REVIEW OF BOOKS

Reginald Maudling on the complexity of lain Macleod

Mr Nigel Fisher has written an excellent book. t It must have been a very difficult task to undertake, and sad one at that. In some ways the closer you are to a man and the closer in time the biography to the subject, the more difficult it is. But it seems to me that Fisher has faced up to all the challenges. He has produced a chronicle of lain Macleod's life and political activities which is clear and consecutive, and While I would not agree with every detail, it is generally very accurate. He has made an assessment of the significance of lain Macleod in terms of the development of the Conservative Party and its policies, which, while friendly, is just.,But perhaps most of all he has really been able to set out the character of the man with sympathy and with feeling. This is no doubt because Fisher has his own share of that goodness and openness of heart which was lain Macleod's greatest characteristic. I think the sentences that struck me most in the whole book were the first two: "lain Macleod was a complex character — a fascinating mixture of the Celtic romanticism of his ancestry and the down to earth pragmatism of his Yorkshire Upbringing. He combined idealism with realism and an acute appreciation of what was Politically possible." I cannot imagine a better summing up of the strange, loveable and complicated character that was lain Macleod.

It was my good fortune to know lain well for over a quarter of a century, and to share with him both experiences and ideas. In the earliest days of the Research Department shortly after the war we were both young and naive Politicians who had been defeated in the 1945

Election, but who were convinced that socialism was wrong for Britain, and that a reorganised and revivified Conservative Party Would meet the real needs of Britain. Working in the Research Department was a remarkable Opportunity for any young man, because it brought one into direct contact with the leaders of the Conservative Party. It was also fun, and lain shared in the fun to the fullest extent. Because he was a man born to enjoy life in its many aspects. Perhaps it was for this reason that he inspired so much affection, Particularly among the young. My own family remember him as a good and heartwarming friend, particularly my son Edward, to whom 'Uncle lain ' was a favourite godfather. I well remember lain giving him a generous birthday tip, and then doubling it on condition that he Put half on a certain horse in the 3.30 at Newmarket the next day (alas for once lain Chose badly). His appeal to the young in the Party was immense and deeply felt. I know no one who could obtain from them such a reaction. All this was not, as Nigel Fraser makes clear, because he followed policies Particularly attractive to the young, but essentially because of the poetic strain in him, the romantic idealism which he brought to Politics, lain was addicted to Burns, and I am sure he enthusiastically supported Burns's dictum that there is nothing worth the wear of winning but "laughter and the love of *lain Macleod Nigel Fisher (Andre Deutsch £3.95)

friends."

But with this warm-hearted side he had also his political determination and his courage in adversity, lain loved the political battle and he fought it as his beloved Yorkshire cricket team would do, dourly and with determination to win. He felt very much that there were no prizes in politics for being second, and that the end could often justify many means. It was, I think, precisely this determination to win, coupled with his great ingenuity in tactics that earned him the reputation of deviousness, which over the years did him considerable harm in some parts of the Conservative Party. With it all he had great physical courage. From the first moment I met him I knew he suffered very severe physical handicaps, and these grew over the years until the burden he was carrying was very great. But he never grumbled. Some families seem to have far more than their fair share of illness, and this is certainly true of the Macleods.

His political views, as Nigel Fisher's book makes clear, were not consistent with any pattern any more than he was as a man. In some matters he could be described as on the left: in his attitude, for example, to colonial and social policy. On the other hand, a good deal of his economic thinking was substantially to the right. But whether his views be labelled as right or left, they were held with conviction and with sincerity, and they were in my experience consistently held. Fisher recalls the strange comment of Enoch Powell on lain Macleod's death, that when they entered public life no two men were closer together, and that by the time of lain's death no two were further apart. If this be true, and Mr Powell is the best judge, it was not because lain had changed his attitude.

