Political Commentary
The Tories' crisis of will
Patrick Cosgrave
Every Tory heart must have been riven over the last fortnight, and for three reasons, each one of which reflects a Tory reaction, not simply to a political situation, but to a fundamental tenet of Toryism. The Tory Party believes itself to be a party of office. In the fortnight its leaders seemed to have had but a tenuous grasp thereon, and an even more tenuous idea of how to hold on to it. The Tory Party believes itself to be the repository of the national interest. In the fortnight its leaders seemed uncertain where that interest lay, whether in a three-day week or in a four-day week — or possibly, late in the day, in a five-day week. The Tory Party believes itself to be efficient. In the fortnight its leaders, if nothing else, showed themselves to be manifestly incompetent — never more so than in the divided cabinet of Thursday — at the business of politics.
In all three areas nobody seemed able to take a grip: from Wednesday it was again and again advanced to me that there had to be an election, because the momentum of events could not be denied its will. It was not, by then, seriously suggested that this was a propitious moment for the Tories to seek a renewal of office through an election; nor that it was in the national interest to have one; nor that the presentation and orchestration of hints, ambiguities and silences was efficient — merely that speculation had got out of control, and no man could arrest or control its progress.
Now, it is hard to blame any man for this, save one, and that the Prime Minister. "To govern," Churchill once said, "is to choose," and Mr Heath palpably found it impossible to. choose. At two separate sessions of Prime Minister's questions his silence on the subject of an election was not that of control, nor testing ambiguity, but of uncertainty of mind. But the most devastating indictment of his conduct was the fact that, over the period between the moment at which the general election fever began to break out, and the moment at which silence too prolonged at last dispelled it, the morale of the Labour Party rose markedly. Since the defeat of the Labour government in 1970 there had been no moment, until Wednesday night, when so many Labour backbenchers felt the likelihood, or even the possibility, of victory. It would be churlish to deny some at least of the credit for this revival to the oft-derided leader of the Labour Party. On Wednesday Mr Wilson's eye was keen: he looked fitter than he had done since 1966, and demonstrated as great an appetite as then for his job. Indeed, on Thursday, he scored his most indisputable victory over Mr Heath at question time since he was himself Prime Minister.
A turning point always arrives at the moment when one party gets the other on the defensive. That defensive is not always immediately apparent to the public: in 1970 Mr Heath had Mr Wilson personally on the defensive, both on prices and on the balance of payments, long before the public realised it. But the anxious sessions of the Wilson staff, created by the aggression of Mr Heath, quickly percolated through to the public, as Mr Wilson showed more and more public anxiety, and devoted more and more time to defending himself. It was then that Mr Heath had genuinely gone on the offensive. Of the present situation considered in analogy to that of 1970 it must be said that by Thursday afternoon Mr Heath was in no shape whatsoever, physical or mental, to face the strains of an election campaign.
But, to go back a little, that was no fault of his ministers. Mr Whitelaw, clearly, still has a lot to master about the industrial relations situation. That is hardly surprising: he was hauled back by Mr Heath from a job that combined exceptional pressure with a necessary detachment from the details of Westminster politics. If that was a wise decision, it was one which nonetheless had to allow a good deal of time for him to play himself in. Hardly surprising, then, that. Mr Whitelaw was against an election, feeling he had yet to come to grips with things. Lord Carrington was, likewise, a new boy, and one ill-served, during his first crisis, by the egregious posturings of Mr Patrick Jenkin. His special gift — one cultivated to a remarkable degree — is for a blend of open-mindedness and toughness. But, without knowledge of his new job, he, of course, made blunders. His open-mindedness was shown in his admission of the fact that he was still learning; his toughness in the lead he gave to those Tories seeking an election, as though he himself sought a new mandate for a new job. At Cabinet on Thursday morning a battle took place for the mind of Mr Heath, and the Whitelaw faction won. But that is not the sort of battle that happens in a strong government. The Prime Minister, Sir Herbert Butterfield once remarked, must be the presiding mind of his cabinet: if he is not that, he is nothing. Mr Heath's Cabinet dispersed without any clue to what he thought it was best to do.
