Political Commentary

Reputations and reshuffles

Patrick Cosgrave

Political and ministerial reputations are like electric light bulbs during power strikes. Their filaments glow strongly and fade, often to glow again and fade again over very short periods. When the present Government took office Mr Maudling was undoubtedly its second man. When his handling of the Home Office and, more particularly, of Ulster failed to show the expected sureness of touch, he faded. Mr Barber, after an extremely shaky start at the Treasury, has had a brief glow or two, but seems now to be down in the estimation of most people. Mr Whitelaw, who was always the connoisseur's choice for the succession if the Prime Minister were removed from the scene, figured particularly strongly in the general betting for the first month or so after the Northern Ireland Office was created: he has now faded again, not so much. because he has so far failed to bring peace to Ulster as, because he is felt to be physically tired and preoccupied with his bloody fief to the exclusion of politics in the rest of the United Kingdom. The present second top man is undoubtedly Mr Carr, but it remains to be seen if he is more than a man for a crisis, and if he can settle down to the long slog of running the intractable Home Office.

But I see that I am drifting into the usual trap of considering political reputations only in the context of the question of who might take over at the top should a vacancy occur. The whole business is in fact much more complicated than that. It has to do with assessing the continuing contribution a minister makes to the general running of a government of which he is a member.

For his reputation to be well grounded a minister must be able to do, consistently and together, three different things: he must be able to run his department efficiently and imaginatively; he must be able to present his government's case with conviction to Parliament, the party and the country; and he must make — and be felt to make — a general contribution both to the character and to the strategy of the administration. Given the right circumstances, a man can become Prime Minister without being able to do all of these things, provided he can do at least one of them. But he will not be a truly formidable figure unless he can do them all.

If presenting the Government's case with conviction, if not really convincingly, were the only requirement for formidability, Mr Barber would be the most formidable politician in the country. Not since Mr Wilson was at his peak as Prime Minister has any minister interpreted failure or disaster as triumph with such fervour. Watching him the other day in the Commons was an education. There was no challenge, no criticism, whether well or ill grounded that he did not meet directly with fervent, if implausible, assertions that all was going splendidly, and that the prosperity revolution had actually arrived.

Such bouncy optimism is great for the troops but it does not constitute formidability. It is doubtful how creative or effective a Chancellor Mr Barber really is He had the inestimable advantage of starting with a tax reform programme already prepared and one which, moreover, enjoyed the unstinting personal support of the Prime Minister. But his general views on economic management are excessively orthodox, and one rarely gets the impression that he has thought very deeply about economic philosophy.

As a departmental manager, further, Mr Barber has yet to show himself to be in the class of such less senior figures as Sir Keith Joseph and Mr Peter Walker. Departmental efficiency — any efficiency, anywhere — is Sir Keith's ruling passion and he drives himself unsparingly in its service. But he has yet to develop — if he ever will — the public thrust of Mr Barber and he seems to have laid aside that distinctive philosophy of modern Toryism which was once his major gift to his party and which, developed, might enable him to make that contribution in character and strategy to the Government as a whole which is perhaps the most important of my requirements.

It is a contribution the importance of which Mr Walker certainly understands; but which he seems, despite his efficiency, his drive and his flair for public relations, quite incapable of articulating. That he cannot seem to do so has less, I fancy, to do with the persistent hardness of his image than with some inner hardness and confinement of his character. What has to be emphasised in his favour, however, is that, alone among Mr Heath's senior ministers, he took over a department for the most important work of which — the

attack on pollution — no comprehensive plans had been made in opposition. He took it over, a shapeless jumble of responsibilities, and refashioned it to his liking, enabling it to do its work reasonably well. He is, then, more than an efficient departmental chief: he is a creative one.

We are left with Mr Whitelaw and Mr Carr, and with Lord Carrington. Sir Alec Douglas-Home, of course, meets all my requirements, but it now really does look as if retirement is not too far off. Mr Rippon has yet to find something really challenging to do, but neither his views nor his political demeanour suggest that he will be able to develop true formidability. The trouble with Mr Whitelaw and Mr Carr, however, is that they have yet to show the capacity to administer a major department of state — I exclude Mr Cart's tenure of the Department of Employment because, again, he came there with a brief for his major piece of legislation prepared, and left before that legislation had met its first crisis.

However, if I continue to insist that the broad, general, felt rather than understood, contribution of a minister to a government is the really crucial factor in anY judgement about the validity of his reputation, these three men are surely the major figures in the Heath administration. The difficulty is to understand why their influence has not been more widely dissipated through the Government. IS part this is because Mr Heath's own dour personality is so dominant. In part it is because the burden of legislation has been so great, that it has cramped the development of the Government's collect' ive personality. In part it is — in the case of Mr Whitelaw and Mr Carr — because each man has found himself only in tackling a single major crisis.

But most of all it is because there ha$ been no major reshuffle. Obviously, in the coming clean-out, neither Mr Whitelaw nor

Mr Carr will leave their main poste, though Lord Carrington may well become

Foreign Secretary. The point is not that the Home Secretary or the Northern Ireland Secretary shoutd be moved, but rather that they both find it difficult tn

make a general impact on the Government as a whole, because their colleague'

become daily so much more expert at the work of departments which are becoming home to them, that they are less and lee

concerned with general issues, and 105

and less willing to heed general discussion about the underlying direction of govern'

ment. It is one of Mr Powell's favourite -' and truest — dicta that too man departmental expertise in a minister is n bad thing, and that frequent reshuffles are the only way to keep the blood in government usefully circulating. If SLf Keith Joseph went to the DTI, if S,,n

Geoffrey Howe took his job at the DNS': if Mr Francis Pym became Lord Preside'; if Mr Walker went to the Treasury and Ds:,

Barber to the Foreign Office, if Mr fill91.; Carlisle took over the new Civil Servic` Ministry which must be created soon, aild. Mr John Peyton became Secretary of Ste; for the Environment, then the blood of tl Government would not merely be circuital', ing, it would be flowing freely to all sort' of creative purpose.