Should politics be polite?
John Grigg 1976 has clearly been one of the least successful years in modern British history, and as it staggers to an end there seems to be growing disenchantment with a political System which, allegedly, is failing the nation. Speaking at Reading University on 7 December Sir Ronald McIntosh, directorgeneral of NEDO, suggested that our troubles might be due not only to defects of 'national temperament' but also to 'our Party-political structure, with its obsessive concern with short-term pressures and its destructive concepts of adversary politics.'
The following day Roy Jenkins made rather similar remarks at a Parliamentary press Gallery lunch. The country, he said, needed 'a great sense ol partnership and unity' if it was to solve its problems, and he for one had lost his taste for 'gladiatorial contests in the Commons.' There should be 'a greater understanding and a greater freedom of voting to avoid strains and bursting the banks of the present parlianlentary system.'
Undoubtedly these views have wide support in the country, but are they right ? It might be said that Sir Ronald McIntosh, as a career civil servant, is c,°mPounding for sins he is inclined to by damning those he has no mind to. But Mr Jenkins, though now leaving for temporary service as the arch-eurocrat, has been a Party politician for thirty years and a Parliamentary gladiator of outstanding 'nettle. Between 1964 and 1970 he scored three major triumphs when the opposition attacked him directly--on the cancellation °f TSR2, the escape of George Blake and tibe honesty of Treasury statistics—and he inas never been palpably worsted in debate. 'r he is now sick of the business it is not, 1.11erefore, because he has no aptitude for it, but because he genuinely feels that it has .h,e.come irrelevant and that the public is "nsgusted by it. L. Winston Churchill towards the end of cinis career was irked by the increasing ,nureness of public life, having himself ten trained in a school whose philosophy 's well summed up in the constitutior of the ?ther Club (founded by him and F. E. v_tnitb when they were political opponents) at 'nothing in the rules or intercourse of `ne Club shall interfere with the rancour or !sPerity of party politics.' Churchill did his ,nest to maintain the old style and so, on the Labour side, did Aneurin Bevan. h They were well matched. Soon after 'vv an had described the Tories as 'lower an vermin' (a sentiment which Churchill iht,ight have expressed earlier in his career) tile old man delivered a suitable riposte in he House of Commons. 'We speak of the
Minister of Health but ought we not rather to say the Minister of Disease, for is not morbid hatred a form of mental disease ... and indeed a highly infectious form? Indeed I can think of no better step to signalise the inauguration of the National Health Service than that a person who so obviously needs psychiatric attention should be among the first of its patients.' Yet when Churchill had his eightieth birthday, still as leader of the Tory Party, Bevan was in the forefront of those who organised the parliamentary celebration.
The essence of the old tradition was that politicians went for each other hammer and tongs in public, while often being on amicable or even intimate terms privately. It was a tradition that transcended class, surviving the advent of Labour and even the economic vicissitudes of the inter-war years. But since 1945 the general public has become less and less tolerant of the hyperbole of politicians. Churchill did the Tory Party no good at all with his 'Gestapo' speech, and 'lower than vermin' was perhaps equally damaging to Labour.
One reason for the change of climate is that during the Second World War people got used to the spectacle of politicians, left, right and centre, working together for Britain's salvation. The national government of 1940-5 was more comprehensive than any previous one, and since it was dissolved just before the end of the war it was not—like Lloyd George's coalition from 1918 to 1922—discredited by trying to solve the complex problems of peace. The golden memory of the Churchill coalition may be irrelevant to peace-time politics, but it is none the less potent.
Another crucial new factor is television, which has given the mass public a more balanced view of politics than it had before, and at the same time forced politicians to argue conversationally rather than oratorically. As a result their huffing and puffing on the platform, or in the House of Commons, has inevitably been made to seem bogus, though it still appeals to the dwindling minority of party activities.
The case for adversary politics, as for the adversary principle in our courts of law, is that it serves more effectively than any other system to promote the individual and public good. But there are differences between ordinary courts of law and the High Court of Parliament, which may be thought to vitiate the analogy. In an ordinary court the points at issue between prosecution and defence are soon resolved by a mode of decision which is normally recognised as fair. But in Parliament the immediate verdict is nearly always given by the governing party, which acts as judge in its own cause, or as a packed jury, while the electorate which is theoretically the supreme arbiter only has a look in every four or five years. Moreover, the electoral system is such that even on those infrequent occasions the verdict is likely to be distorted.
In the past the system was accepted in spite of its flaws because those who operated it showed (as a rule) moderation and restraint, because there was no mystique of coalition, and because the public was not TV-conditioned and therefore did not see through the politicians' pantomime; also because Parliament was undisputedly sovereign, and Britain a world power. Now that all these conditions have ceased to apply it is hardly surprising that people are questioning the system and opening their minds to alternatives which are often rather fanciful and exaggerated.
In fact, surely, the adversary principle still has its uses and there is no need for our politicians to become too mealy-mouthed. If they did, the tedium of politics would be unbearable. But they must also try to adjust themselves to a public which is overwhelmingly opposed to doctrinal polarisation and far more ready to listen to sharp, witty criticism than to moralistic anathemas. Wrath iS occasionally justified, but not every day of the week.
Moreover, there will have to be some institutional changes to meet the demand for more representative and responsive government. But the changes need not be too drastic, if they are made without undue delay. Something will have to be done to give fairer representation to minorities in Parliament, though it does not follow that PR will have to be adopted for the House of Commons. There is more to be said for using it as one ingredient—though only one—in a reformed second chamber.
As for giving the people more of a direct share in government, the answer is not to hold a referendum on every controversial issue. This would be intolerably costly, and would also amount to a revolution, since it would make our democracy plebiscitarian rather than parliamentary. Now and again ,it may be right to settle a matter by referendum, but on the whole Parliament should be left to decide, subject to all the legitimate pressures, and on some issues— perhaps more than at present—by a free vote.
But there is another way to give the electorate more of a say, and one which is perfectly in keeping with our parliamentary system. This is to reduce the statutory life of parliaments, which has remained at five years since 1911 in spite of a vast enlarge ment of the sphere of government and a much accelerated tempo in human affairs.
It seems to me elementary common sense that it should now be reduced to four, if not to three, years. Party government would lose much of its odiousness if the opportunities for change were more frequent.
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