POLITICAL COMMENTARY

Barbara gets her replay

AUBERON WAUGH

Perhaps it was inevitable that the present government should choose to make its last- ditch attempt to impose a pathetic, more or less voluntary 44 per cent wage ceiling on the rest of us the week after MPs had awarded themselves a 15 per cent pay rise. Like so much of this Government's present activity, at the fag-end of its useful life, the reasoning behind Mrs Castle's initiative would appear to be compounded of obstin- acy and vindictiveness. So, of course, was the opposition which it inevitably excited. A trade union leader with whom I discussed the matter in furtive whispered tones, summed it up thus: 'Feline, feminine and unbased in reality'. He paused while I copied down this harsh judgment, regaling himself with a mouthful of roast mutton—Tike a Cup Final team which has lost the match demanding a replay'.

And, of course, once the sporting instincts of the nation's workers had been aroused, a replay was exactly what she got. The mind boggles that such obstinate stupidity should be allowed to hold sway in the governance of a political party's affairs, let alone in that of a country's. Anybody of sober, un- biased mind is now in a position to know that incomes policy has been tried as a means of regulating the country's economy, and it has failed. In the past nine months, wages have gone up by 6.6 per cent which, if continued, will make 8.8 per cent for the year—rather more than in 1965-66, the year before the Prices and Incomes Board got into its stride, when the figure was 7.6 per cent.

But the activities of Mrs Castle's cabinet colleagues are also wonderful to behold. With such lone exceptions as George (His Master's Voice) Thomas they have, to a man, done their best to ensure that the news- papers have been full of non-attributable accounts of their exasperation with Barbara and all she. stands for. Yet at the same time Mr Wilson has not missed an opportunity to tell the party (for quotation that the cabinet is solidly united behind Mrs C; and the rule of collective responsibility makes it impossible for them to deny the charge. All this affords Mr Wilson some consola- tion, for it is not every day that he can force the rest of his colleagues to share responsibility for a bitterly unpopular pro- posal which they would like to repudiate, and at the same time enjoy the spectacle of another of his potential rivals biting the dust (Mrs Castle may not look like a threat to Mr Wilson's position, but then Mr Wil- son is capable of imagining a threat in every ministerial dispatch box).

The unions can point out that govern- ment actuaries employed on working out the details of Mr Crossman's brutal pensions scheme are basing their calculations on 5 per cent annual inflation. So if people were actually to observe Mrs Castle's 41 per cent ceiling, it would mean that the standard of living enjoyed by the working classes was declining by a half of one per cent per year. For fire, police or ambulance, dial 999 and state which service you require.

But in point of fact, of course, 'nobody— or practically nobody—will pay the slightest attention to the 41 per cent ceiling—most particularly since prices are now beginning to catch up. Trade union opposition is

prompted by the self-righteousness of students demanding not only that they should be allowed to entertain girl friends overnight but also that they should be seen to be so allowed. It is not a right they are demanding so much as a privilege. My trade union leader friend reckons that out of a quarter of a million significant wage bar- gains which have been struck throughout the country this year, only two thousand were even shown to Mrs Castle—and these were very largely among major government con- tractors.

My researches have been unable to un- cover any evidence that the Government has exerted special pressure on government contractors to play ball with the Prices and Incomes Board. Their acquiescence must be seen within the context of that obsequiousness to authority and to wealth which has been ingrained in the English managerial and proprietorial classes since their schooldays. For two long years it pro- vided one of the unhappy paradoxes of British politics to see how the capitalist classes, as represented by the cm. were led smirking and touching their forelocks into Wedg-style socialism. But my researches produced two other stories which surely merit wider currency. Two firms which had been generous enough to subscribe to the Conservative party were also avaricious enough to put in tenders for a government contract. On being asked whether their cost- ing included political contributions, and on being informed that the Government could scarcely be expected to pay for such luxur- ies, they went and cried to the cm, which has been rather reticent about the story. Perhaps that worthy Confederation has de- cided that publicity might frighten other firms from making contributions to the Tories.

Of course, the Tories still carry their tattered old banner proclaiming the advan- tages of a voluntary incomes policy. Per- haps the cm has greater faith in this than in Mrs Castle's magnificent teeth, or perhaps its motives are more complicated. But to Mrs Castle, the issue is a simple one—that of socialism versus laissez-faire. Never mind that socialism, in this form at least, has been seen to be a failure, or that it ensures that the weak go to the wall even more certainly than the much-berated free-for- all system advocated by Mr Enoch Powell and, to a lesser extent, by Sir Keith Joseph. So far as Mrs Castle is concerned, the g fight must be fought for its own sake. si whatever weapons come to hand.

Among the weapons judged to be effecti was the Chief Whip's extraordinar implausible suggestion of a general elect on Thursday 22 January, if the meat should be defeated. Just whom, one %%onde did 'Stinking' Bob Mellish hope to (keel% The Labour rank and file may be cra and unprincipled, as it has demonstrat time and again over Nigeria and Vietn to mention only two issues. One could least argue that it is also extraordina unintelligent, as the whole prices and comes imbroglio bears witness. But unl 'Stinking' Bob believes his followers to actually imbecile, it is hard to understa why he should choose to wave his nuci. deterrent around at a time when a rational, perceptive human being can that it is only a cough lozenge.

Mrs Castle appears to have made a si tar assessment of the whole British elect, ate (not to mention the Gnomes of Zur when she describes her• new 44 per ce ceiling as a ceiling of between 21 and per cent. What on earth does she imag that we will make of the lower figure—t, wage increases of under 2+ per cent will illegal?

It has long provided a parlour game amo political correspondents to speculge on ss would happen in the political world if cen politicians had the misfortune to fall un a bus. A more seasonable field of speculan would concern their chances in the world come after some such eventuality.

The part of King Herod. in our Christ masque, must undoubtedly go to Han Wilson. But unless the Catholic religion totally wrong, Mr Crossman may well ha a certain amount of explaining in conn tion with those 30.000 unborn babies wh destruction he has supervised in the curr financial year. And if his fluent. Ha agnosticism can pull him through that in view, there is still the matter of the mu greater infanticide in which the Cabinet a its supporters have a responsibility, throu supplying and persisting to supply the of destruction.

King Herod Wilson will plainly have double up as his son, Herod Antipas. as often happens in amateur theatricals. If M Castle takes the role of Salome, then of St John the Baptist must presum.lhly to Dick Marsh, although one is less with this casting. But the considerati which led Herod Wilson to his crime much the same as those which influen the original King Herod—an understa able anxiety to secure his position. If it Pride which led to Michael Stewart's doing, it was Ambition which destro Denis Healey—by that sin fell the ang Mr Jenkins is admirably cast as a dim unscrupulous Roman procurator—Pon Pilate.

Perhaps order and sanity will return England in time to see these people trea as they deserve. One must hope so. course, but the moral sickness from wh they suffer is not peculiar to themselves. is something which is poisoning the w of public life, whether through apathy, sb the Tories, or through active participali as with the two hundred and fifty-six who signed their names on the bloodstai register last Tuesday night.

Next week, it will be jingle bells. I bells, jingle all the way. Just in the last s4 of Advent, however, let us pause to call d a curse on their enterprises.