deck, alongside the captain, where there is room, at long last, for all — that is the mes- sage of inclusion.
But what about the non-active citizen who was quite happy to be a mere loyal subject of the Queen; positively liked hav- ing the great national institutions on an ele- vation high above his head, shrouded in the mists of history; had no bent or desire for participation or public service; or again the individualist who wants to do his own thing rather than Mr Blair's thing — all those people, in short, who prefer to be passen- gers on the ship of state rather than part of the crew: where do they get in? In no society — least of all a contemporary one — does everyone say 'include me in'. Increasingly most say 'leave me alone', or even 'include me out'. If the active citizen is the angel who is about to inherit the earth, does not the passive citizen, one must ask, become a non- angel or even a bit of a demon?
It is worth remembering, in this context, that military conscription — the ultimate form of inclusion — only began to come ill force as late as during the first world war. In the days of monarchy proper subjects never got conscripted; only democratic citi- zens get conscripted. Because subjects don't belong so much to society, aren't so much included, don't enjoy so many rights, they have fewer duties thrust upon them. You may belong more as a citizen, but you may be freer as a subject. Quite a number may prefer to be subjects, I'd guess. Fox-hunters, for a start, are not going to feel more included in Mr Blair's New Jerusalem. There is no place for them among his choir of angels. What other demons will be excluded? Only time will tell. Meanwhile the Conservative part)! need not giVe up hope. For in any society, as I say, there are more sinners than saints, more Cavaliers than Roundheads and, above all, more non-political men than political men; and therefore the more clearly New Labour comes to occupy the one side of this great political divide, the more room there will be for the Tories to occupy the other.
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