Yet, superficially, Mr Heath, even in the last few weeks, has seemed to show plenty of aggression. But it is a petulant, unsubtle aggression. It is aggression of the kind shown by Mr Walker, in one of his replies to Mr Benn during the latter's campaign to demonstrate that the national crisis proclaimed by the Government was not really a crisis. Mr Walker told Mr Benn that he had never seemed so absurd, seeking thus to capitalise on a general feeling among the cognoscenti that Mr Benn is something of a wild-eyed twit. Whatever the general soundness or otherwise of such feelings no objective commentator.could deny, first, that Mr Benn was brilliantly suc
cessful and, second, that the current accident' proneness of the Government greatly helped him: as soon as he challenged the proposition that the emergency three-day week was not really necessary, and as soon as Mr Walker rebuked him in the terms above described, Lord Carrington said he was thinking about a four, and possibly even a five-day week. Now, political aggression is not, as Mr Heath and Mr Walker too often seem to think it is. a matter of slapping the enemy down as bok tally as you can manage: it is a subtle matter of sensing your enemy's strength while Y01.1 pinpoint his weakness. Mr Heath and NIL Walker think everybody who disagrees WIt them unworthy of any kind of respect: that P their weakness. I have so far discussed this situation alinos,/ entirely in terms of Mr Heath and, indeed, I' centres around him. This government 0.5, been through many crises, but it was not untl' this one, and not, specifically, until Wednes" day night, that there was a crisis about th.e Prime Minister, and one openly about 1115, capacity. It was striking that Mr Whitela° and his allies were trying to scare Conserve. tive MPs on Wednesday with the proposittell that an election defeat would mean th! replacement of Mr Heath by Mr Powell. Tfl'st was genuinely a scare argument, for I do n° see any member of the present cabinet say,e Mr Heath himself who would not be willing /'t work with Mr Powell if the crunch came. 13t/ the talk, the feelings that came to the surfat the open discussion, however tactical, for to' first time that Mr Heath might be replaced all these were significant. Shifting blame from the Prime Minister(i however, is made easier by a general anv fashionable feeling that this is not a vern' gifted government. On the contrary, it is rna„ for man far more able than the Oppositte.''s front bench. There are very few duds in government, and Sir Alec Douglas-Home, Whitelaw, Lord Carrington, Lore, ,Windlesham, Sir Keith Joseph, Mrs Thatche Mr Barber, Mr Gilmour, Mr Carr, Sir GeoffrelYd Howe — all these, rightly deployed, ve°,,.?he lend distinction to any administration. J"
problem is the lack of guidance. • It
But, if all these people are so able, how t9 that the present situation has come abnuto There are, I think, two answers. The first tsme be found in the peculiar chemistry of L'is Heath's relationship with his party and 01, cabinet. He was chosen as leader in vAeroi unusual circumstances. He was a new kin.--4 leader, and loyalty dictated that he be gnr`.',6 more than an ordinarily long run 'le, experimental conditions. He won an urifi15 pected and famous victory, and this, unusualness, gave him more than ordin% authority. It was as though his unusualtletre mesmerised his colleagues: until recentlY, it was treated in Cabinet with awe, even Iff 3 was the awe reserved for a creature
different kind from oneself, who possesseniy
exceptional authority. All that is raPlio. I breaking down. Secondly, more single-ell,,re dedly than any other politician, andwith ' sacrifice than is imaginable of a natua's impulsive and outgoing nature, Mr Heath "et. / sought power. He has denied himself, c,°it. tamed himself, disciplined himself, to ge'the ; He got it, and things went wrong frorn beginning. Thrown again and again intc/waS balance his will, only rarely successfu the e enfeebled. Now it is dawning on him tlia' iS power he sought does not, perhaps, exist, not accessible to him. He begins to Insein f st sense of proportion, testing the will ag°'II London traffic conditions and the econonlY equal proportions. As the failures grow, the will an" is 4 judgement alike weaken. But the spectac'enh, not such as to excite either hatred ,or ccfo-rt tempt. Mr Heath's vision was grand; his id towards it magnificent. As judgement anc f the decline, the appropriate emotion is that 0n..,"pity associated with the spectacle of i ing tragedy.
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