In so far as it is possible to summarise a man's political philosophy, I would hazard this judgement of lain Macleod. He believed passionately in the brotherhood of man of all races and creeds. He believed in equality of opportunity for all, and the removal of inherited privilege. He believed that the state should care generously for the needy, and in doing so should act selectively by concentrating help on those whose need was greatest. He believed in individual responsibility and the right as well as the duty of every man to stand on his own feet, and he thought that government should encourage and foster this responsibility. He believed that politics should be hard and toughly fought with no quarter given but no rancour entertained. He was one of the great orators of our time, assisted by a voice of remarkable quality. He had a wit and power of invective which Fisher's book brings out with • exceptional clarity. He rejoiced in the cut and thrust of the parliamentary battle. Above all he was a superb speaker at a party conference when experience, technique and passion were blended into one.

His political career was divided, as the book sets out, into several sections. As Minister of Health appointed direct from the back benches, he resisted the temptation brought so often by rapid promotion, to the dramatic or the meretricious. His work was good and solid and based on his devotion to the practice of medicine derived from his father, and the principles of social need which were part of his political philosophy.

At the Ministry of Labour he based himself on the concept of labour relations set out in the Industrial Charter, which had been worked out in the Research Department and accepted by the party. But more than this, he understood very well the relation between incomes and inflation. Any Minister of Labour is in a very difficult position, because he is expected both to work for industrial peace and to sustain the economic policy of the government, and clearly at times there must be conflict here. I think lain himself always regarded the conflict with the busmen, which Nigel Fisher deals with extensively, as a turning point in his career at the Ministry of Labour, and in the government's economic policy. I believe he was right.

It was as Colonial Secretary that he made probably his greatest contribution. I had forgotten until I read Nigel Fisher's book, that he came to the Colonial Office without prior experience or of involvement in colonial affairs. It was indeed a difficult task. He succeeded a remarkable man, Alan LennoxBoyd, who by his sheer personal qualities had established a legendary position throughout the colonial territories. He had to implement a policy of increasingly rapid change in the face of inevitable opposition, both in the colonies and in the Conservative Party. He carried out the task which Harold Macmillan gave him, in my judgement, with courage, consistency and success. In the course of it he made numerous enemies. He suffered lasting damage from a particular wounding remark of Lord Salisbury, but his achievement was great, and in times of difficulty he could console himself with the knowledge that this was so. Certainly the move to independence in many parts of Africa was premature in terms of logic, but it was inevitable in terms of history. Harold Macmillan sensed this, as he sensed so many human changes. lain Macleod carried it out with a determination and a passionate involvement that came spontaneously with the office itself.

Of his of as chairman of the party and

Leader of the House, it is difficult to be certain.

He did many good things as chairman of the party. In many ways he was a good Leader of the House, which indeed he was bound to be with his love and experience of Parliament. But somehow, while he did well in this dual role he did not do quite as well as many of his friends expected. I think the main reason for this, as

Nigel Fisher suggests, was that he was. unfortunate in the timing of his appointment.

Things over which he had no control were running badly for the Party. The Macmillan administration was suffering the tiredness that inevitably comes after years in office. The public were increasingly looking for a change.

How would he have been as Chancellor of the Exchequer? This is even more difficult to

judge. He did a great deal of work as shadow Chancellor . His imprint is on all the present Government's tax legislation. It is in no way a

reflection on Anthony Barber to say that most Of the reforms he has carried out had been in lain's mind, because it is as difficult for a Chancellor to carry out reforms as it is for a Prospective chancellor to think of them. I did not myself agree with all of lain's ideas: the Change in company taxation, for example. But I did strongly agree with him that in effect from the moment we committed ourselves to abolish SET we were in fact committed to something like VAT to take its place, and the place of Purchase tax, too. In general he would certainly have been an imaginative and reforming chancellor in the field of taxation. Whether he could have mastered the problems of demand management we shall never know. But is this not true of virtually every chancellor?

