The Conservative working-man
J. ENOCH POWELL, MP
Angels in Marble Robert McKenzie and Allan Silver (Heinemann 50s) This book presents the results of four surveys. One, in the summer of 1958, was of a sample of 600 working-class electors (100 in each of six constituencies) who had voted for one or other of the two major parties at the previous general election (1955). 'Working-class' was taken to mean belonging to a household whose chief earner was, or had mostly been, manually em- ployed. Then, secondly, fifty of the 600 were intensively reinterviewed. The third and fourth surveys were taken in 1963. The third investi- gated over 1,200 preponderantly working-class electors in 36 marginal seats, who had voted Conservative at the 1959 general election. The fourth was an intensive reinterview of eight of these electors in October 1963, to discuss their reaction to the Profumo affair. The whole sur- vey was confined to England, and to urban electorates.
The object of the exercise was to try to cast light on the phenomenon, astonishing to the foreigner and frustrating to the liberal and socialist, that the Conservative party has re- mained the preponderant governing party in the century since the enfranchisement of the (male) proletariat in 1867 and 1884. Why, in short, had Disraeli proved right when, in the posthumous tribute paid to him by The Times, he 'discerned the Conservative working man in the inarticu- late mass of the English populace, as the sculp- tor perceives the angel prisoned in a block of marble'?
The descriptive results of the survey are striking in a negative sense. They bowl over like servatives are neither better off, nor worse off, income-wise, than those who vote Labour. It is just possible, given the age variation, that lower income has been linked with Conserva- tive voting in the past and may be linked with Labour voting in the future; but, in fact, the age variation is wholly among the women voters. There is no 'depression generation' anywhere among English working-class voters, to show the wounds of the 1930s.
Less surprising—indeed, little more than tautologous—is the conclusion that home ownership, personal savings and middle-class identification are linked—but only among the lower-income groupst—with Conservative pre- ference. On the other hand, the religious analy- sis goes completely against the traditional belief that there is a natural link, at least among the workers, between Conservatism and the Angli- can Church (`the Tory party at prayer'). In fact, nonconformist Protestants, whether nominal or practising Church members, were actually found somewhat more likely to vote Conserva- tive than Anglicans. One is tempted, however, to suspect that the geographical limitation of the sample—London (Acton, Ilford and Pad- dington), Coventry, Halifax and Blackley (Man- chester)--might have' something to do with this result, as also with the low Conservative per- centage {18 per cent) among Roman Catholics.
Labour or Conservative.' On a test of politica literacy and general information, it appeare, that Conservative support is not correlated with - ignorance. 'On the contrary, the most committ Conservative voters are the best infOrmed and the most committed Labour voters the leas well informed.' (Note: the opposite to 'best' `least well'—at any rate, if Labour!) The ..11TVel also found the committed Conservatives to be the most 'politically confident' of all the groups. Where the voter was moving away from the Conservative party (a `changer'), he was charac teristically less prone to identify. himself wit the working class, and more frustrated by bar riers to personal advancement. This finding ma be coloured by the perhaps transitory condition of the year 1963, which was that.4 the adven of Harold Wilson and the 'white-hot techn logical revolution'; but it corresponds with wha many candidates thought they saw at the 19 and 1966 general elections.
Not unnaturally, there is less Conservatis among unionists (23 percent) than among non unionists (35 per cent); but the attitude of th working-class voter towards the unions throw up one of the most significant, almost movina results. A woman Labour supporter is quote as saying: 'They must do some good. Is wouldn't have them otherwise, although I don believe in them personally—I think they tat your money and do nothing for you.' There a wealth of instruction hi that utterance. Eve among hard-core Labour supporters four our of ten disapprove of union power. Native co mon sense tells the worker that in practice.' his own observation, trade unionism does n raise or maintain his standards. Yet he is baffl by the general acceptance of unionism. I-Ten the readiness—not only on the part of workers! —to resolve the dilemma by a myth of the past: `Do you think the unions do 'a good job? They did do'; or again : 'It was all 'right when the started; it helped the workers; it got them steady wage; but now they are overdoing it': o again : 'Unions as a whole have done a ve good job, but I do think now that it's control) by too few people.'
