Making hay while the sun shines
A cynic might say this election deserved a newspaper strike. It has not seemed to call for the detailed study of speeches and policy which the press conscientiously tries to provide when the next govern- ment of the country is being chosen. So far, at least, the contest can be adequately expressed in a few moments of television time. First, Mr Wilson seen talking cheer- ful banalities to Labou party workers during one of his 'informal' visits to the constituencies; then Mr Heath seen recit- ing, yet again, the dismal record of achievement which the six-year spell of Labour government has to its credit. In neither case do the actual words seem of much importance. It is not the interplay of ideas or the exchange of criticisms which has characterised the election de- bate up to the present. Instead the thing has turned on a question of public mood.
It is far from being the first time this has happened in recent history. The public mood in 1950 and 1951, for example, was not substantially conditioned by nice judg- ments between the differing economic approaches of the two major parties. It was made by a growing sense of frustra- tion at the restriction and narrowness of British life as directed by the post-war Labour government: the nation took a decision to set about its problems in a different spirit. The mood was for some- thing more bracing. something less thoroughly nudged and guided from Whitehall.
The mood during the present election is of another nature. There is an impres- sion, supported by reports from around the country, of a lack of enthusiasm for politics and politicians as such; of a mood which touches cynicism whenever the claims and arguments of either party are presented. Conservative speakers have little difficulty in establishing the failure of the Labour government to keep its most important promises. But to a marked ex- tent the response to this tale of failure is not one of indignation accompanied by a determination to exact the price of failure. It is rather a sense that politicians are simply like that, a belief that all parties raise false hopes, a depressing assumption that double-talk is all one may expect from the men who aspire to govern this country. Up to a point a general scepticism about government is healthy enough:A democ- racy which did not possess a sturdy streak of it would probably not remain a democ- racy for very long. But when disillusion- ment is pervasive it becomes unhealthy. On the one hand it leads to the search for political ends by extra-parliamentary methods. a phenomenon which is unplea- santly apparent in America today and which is sufficiently familiar here to cause anxiety. On the other it leads, within the democratic parliamentary framework, to the development of a cynical indifference which encourages the avoidance of de- cisions; to the belief that, since politicians are a slippery crew, the slickest and glibbist may well be the best of politicians, the lesser of two evils.
The curious theatricality of this election owes much to this condition of disillusion. Like actors in an old morality play, the principals perform on their makeshift stage, mouthing and ranting of good and evil: virtue is variously applauded, sin multifariously condemned; the audience partake mildly of the drama, but see little in it that relates intimately to their ordi- nary lives. Or, to shift the metaphor for- ward in time, it is as if some theatrical exercise in alienation were in progress, with certain formal exchanges taking place on the stage while more credible and sig- nificant happenings occur in the audi- torium: Mr Wilson assures his stage army they are having 'a happy election' but down among the audience the doctors are expressing militant outrage at their treat- ment, the newspaper industry is convulsed by a bitter dispute. the dire ramifications of uncontrolled inflation begin to be apparent. It is, in truth. an uninspiring spectacle. But Mr Wilson, having chosen (as we put it last week) to play the Baldwin card of soothing reassurance, must suppose that the less the electors arc involved in genuine inquiry into facts and policies the more successful his campaign is likely to be. To judge by the opinion polls, it has been successful enough. Conservative speakers have made mincemeat of the Labour record: they have indicated the magnitude of the economic problems which arc approaching; they have with fair credi- bility suggested that another wage freeze would be forced upon another Labour government. They have not, however, gained the ground they need if they are to avoid a third successive defeat. It is not, it seems, an election in which win- ning arguments is enough. And now, with a newspaper strike on top of everything else, even the arguments have been muffled.
Lord Cromer's assertion that the next government will face greater difficulties than those existing in 1964 ought on the face of it to have chilled the blood of countless floating voters. That it evidently failed to do so was partly because the Conservatives were sluggish to respond to a clear opportunity. But it was also be- cause, in the crazy game of wage-rise- price-rise which the country is playing, a great number of workers are just now ahead of the game, with more pounds in their pockets than the rising prices have yet accounted for.
Mr Callaghan and Mr Crossman have each let fall hints that the economy is in a far less robust condition than the public has been encouraged to believe; and the unions have shown their own suspicions about the future by rushing in with all speed now to make hay while the sun shines. At least the newspaper dispute.
involving a pay claim which would swal- low up several times over the profits of the industry, dramatises the situation (al- though its implications are tragic for the future of the British press.) But, needless to say, as the sun has shone warmly on the happy election land which Mr Wilson has conjured out of the air, the Labour party too has been making hay while the sun shines. As in 1966. the Tories have been put in the unpopular role of the bearer of ill tidings; as in 1966, the comfortable words of the men in pos- session have been more welcome to the public. Given Tuesday's skilfully exploited balance of payments figures, even this week's warning from the Bank for Inter- national Settlements make little impact.
For all that, the Tories will have to stick to the essentials of their case, pro- ceeding in the firm hope that an appeal to reason rather than to complacency will still finally stir a torpid electorate. And if, with it, they can in the closing phase of the campaign sound an appeal to principle higher than anything heard at the rather grubby level of the election so far. then the opinion polls could still be made to stand on their heads on 18 June. Elections are neither won nor lost until the votes have been counted.
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