2. Prospect for Blackpool By ROY JENKINS, MP N OWADAYS very
few people in the Labour Party seem to like Blackpool. It takes a long time to get there, the sea front is hideous, the hotels are inadequate and it is the one place where the rule that the best week for English weather is at the beginning of October does not appear to apply. Its only advantage is an enor- mous conference hall, and this is apparently dominant. At any rate, the frequency of the trek there becomes ever greater: 1949, 1956, 1959, 1961 . . .
But this year, for the leadership at least, the unattractiveness of the surroundings should be fully compensated for by the splendour of their victories. Mr. Gaitskell, when he witnesses the crushing defeat of Mr. Cousins and the uni- lateralists, is unlikely to feel much nostalgia for the urbanity of Scarborough. He may wonder, nevertheless, exactly how far he has gone to repair the damage, not merely of Scarborough, but of the previous visit to Blackpool in 1959, which was when the trouble started and when the party showed how slow it was to be to learn the lessons of the last general election.
Certainly the Labour Party is likely to emerge from Blackpool looking in better elec- toral shape than at any time in the past two years. In large part, of course, this is a func- tion of the incompetence and current unpopu- larity of the Government. Both Mr. Selwyn Lloyd's measures and the Prime Minister's com- ments upon the international situation have been free gifts to the Opposition. And, more signifi- cantly, there is some evidence of a deep and perhaps long-term estrangement between the Conservatives and important sections of the less prosperous classes. The consciences of some of them have been offended by the British attitude to Angola and to the United Nations, and by what is regarded as the general flippancy of the Prime Minister; and the pockets' of many of them have been hit by Mr. Lloyd and Sir David Eccles. If this group were really to move over to the Left it would do a great deal to re- create the traditional basis of radical majorities in this country and to correct the political im- balance which has produced the steadily mount- ing Conservative preponderance of the past decade.
The Labour Party is temporarily helped both by the ineptitude of the Government and by the lack of momentum of the Liberals. And it is obviously not damaging itself as it was a year ago. But how far will it be able, at Blackpool, positively to help itself, and to improve its appeal, not merely above the nadir of 1960, but above the higher but inadequate level which prevailed up to the 1959 election? Part of the danger here may be over-confidence. If a general election were to be held next week the indica- tions are that the Labour Party could just win. But this is incomparably different from saying that it is certain, or even likely, to win when the election eventually comes. .
The Government's hold both on popularity and on power is undoubtedly feeble today. But is it any feebler than at the time of Mr. Butler's autumn Budget of 1955, or when Mr. Macmillan became Prime Minister in January, 1957, or in March, 1958, when the Gallup Poll showing of the Conservatives was twelve points behind Labour, as against four points today? It may be that these reminders of the past suggest too dismal a conclusion. The sheer repetitiveness of the Government's economic mistakes may mean that public disenchantment proves More per- manent than on previous occasions; and it may be that the country's need of a shake-up, which is more clearly urgent now than it was in the late Fifties, will be reflected in the electorate's unwillingness to vote once again for the same Government. It may be, too, that Mr. Mac- millan will be unable to time the next election quite so' well as he did the last one. But it would be extremely unwise for the Labour Party to count upon these things and to believe that, the defence obstacle having been overcome, the winning post is now so near that all that is necessary is to hold one's breath until it is past.
Yet there will be considerable pressure upon Mr. Gaitskell to pursue just such a course, to heave a great sigh of relief at the party's deliver- ance from unilateralism and to attempt no fresh hazards On no account, it will be suggested, should anything be done that will offend any part of the coalition of forces which has secured the multilateralist victory. Mr. Gaitskell will have gained great new power within the pat ty, but he must be very careful not to use it.
This cautious advice is the best recipe for en- suring that the high hopes of 1961 prove as illusory as those of 1957 and 1958. If the Labour Party is to sustain its lead over the Conserva- tives in relatively good as well as bad times it still needs a good deal of modernisation. This applies as much to its structure and organisation as to anything else. Transport House—for a variety of reasons, most of them not its owl fault—has become a caricature of what an efficient party headquarters should be. But it applies also to policy presentation. Signposts lor the Sixties is on the whole a very good and sensible statement. It is probably the best home policy document that the party has published since the end of the war. But its influence will turn largely on the way in which it is presented. 1f it is put forward as another blow in the rather sterile economic controversies of the past ten years, with the assumption that all that is wrong with the country is that the controls of 1949 have been dismantled, it will not cut very much new ice. But it is not remotely necessary that it should be presented in this dismal, back ward- looking way.
The other major hazard of Blackpool is the Common Market. The newspapers are now full of suggestions that the Labour Party is harden- ing against it, and rumours that Mr. Crossman or Mr. Wilson, or even Mr. Healey or Mr. Jay, sees possibilities of swinging the party into full- scale opposition and fighting a general election on the issue. This would be a most foolish and dangerous course.
It is understandable that the Labour Pai ty leadership, having unfortunately failed to tido% a firm pro-Europe line two or three years ago when the Government believed that the Treaty of Stockholm was a substitute for a European policy, should not now rush in to underwrite Mr. Macmillan's decision to negotiate. A sitting- on-the-fence attitude is at this stage understand- able, if hardly inspiring. But for the leadershill suddenly to climb down the wrong side of the fence would be an entirely different matter. It would mean cutting the Labour Party off from all its natural support in the press—to fight 3 general election opposed by the Daily Mirror, the Daily Herald, the Observer and the Guar- dian and supported only by the Daily Expresv and Tribune might be a joke, but surely a rather, bad one. It would alienate much young support in the country. And it would deeply split the Gaitskellite wing of the party. But worse than anything else it would set the Labour Party on art isolationist, restrictionist, backward-looking course from which it could not escape for manY years. If this were to happen, Mr. Grimond might do even better after Blackpool than he did after Scarborough.
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