POLITICAL COMMENTARY HUGH MACPHERSON
Let us a I spare a thought for the crusty seadog who paces the quarter deck of Number Ten or lies abaft the mast of Morning Cloud. It is the month of August when all good Parliamentarians should be on holiday. Save, of course, the faithful watchdogs of the political corps who gather in the depths of St Stephen's Tavern flushed out of their normal comfortable surroundings, to bewail the silly season and quaff a drop of beer. Now here we are in the midst of another financial crisis, this time not of our own making, and Northern Ireland is once more aflame.
The only request that this landlubber would make to the Kentish Seadog is that he arrange for his trusty vessel to be followed by the air force, for the navy lost him last time. Now whilst we know it is no fault of the Skipper it is just a little worrying in case we need him quickly. Perhaps he should also have a word with the admirals about it all just in case the Chinese, or some other scurvy crew', realise there is a chink in our radar defences and invade us with some deadly weapon such as a sailing lunk. The Skipper can also disregard all that chat from Mr Wilson about his golf and how he could speed from his own recreation to No. 10 in a mere half-hour. From what I hear of the Opposition leader's golf he would be lucky to find his way to the fairway in that time.
No, what will be occupying the mind of the PM, be he at the helm of the nation, or lashed to the tiller of Morning Cloud, is how to maintain confidence when he looks at the overall political situation. One of the More interesting aspects of reporting politics is the realisation that the country Is run by very normal, and sometimes by slightly abnormal, people. Ordinary filing cabinets and dusty desks repose in offices occupied by men who are not significantly more able than those who administer a large company. There are a few brilliant men around, who sometimes do as much harm as good, but the entire edifice is held together by a mystical kind of confidence. Even the simple idea of confidence is divided into two distinct areas: confidence in the government and confidence in the sYstem.
No party leader takes lightly the prospect of the country losing confidence in his Party but that is what happens when elections are lost. However a PM must pay absolute attention to any threat to a nation's confidence in the ultimate justice of its Own political system. It would be Mischievous and wrong to suggest that such a situation arises now in Britain — save among a significant section of the Population of Ulster. However, there is no escaping the fact that by the unwittingly combined efforts of fanatics from Eire, and Protestant Bully Boys in the North, many Peaceable decent folk in Ireland have lost confidence in the very fabric of our political system.
And it must be faced that Ulster is part of Britain — even if the throwing of petrol bombs in the street and deaths from snipers' bullets do not necessarily now merit the lead in our newspapers. One army Corporal in a television interview spoke in bewildered fashion of the fact that the people on the streets were his 'own people.' And a Stormont MP lanced the boil when he asked if a British Prime Minister would be sailing a yacht somewhere off the coastline if troops were on the streets of Liverpool and citizens were being imprisoned without trial. It is a comment on our attitude to Ulster that such a paradox should not only occur but be so blithely accepted.
No-one in his right senses, would suggest that the system is in any danger but what must give rise to a little rumination is the fact that the internments were planned, we were told, well in advance. This means that the Westminster Government deliberately waited until immediately after Parliament had gone into recess before permitting an order to be promulgated which sent British soldiers into the homes of British citizens to imprison men for an indefinite period without proving them guilty of a criminal offence. What is more attempts by the Opposition to recall Parliament have so far been resisted, yet MPs did re-assemble at Westminster, only a couple of year ago, to discuss the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia. And that was a situation in which the British Parliament was completely unable to intervene. A final sad comment on the situation is the fact that the government is probably right, at least in the short term, to keep the dust covers on at Westminster. But can the PM be happy about a state of affairs where it is healthier for civic peace that the seat of democracy be left vacant?
Whilst these deep constitutional thoughts no doubt trouble the Skipper, as he gargles ni with a tot of rum, of more immediate con cern will be the second type of confidence which is of the more banal kind affecting political parties (although any threat to national confidence in the political system, or the people administering it, could give the rational a yearning for such solid conservative figures as Mr James Callaghan or Mr Roy Jenkins). The Captain of Morning Cloud will no doubt forgive the choice of words if I observe that events such as the present American dollar crisis are liable to blow him a little off course, just as the seamen's strike is alleged to have done to its predecessor's gallant voyage to a strong balance of payments position. There is a time in the nation's affairs when, for sometimes inscrutable reasons, the electorate starts to blame the government for natural, and indeed unnatural, hazards encountered by the ship of State.
No-one in the country, not alas even many political and journalistic colleagues, let alone this honest scribe, fully understands the long-term effects of the present crisis. Economists are of little help since they are so much better at postmortems than they are at diagnoses. However, at some moment the nation is liable to ask a simplistic question such as why devaluation was a disaster for us; and yet something similar happening to the American dollar is not a disaster for them? That is liable to leave the Skipper pondering through dog watch as to whether he ought to explain that the pound in our pocket will actually be re-valued.
Alas there is even more troubled water ahead. For any government blanches at a loss of confidence but expects a little wavering from time to time. This one is asking the nation to show massive positive confidence in supporting entry to the Common Market by October. What if another simplistic idea should occur to people — that all the gloomy fears of a protectionist war being waged by America illustrates that the Common Market is playing the same game? And what if that means that we are held to ransom inside one camp in a massive conflict of trade• protection?
Maintaining confidence is an imprecise art which depends on the individual techniques of the PM. We all know the Skipper's methods are different from the last occupant of No. 10 who by now would have made at least one dramatic appearance on the streets of Belfast clad in a siren suit and ARP Warden's helmet. But already Mr Pym and Mr Whitelaw have insisted that the Master Mariner sit mute on the front bench during the UCS emergency debate when he preferred to stay at sea. The months of August and September will be interesting in seeing how The Skipper maintains confidence for the great European adventure ahead. In this holiday season one can only wish him calm seas and a prosperous voyage, counsel him to slip a tot into the evening cocoa, and strictly ignore anything that looks like an albatross. Even if it is probably only a lame duck.
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