I think .Nigel Fisher's assessment of lain Macleod's place in the development of the Conservative Party is a fair one. He does not Ignore the mistakes lain made, but he does bring out with clarity the extent of his contribution. lain made articulate to the Country, and particularly to the young, what the new Conservative Party was all about. In himself he embodied many of the changes from the old pre-war image. He, was peculiarly capable of expressing ideas and emotions in terms to which people could react. But above all, I shall remember him as a good friend and lgood colleague. The price of anything you acquire is best measured by what else you have to give up to acquire it. So the value of a man is often best felt in what you miss when he is no lohger with you. To all of us who were lain's friends and colleagues, the emptiness of his departure is great. who is at present dying in a hot dirty hospital on Formosa ... ") so distinctive of the callous, casual omniscience of Nabokov's voice. Secondly, " the luxuriant and bastard style; at its best ... it was diabolically evocative." At its best, yes; but how little, stylistically, separates the striking — "He also remembered that [the hotel] was drab and cheap, and abjectly stood next to another, much better hotel, through the rez-de-chausee of which you could make out the phantoms of pale tables and underwater waiters" — and the precious — "A bunch of bellflowers and bluebonnets, their different shades having a lovers' quarrel ... " Nabokov's perceptions (he " retraced his steps, which was once a trim metaphor, and went back to the shop ") are at the mercy of, are virtually the same thing as, his prose style, and that prose slides down a whetted razor-blade, alternately coming through miraculously unscathed or slurping off in grisly emasculation. The true stature of Nabokov's writing lies not in his smart-alec, multilingual, acrostic-neologism manner but in the delicate, ironically-weighted sentences which occasionally survive it and through which the full sensitivity of his apprehensions is sometimes allowed to shine.

Transparent Things revolves round the four visits of the hero — sullen, gawky Hugh Person — to Switzerland. At eighteen, he is twitching and sweating with hatred for his father, who comes to an undignified end at a clothes shop while wiggling a leg into a summer trouser. Next, as a young publisher, Hugh is sent to interview R., falls in love with Armande on the way, wrests her, after multiple humiliations, from a grinning Scandinavian, and returns to New York with his bride. The young marrieds come back for a further audience with R., and, eight years later—following a murder, a period of madness and a brief imprisonment — Hugh makes a lone sentimental journey to wheedle out his past. The author's preoccupation with the several strands of dream, memory and time is set off against the literary theorising of R. and, more centrally, against the changing world of observable objects. Nabokov is unwontedly — and needlessly — specific:

When we concentrate on a material object ... the our lunt rily our lunt rily

very act of attention may lead to r invo

sinking into the histpry of that object. Novices must learn to skim over matter if they want to stay at the exact level of the moment. Transgarent things, through which the past shines!

and again:

Thus the entire little drama [of a stray pencil], from crystallized carbon ... to this transparent thing, unfolds in a twinkle. Alas, the solid pencil itself as fingered briefly by Hugh Person still somehow eludes us! But he won't, oh no.

Persons are bulky, mortal, opaque, and so on; objects (given authorial omniscience) are receptacles of significance, passive, durable, pellucid, and so on.

De-allegorised, this sounds achingly pretentious — and deserves to. But when dramatised in the book, the idea works nicely. Hugh's final trip to Switzerland, and his doleful search for lost time, is recorded largely through the external details of his previous visits: the old hotel rooms, the half-built chalets now completed, the shuttlecock dropped by a child, the same white, shivering dog. Nabokov's gloating presence is mainly absent in these pages, and the effect is brought off with quiet certainty.

Indeed, the sententious italics seem doubly out of place in so haughty a writer as Nabokov. But perhaps this marks a fresh ingenuousness in his work — a simple desire to make himself understood. After the self-infatuated epiphany that was Ada, it may be that Nabokov is peeling away his contrivances, underlining the importance of what he has to say even at the expense of how he says it. The book is, of course, an adventure to read; surprisingly, though, it exposes a new and authentic vein of humility.

very act of attention may lead to r invo