Mr Wilson's Voyage to Laputa
POLITICAL COMMENTARY
By ALAN WATKINS
TN a recent speech Mr Enoch Powell, who has 'been at the top of his form lately, compared the present state of affairs to that prevailing on the island of Laputa when Gulliver arrived there. Mr Harold Wilson, similarly, is not averse to call- ing Swift in aid from time to time; though I suspect that the only quotation he knows is the one about making two blades of grass grow where only one grew before. He produced this at Scar- borough in 1963 and at Blackpool a month ago. And, who knows? he may produce it yet again at Brighton next week. It is doubtful, however, whether we shall hear anything about Laputa. The comparisons are altogether too apt. We read, for instance, of the colleges where 'the professors contrive new rules and methods of agriculture and building. and new instruments and tools, for all trades and manu- factures; whereby, as they undertake, one man shall do all the work of ten.' Clearly the Dean is here referring to the recent national productivity conference or conceivably to the Department of Economic Affairs. The reference becomes even clearer when a sentence later he goes on to point out that 'the only inconvenience is, that none of these projects are yet brought to perfection; and in the meantime, the whole country lies miserably waste, the houses in ruins, and the people'—an apparent reference, this, to the unemployed of the Midlands—`without food or clothes.'
Nor is this all. Turn over the pages and you come to a description of a man who was 'of a meagre aspect, with sooty hands and face, his hair and beard long, ragged and singed in several places. His clothes, shirt, and skin were all of the same colour. He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sun-beams out of cucum- bers.' Obviously this is a representative specimen of young Mr Richard Marsh's fuel technologists. A few pages later there is an account of one of Mr Anthony Wedgwood Benn's computers : 'It was twenty feet square, placed in the middle of the room . . . composed of several bits of wood . . . all linked together by slender wires.' Accord- ing to Mr Benn (for Swift can have had no one else in mind) the computer would 'give the world a complete body of all arts and sciences; which however might be still improved, and much expedited'—here we come to the inevitable and familiar appeal for cash—if the public would raise a fund for making and employing five hue- dred such frames.'
Again, we read of 'a scheme for entirely abolishing all words whatsoever,' which must surely originate in those of Mr Ray Gunter's col- leagues who are weary of his sermonising. Even Colonel George Wigg is not forgotten. For it was manifestly he who showed Gulliver 'a large paper of instructions, for discovering plots and conspiracies against the government. He advised great statesmen to examine into the diet of all suspected persons'—a clear reference to the Colonel's well-known interest in who had lunch- eon with whom and at which restaurant.
Next week at Brighton Mr Wilson, like the laputans, must unfold some great scheme for the future. It will not be enough alternately to bore and to bamboozle the audience as he did at the TUC. Nor will it be enough merely to appeal to the Dunkirk spirit and to say that the way ahead will be tough—though no doubt Mr Wilson will do his share of this. The Prime Minister will have to try to give the delegates some hope for the future. And there is some ground for believing that his thoughts have indeed been moving along these lines.
Certainly a good deal of time and energy are being expended on the question of how best to present the Government's economic policy to the conference. On Sunday evening Mr Richard Crossman is to sound his current clarion-call- something about being forced to be free, isn't it? —at the Dome. (In passing, a feature of our major party conferences which never ceases to astonish me is the way in which delegates are not satisfied simply to attend the conference sessions as such. They must be provided also with rallies, demonstrations, tea-meetings, religious services, official receptions, dinners, dances and other novelties. Afterwards, in the evening, they go and watch themselves on television.) Then, early in the conference, Mr Wilson is to move that sec- tion of the executive's report which deals with the activities of the parliamentary party.
The economic debate is to be opened by Mr James Callaghan and closed by Mr Wilson. And during this debate the conference will have before it a statement by the National Executive Com- mittee on the Government's economic policy. Here, perhaps, a word of explanation may not be out of place. From time to time the Labour party's executive takes it upon itself to issue statements on this or that subject. The vintage period was probably that of the nuclear con- troversy. What these statements say is not of great consequence. Hardly anyone bothers to read them apart from American academics, who believe every word. What is interesting about these documents is not their general drift, which is frequently nonsensical, but the quibbles and qualifications they contain. These minutiae have almost invariably been the subject of acrimoni- ous, often violent, debate on the executive.
About a month ago the policy sub-committee of the executive decided to have a statement on economic policy, and the task of preparing it was entrusted to the head of the Research Department at Transport House, Mr Terry Pitt (not, be it noted, to Mr Peter Shore, who one might be for- given for thinking wrote everything these days). Earlier this week Mr Pitt was beginning the first draft of his two thousand-odd words. Not that he was working completely unaided. On the con- trary, the Treasury was taking a close interest in what he was going to say. This, incidentally, is a good illustration of the difficulty of keeping the Government completely separate from the Government party—a distinction on which Mr Wilson used to adopt a very exalted moral tone in his Opposition days. Be this as it may, the draft will be considered by the executive on Friday. After discusiion, it will possibly be amended by the two specialists, Mr Crosman and Mr Tom Driberg (who is a great lad for the semi-colons). If amended, it will be considered again on Sun- day. There does not seem any reason to expect substantial trouble from the executive. Its heroic days—those days when Dr Edith Summerskill's hat would quiver with moral outrage—are long past. Still, one can never tell.
But at this stage we should notice that Mr Wilson's schemes for pre-conference preparation have not turned out precisely as he expected, even though the industrial correspondents in Wednes: day's papers gave of their loyal best. This was intended to be national productivity week.
Spokesmen told one in confidential tones that `the PM attaches a great deal of importance' to the high-powered (the phrase, I may be permitted to add, is not mine) conference which took place earlier this week. Unhappily, however, the pro- ductivity conference coincided with the news of the strike and the mass dismissals at BMC. What is more, it was made painfully apparent that the Government did not have the faintest idea of what to do with the displaced workers. Mr Wilson will certainly have to think up an answer before next week : there is no reason to believe that his resources will be unequal to the task.
The other cloud hanging over the con- ference is not one that has blown up suddenly, but one that has been there all along, or at least since Parliament rose for the recess. It is Part IV of the Prices and Incomes Act. In the past few days I have made a dis- covery which, when you come to think of it, is not altogether surprising: very few people have actually taken the trouble to read Part IV. It is not, after all, a particularly gay read. It does nevertheless contain some curious and occasion- ally contradictory points. I will confine myself to one of them.
One of the most widely held misconceptions about the Act is that when and if Part IV is brought into operation by Order in Council, any subsequent price or wage increase is automatic- ally illegal. Not so. The illegality does not attach to all increases. It attaches only to those increases which have been specifically prohibited by Mr Michael Stewart as Secretary of State for Econo- mic Affairs. Such a prohibition must be put in the form of a ministerial order—a second-stage order, if you like—which has the status of a statutory instrument and can therefore be annulled by either House of Parliament. (Is there an oppor- tunity here for Lord Dilhorne and the primeval peers to distinguish themselves?) Subject to a slightly more complicated procedure, which allows for representations to be made, Mr Stewart can also order a price or wage to be restored to its level of July 20. But the important point to note is that the illegality arises only after a specific ministerial order has been made.
In other words, even if Part IV is activated, it is still in order to raise prices or wages until Mr Stewart cracks down in one's own particular case. He will find it difficult to crack down on every- body, a point which, we may be sure, has not escaped the sharp eye of Mr Clive Jenkins. Clearly some explaining by the Government remains to be done, whether at Brighton or else- where. As it stands, Part IV is not unworthy of the island of Laputa.
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