Another voice
Dropping the sailor
Auberon Waugh
Few things in last week's news were as depressing as the Daily Mail's National Opinion Poll finding that 71 per cent of those who watched Mr Heath's performance at the Brighton conference were favourably impressed by him. Vulgarians will use this discovery to point out yet again how the nation's opinionformers are out of touch with public opinion; and the suggestion will be that these opinion-formers, media men, trendsetters, should change their opinions or lose their jobs. It is a continuation of Mr Larry Lamb's argument for the excellence of his mi'serable newspaper — four million readers can't be wrong — that the majority must always be right. Only those writing for such minority magazines as the Spectator, whose entire readership would scarcely fill a corner of Wembley Stadium, can point to these NOP findings as further evidence (with the success of the Sun) of the abysmal and growing stupidity of the British public.
It is not my intention to join the great debate about whether incomes policy or monetary discipline has the better chance of working; merely to affirm what is plain to all but the least reflective, that neither has the slightest chance. Monetary controls won't work because any government, faced with the consequences of them, will chicken out, just as Mr Heath chickened out after the Rolls-Royce collapse. Wages policy won't work because no Conservative government will be able to negotiate one with the unions (or at any rate while remaining in any way distinguishable from a Labour government) even if the unions were able to deliver the goods.
The reason why the nation is faced by two patently dud prospectuses is also clear to anyone who has studied recent history. Ever since Wilson's withdrawal of In Place of Strife in 1969 and Heath's defeat in the first election of 1974 it has been obvious that the existing political system in England was incompetent to stop its rapid economic decline; and is only kept going now by North Sea oil. Even allowing for the abiding good sense of the British people — timidity, intellectual torpor, call it what you will — the system can't have very long left to run. Some arrangement like the Gaullist constitution of November 1958 might still save us, but I fear we will leave it too late and get something rather nastier.
So much for prophecy. Our politicians have their eyes resolutely fixed on the cream buns in front of them and very properly regard criticism of the bun-shop as tasteless, not to say treasonable. At least the voters should be able to see that the issue does not concern policies at all. Any apparent preference for wages policy over the free market way out of our difficulties may seem to reflect this abiding -good sense or cowardice, but in fact it reflects only our stupidity, as neither choice is available.
There are, of course, many good reasons for wanting a Conservative victory. The Conservatives might reduce our taxes and even stop a few of the horrible things going on in education, stamp design, local government, the health service. Never mind that economic salvation is not among these prospective benefits. To the extent that Edward Heath and Peter Walker are still members of the Conservative Party they have always been an embarrassment, reminding us of those terrible years 1970-1974 — Walker's reorganisation of the county boundaries, Health's insane passion for a Channel tunnel, a new airport at Stansted, his boorish petulance whenever crossed, his paroxysms of conceit whenever proved right. The dispute between Mr Heath and Mrs Thatcher has nothing whatever to do with political convictions; as I say, Mr Heath has already proved that he is prepared to try either hat, changing from one to the other in the twinkling of an eye and equally prone to fall flat on his face in either. But so far as politics is the choice of personalities — to whom shall we award the cream buns this year? — Mr Heath's personality is known to be disastrous while Mrs Thatcher's has still to establish its calamity-rating. One sometimes wondered whether he was a genuine person at all. In many respects he seems a personification of the power urge at its most inhuman, its most naked and its most odious. Desperate attempts by the Conservative Party to project him as a human being like the rest of us — his music, his sailing, his swimming — only had the opposite effect. What, then, is the secret of his new success?
Of course nobody supposes he would be anything but disastrous as Conservative leader. Nobody has forgotten how odious, conceited and rude he was as Prime Minister. Nobody is in the least bit interested in his ridiculous policies, which are already being tried by Mr Callaghan and already failing even as he advocates them. It is true that we are all nervous of any alternative policy, and we are certainly right to be sceptical, but none of this explains Mr Heath's success. It is not even that the Thatcherites have been able to explain what they mean by free and responsible collective bargaining or how it will work. The first secret of his success is guilt. We look at this forlorn, hopelessly unattractive man, and feel guilty that we have had to treat him so cruelly. This reaction ensures him a sympathetic hearing. The second secret of his success is the deference of the British people to a former Prime Minister (even if a disastrous one) who is also a television personality and demon signer of books. The third secret is that he has or at least acquired the great gift of politics, which is to deal only in clichés: 'to unleash, at this time, a new wages explosion would be an act of madness'.
The only effect of this rhetoric will be to discredit Mrs Thatcher and make a Conservative victory less likely. This may be what he wants, despite his protestations to the contrary, or it may not, ,but this point is not important. In his most recent posture, Mr Heath has moved from being an embarrassment to being a menace, and Conservatives should think long and hard about how best he can be neutralised. It goes without saying that they would eschew any Bulgarian or Liberal solution, although the idea of a poisoned cream bun does have a certain whimsical appeal. But I have two suggestions to make. In the first place, it occurs to me that if members of the Shadow Cabinet were to pool their recollections of the Heath administration — the fits of temper, the froideurs, all the petty dramas of the time — and entrust them (unattributably, of course) to a competent scribe, they might make quite. an amusing volume which would serialise very well in one or other of the popular newspapers. I would volunteer for the job myself except that I am already committed to a book about Jeremy Thorpe.
In the second place, Tories must be encouraged to close their ranks. First, Sir Keith Joseph should make a provocative speech, without naming Heath, pointing out the errors of Labour incomes policy, how it isn't working and can't work. Lobby hacks should be briefed that this is a gauntlet thrown down to Heath. Whether he responds or not, the press can then take up the Great Debate, at the height of which Mrs Thatcher should write an open letter to Ted pointing out why she thinks Labour's policy mistaken, regretting that he cannot accept the Tory alternative and asking hinl to give a public undertaking to toe the line in future or to resign the whip. If he refused to do either, the whip should be withdrawn, again with many expressions of regret, and hopes that he will apply for it again if ever he changes his mind.
There is no precedent for this in Tory tradition but then there is no precedent for Mr Heath's behaviour as a former leader, either. As I pointed out at the time, he was always a great mistake.
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