One deduction is that, as the survey co chides, 'union membership [despite its highe correlation with Labour voting) has compara lively slight impact on voting choices.' Perha those of us who go about declaring that co bination to fix the price of labour does mor• harm than good to the worker are not wreakin such electoral havoc as' nervous colleagu apprehend. It could conceivably be that we a striking a responsive chord.
A similar encouragement not to fear assum rather than real prejudice is to- be drawn fro the analysis of working-class 'attitudes • towa the House of Lords. 'Only one Ord of entire working-class sample, and only a slight higher proportion of Labour voted, favour abolishing the House of Lords or. altering any way' (my italics). On the contrary, 'the stitution continues to 'attract the support many working-Class Conservatives and to acquiesced in by a plurality of all working-cla voters.' Predictably the one group special, prone to favour reforni or abolition were t• ex-Conservative 'changers'—die sable Peo who chafed at the barriers to personal advan ment.
The study of motivation culminates in investigation of the role of 'deference'—in sense of the word which Bagehot made cla. —and its absence, for which the not very able term `secular'(as the reverse Of 'deferent was adopted. Having found that half of wo ing-class Conservatives; at Opposed to one
hve of working-class Labour voters, prefer a -prime minister of elite background, the survey proceeded to classify the Conservatives as deferential' or 'secular,' and discovered that deference is correlated with higher age, with lower income, and also with female sex, which led to the suggestion that 'deference is becoming less characteristic of working-class Conserva- tism.' Finally, a kind of composite portrait was attempted of the 'deferential' and the 'secular' working-class Conservative. The results were baffling: the `deferentials' were as well-informed politically; they were no more prone to church- going and actually less likely to claim Church membership; on the other hand, they were more addicted to reducing taxation and less enamoured of government spending, especially on social objects; finally, and not surprisingly, they were less liable to change their allegiance from the Conservative party.
Further definition of working-class Conserva- tive 'deference' was provided by reactions to the Profumo affair, as popularly regarded in the light of a question of sexual morality in high places. The results revealed that the 'deference' was a tribute to assumed 'gentlemanly conduct in matters of honour and trustfulness based upon a social code,' and not to 'a sexual code based upon religious values.' The most impor- tant feature, however, of the definition is brought out in this conclusion : 'English defer- entials [in contrast to those in other countries] feel themselves the moral, if not the social, equals of the elite because they appear to accept the classic doctrine that all who properly fulfil their stations in life contribute worthily to the common good.' It follows that English Con- servatism is special proof against erosion by what the authors call 'increasing democratisa- tion'; for 'English deferentials are provided with a sense of esteem by the very ideas which justify and explain their social and political subordina- tion.'
Angels in Marble goes far to explain the paradox to which the study was addressed, and provides a trait-by-trait description of that Conservative working-man,' whom Joseph Chamberlain once wanted to have stuffed and put in a glass case if a specimen could be found, but who has survived to support Conservative administrations for most of the decades since the jibe was uttered. If some doubts arise, they attach to the dates and political circumstances of the surveys—which Ale reader must always remember are five and ten years old respectively —and even more to the preoccupation with the antithesis deferentialTsecular,' which is only one of a number of antitheses which could have been selected, with the attendant risk of sub- jectivity both in investigation and in description.
The reader who is a working politician ought to be encouraged and, emboldened rather than otherwise by this material—as, indeed, I gener- ally feel he should be by the results of research into electoral motivation. Why? Because the deeper such investigation penetrates, the less it appears that electoral behaviour is accessible to conscious and deliberate manipulation by parties and politicians. It is as if a mariner who had superstitiously believed his voyages and their success to be dependent upon ascertaining the will of the gods by oracles and then propitiating them with sacrifices, were to be introduced to the sciences of meteorology, hydrodynamics, oceanography and the rest. At least he becomes thereby a free man, free,to sail, with what skill he may, whither his bent and purpose urge. We need more and more of such studies as these, not because they give us rules of action and dic- tate our choice, but because,they set es at liberLY,
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