POLITICAL COMMENTARY
The Conservatism of Mr. Wilson
By ALAN WATKINS
Some months ago—in June to be exact—the word `MacWilsonism' was coined in these columns. It was pointed out then that Mr. Harold Wilson's style of leadership closely resembled (indeed, was modelled upon) that of Mr. Harold Macmillan. Nothing that has happened in the meantime has given me reason to doubt this judgment; on the contrary, Mr. Wilson has seemed more and more to take Mr. Macmillan as his political paradigm. Where is that Gannex mackintosh we used to know and love so well? Doubtless it has been consigned to the Boy Scouts' jumble sale. Then again, the hair has grown longer and more silvery, the sentences have be- come more measured and the pin-stripe trousers have been donned more often. So much is by now familiar enough. What is less familiar, and what is worth exploring in greater detail, is the effect which Mr. Wilson's premiership is having upon the Labour party as a political movement.
One version—and it is a version supported by some revisionist ministers—is that Mr. Wilson has done everything Hugh Gaitskell would have liked to do, and more. He has, so the argument runs, succeeded in jettisoning the old socialist cargo. He has dropped steel nationalisation. He has brought the Labour party closer to the Liberals. Moreover, he has done all this without splitting the party—mainly owing to Labour's small majority. It is an attractive thesis. It is also, I believe, a misleading one. For it implies that Mr. Wilsoff, like Gaitskell, has some idea of where he is going, and why. It implies (to use one of Mr. Wilson's own patented phrases) a sense of purpose. Yet it is precisely a sense of purpose— an intention to change society in various more or less defined ways—that has so far been lacking in Mr. Wilson's premiership. His entire energies have been directed towards staying in power.
This attitude (one hears it said on the left time and again) is a refreshing change. How nice to have a Labour politician who is actually inter- ested in power! How pleasant to have a Prime Minister who understands this wicked world! How different from Gaitskell or for that matter from Aneurin Bevan! Of course, come the elec- tion, and an increased Labour majority, and things will alter. Mr. Wilson will then change back again into his old self, whatever that might have been. He will stride forward to build the new socialist commonwealth. So the story goes. And yet one has one's doubts. Once taken up, positions are difficult to discard. Attitudes become institu- tionalised. In this respect small majorities are like war: changes that were thought to be tem- porary turn out to be permanent, like the pre- fabs, In the past year Mr. Wilson may have transformed the Labour party not so much into a radical social-democratic party as into a party which is interested in power for its own sake. He may have transformed it, in other words, into a Party which is for all practical purposes conservative.
This transformation is perfectly in tune with Mr. Wilson's own character, which is a pro- foundly cautious and conservative one. There have been several examples of this, and the first concerns the civil service. Go back to his articles and speeches in the period prior to the election, and you will find the clearest promises that when the Labour Government takes office the civil service will become a more efficient instrument
for translating into action the will of the people. But what in fact has happened? The civil service, as a collective institution, is as powerful as it has • ever been, if not more so. It is true that some ministers, notably Mr. Richard Crossman, have succeeded in imposing themselves on their de- partments : but these are in a minority. Sir Frank Soskice is the creature of his officials; so is Mr. Michael Stewart; so, above all, is Mr. James Callaghan. And so, to a certain extent—does this surprise you?—is Mr. Wilson. He leans heavily upon the Secretary of the Cabinet, Sir Burke Trend. 'Prime Minister,' says Sir Burke res- pectfully, 'I think you might do such-and-such'; and the Prime Minister promply goes off and does it. Nor is this really very surprising. Mr. Wilson is himself an ex-civil servant. He knows the ranks. He understands the rules. He appreci- ates what one can properly say to. whom. He has a profound sense, learnt from experience, of civil service hierarchy. He would not dream of seriously annoying the permanent officials, whether in the Cabinet Office, the Home Office or elsewhere. Such an attitude may make the wheels of government turn more smoothly : but it is hardly likely to bring about the socialist millennium.
Again, there is Mr. Wilson's relationship with his own Cabinet. Certainly he is popular with his ministers. Unlike Sir Anthony Eden, for example, he does not telephone them half-way through the morning to find out whether they are hard at it. He lets them get on with the job in their own way and in their own time; no hard taskmaster he. This, admittedly, is a very good reason why he should be liked by his ministers. But there is another, possibly less creditable, reason : Mr. Wilson is highly reluctant to sack anybody. Full employment for ministers—that is his slogan, and a very comforting slogan it is too. Perhaps one should not be too severe on Mr. Wilson on account of his disinclination to dismiss anybody. It is always easy to demand that someone else get the sack. Indeed Mr. Wilson, far from being the ruthless, calculating politician of popular mytho- logy, is in fact a remarkably kind-hearted man. He hates being nasty to people. (We may assume, incidentally, that when Mr. Wilson recently called together the chairmen of the power industries— `Power Chiefs on the Carpet'—the rebuke was delivered more for the benefit of the newspapers than for the good of the power supplies. 'Gentle- men, I have my public to think of (one can imagine Mr. Wilson saying), 'just as you have your own problems, so please consider yourselves rebuked. Here, by the way, is what 'I intend to say to the press.'
Nor is it only a matter of Mr. Wilson's re- luctance to change his Cabinet. His conservatism emerges also in the excessive number of Cabinet ministers, and in their functions. And here we may observe one illustration of Mr. Wilson being more conservative than his conservative predeces- sors. Both Mr. Macmillan and Sir Alec Douglas- Home, it will be recalled, appointed Cabinet ministers who were responsible for government publicity: Mr. Wilson loftily denounced these appointments as an innovation on the constitution and an abuse of public office. When he became Prime Minister, however, he found himself in 'a difficulty: he needed a minister to take charge of publicity, but could not very well appoint one.
Eventually Mr. George Wigg found himself with an additional shadowy role. But Mr. Wigg did not prove entirely satisfactory to Mr. Wilson, and the story was put out that Mr. Crossman would shortly be taking over. Alas, Mr. Crossman re- fused to accept the job; he told the Prime Minister that he had quite enough to do at the Ministry of Housing; and the present situation seems to be that there is no minister, apart from Mr. Wilson himself, who is in charge of government publicity.
In addition to Mr. Wilson's attitude towards his civil servants and his Cabinet, we may note his position on both law and parliamentary reform.
(I exclude Home Office, libertarian questions. Mr. Wilson has never been particularly interested in them, so it is unfair to blame him for his lack of interest now.) As far as law reform is con- cerned, Lord Gardiner has proved a considerable disappointment. He looks pretty enough in his full-bottomed wig, but he has not actually done very much, and Mr. Wilson does not appear un- duly exercised. On parliamentary reform the position is rather more serious for Mr. Wilson. A number of ministers make no secret of their dismay at Mr. Herbert Bowden's reactionary . speech in which he dismissed any propect of re- form. It is too much to say that Mr. Wilson has a split on his hands: nevertheless, no-one should underestimate the strength of the feeling against the Bowden-Wilson line on Parliament.
All these examples may not perhaps be so immediately striking as Mr. Wilson's conservatism on sterling, the economy and the Anglo-American alliance. However, they may be truer indications of his essentially conservative cast of mind. This cast of mind is admirably suited to a government with a majority of two or three. Is it so suited to a government with a majority of twenty or thirty? What, in short, will the Labour party stand for if and when that happy time arrives?
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