Political commentary
A presidential election
Colin Welch
ShadoShadows lengthening across the Oval, ws afternoon: 'They're just play- ing out time — I've got to go anyway: Shall we leave before the crowds?' Out through the turn-stiles, no return. Then suddenly re- sounding from the ground successive bursts of applause, roars, cheers. Things are hap- pening: and we're missing them. This was rather my experience last week, maddening for me if not for you who had the great departing Grimond to enjoy instead, when Mrs Thatcher suddenly declared and set her opponents a target.
One thing at least I don't have to mug up, nor you either if you have perused my laborious if unenthusiastic account of it, and that is Labour's 'New Hope for Britain'. 1 spent so much time and ammo on this dreadful document because in my simplicity I supposed that what people put on paper, like Hitler's Mein Kampf, is often more im- portant if less interesting than what they say, and also because I thought it would form at least the basis for the next Labour manifesto. The Left intended it to do so; there wasn't time or, in Michael Foot's case, desire or will to cut or dilute it. Within the last fortnight Denis Healey declared that it certainly wouldn't be converted into the manifesto. But lo! it has been, in a trice, nem con, hardly a comma or preposition altered, its Marxism, isolationism, wild ex- travagance and harsh illiberalism hanging out hideously exposed, as if deformities were objects of beauty.
All this too the Healeys and Hattersleys have swallowed. If you opened up these gentlemen's innards, they would now be like those of that famous ostrich in which were found alarm clocks, spanners, beer bottles, umbrellas, cigarette cases, penknives, pairs of spectacles, yo-yos, ashtrays and whatever other indigestible delicacies injudicious wellwishers had offered it.
In effect, it is as if Mrs Thatcher were cheerfully to choose to campaign, not even on the sum of private documents prepared for her consideration by her various think tanks, but actually on the leaked and distorted versions of them which have ap- peared, with intent to discredit her, in the left-wing press. She would thereby do herself an injustice. Labour has done itself no in- justice. This document represents what Labour really thinks or, in the case of the few remaining transient and embarrassed phantoms from a moderate past, what they really can't prevent.
The document has shown up not only Labour's left and right for what they are but perhaps also that 'hardfaced little idealist' (Edward Pearce's phrase), Mr Steel. I had not my pen to hand, but the sense of a point he made at Glasgow was that Labour's ends or aims were good, Labour's means 'rotten'. Apart from ends devoid of meaning, like universal hap- piness, what Labour ends as expounded in this document does Mr Steel think good? And, whichever he chooses, by what other means would he achieve them? I recently came across remarkable lines by the Ger- man Socialist Ferdinand Lassalle.
'Point not the goal, until you plot the course, For ends and means to man are tangled so That different means quite different aims enforce: Conserve the means as ends in embryo.' Lassalle's link between means and ends clearly works both ways, and may help to explain that profound yet flawed and half- hidden affinity with Labour which makes Mr Steel so mistrusted. In a hung Parlia- ment, he would always hang out, like a loaded swingometer, on the left.
The election has become, some say, a presidential one: Thatcher versus Foot. Labour presumably wishes it hadn't. Strenuous efforts were made to put a cloth over Mr Foot's cage. But the old bird has got loose and is winging unevenly all over the place, squawking, swooping, moulting, puffing and gobbling, repeating the hoary slogans he learnt as a young parrot 40 or 50 years ago, having a high old time.
With becoming if unconvincing modesty, asked if she herself was the issue, Mrs That- cher dissented in low, vibrant tones: `No, I think it would be quite wrong to say that. I think there is a very stark choice between two totally different policies. . . the choice [is] between a society that is coerced and a society that is free under the law. That is much more important than any of the peo- ple involved.' Fine, but totally different policies are best embodied, represented and expressed by totally different people. In- sofar as policies indeed are made by people, and are not just plucked, like Elgar's themes, from the air around, people are far more important than policies. Certain it is too that the choice would be a jolly sight less stark if Mrs Thatcher were not around to pose it.
Why does one say this with absolute con- viction? Not altogether because of her record. As Jo Grimond pointed out last week, there is so much she promised she has not yet delivered — taxation reduced, public spending curbed, rates reformed, law and order restored. Yet the record is pretty impressive: managers managing, industrial practices changing, new enter- prises starting, trade unions put in their place, civil servants cut down (a bit) to size; inflation and interest rates reduced; pro- ductivity, output (except for March), com- petitiveness and investment up.
Far less tangible, though to me supremely important, will be the effects of lower taxa- tion on top incomes and capital. New businesses are now starting up and prosper- ing which wouldn't have had a chance five years ago: on these our recovery will disproportionately depend. Envy is the mortal enemy of all prosperity, growth, risk and innovation; it impoverishes the en- vious as well as the envied. It has done un- told damage in Britain; here it has been for once defied.
The Thatcher record may be spotted: the records always are. But behind it lies what the Economist, a late convert, describes as Thatcherism, 'above all an attitude of mind', expressing itself in implacable com- mitment. This commitment cannot always bring her quick and easy success. But it helps her despite setbacks to point it in the right direction. Of whatever good has been achieved by her administration, how little would have been achieved without her. Whatever good she has not yet achieved, we feel, is because she has been so far prevented or obstructed; provided it be not impossible, it will come in good time, in a second or third term. Whatever silly things she has done, we feel, were done behind her back or when her mind was elsewhere It is often suggested that in her own ut- terances she should place less emphasis on her own general outlook on life and politics. This is to forget that it is her general outlook alone which gives form and coherence to this government. Put whomever else you can think of at the head of it, deprive it of her directing rhetoric, and brood then on how utterly different it would be. Her outlook has also transform- ed her party. Think of aspirant Tory MPs under Heath, mostly awful. Mrs Thatcher's aspirants may be mostly awful too, but in an absolutely different way.
It is also suggested that she should leave more of the talking and limelight to her col- leagues and underlings. It would certainly be an advantage if this government looked more like a whole government and less like a one-woman band; continuity in particular would look much more secure. Great men and women may achieve great things: but all may be undone if they have failed to en- sure the succession. This for later: mean- while, it would be sad if that outlook on life which seems to have captured the national imagination were blurred or distorted by the mumblings of men who, loyal or not, may not quite understand or trust or share or approve of it. For once I differ from Mrs Thatcher in favour of the Economist: the issue is her. It is thus in a sense a presidential election, though, if Mrs Thatcher is a good and wise president, the next one will not be.
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