l'olit:cal Commentary
The New World of Mr. Wilson
By DAVID WATT
courageous dispute it must all have seemed very familiar. There on the Scarborough seashore play the children of the eminent; there by the Spa stride Mr. Crossman and Colonel Wigg, their heads as close together as ever; that squat majestic figure is Mrs. Braddock hurrying in seagch of opponents; and that gleaming expanse of atarched collar encloses the neck of Mr. Anthony Greenwood, displaying to the admiring pop.ulace what the well-dressed Christian Socialist is wearing this year.
Yet it has become a commonplace during the ,at week to assert that the Labour Party has changed completely and that the tired old features have been transformed beyond recog- nition. In a way it is true. Discipline, loyalty and discretion are not the qualities which leap at once to the mind when the Labour Conference is mentioned, and yet here in Scarborough they have sprouted at every street corner.
But how far beneath the surface have these changes reached? How permanent is it all? Three obvious factors determine the present changes in the party. One is the imminence of a general election, another is the legacy of Hugh Gaitskell, the third is the personality of Harold Wilson. Of these, the first is entirely transient; the second can be rapidly squandered, and only the last can be expected to remain. It is therefore as well, before reaching conclusions about the future, to be quite clear about which changes can be attri- buted to what.
The eclipse of the left at Scarborough, perhaps the most striking feature of the conference, is almost certainly due to a desire on the part of the vast majority of delegates not to rock the boat at this moment. It has apparently sunk into even the mot rock-like heads that the great British public is still frightened of doctrinaire socialism and that old slogans and disputes will lose votes. The results could be seen from the very beginning when that dangerous rightist, Willy Brandt, came to address the eve-of-conference rally. His remarks about the 'backward, colonialist East-German regime,' the undesirability of a power vacuum in Central Europe, and the need to believe in West German democracY might have been expected to leave Mr. Ian MikardO frothing with rage on the platform while his. friends in the pit reached for their rotten eggs. In the event, a faint, sad smile flickered across Mr. Mikardo's iron features and not a murmur of dissent was heard from the hall. It was the same on the first morning when three men in CND badges who wanted (not unreasonably in view of MLF and so on) to debate foreign affairs and defence were squashed with the utmost brutality by the plat- form on the strange grounds that there was nothing new to say—a course Which was obviously .highly satisfactory to the rest of the meeting. Then there were those normally favourite resolutions about the nationalisation of the building industry and land, and the take- over of private schools which were now either appeals from the leadership. It was the product of a primeval instinct for self-preservation. It would be absurd to believe that this aspect of unity will last for ever. The extremist doctrinaires sitting sullenly on their hands through the later stages of the conference will no doubt emerge from their holes after the election. Nor have we heard the last by any means of Mr. Michael Foot, who was to be seen throughout the week wearing a look of acute inscrutability.
The second element in the situation, Hugh Gaitskell apart, is far more difficult to weigh—it has, one feels, been rather over-valued. It is becoming an established tradition that he unified the party at Brighton last year and that Labour is still living on the result. I doubt whether, in fact, this unity could survive Gaitskell himself; it could -not be bequeathed. Nevertheless, a certain moral authority still lingers over the leadership as a result of his tenure, and a faint hush still falls over an argument if the name of Gaitskell is mentioned, as if squalid contro- versy were unworthy of his memory.
There remains the problem of Wilson himself.
believe that the Scarborough conference has displayed his personal achievement so far as being remarkable in its way but still limited. It has shown the resourceful Party leader—a big step forward—but it has not yet shown the future Prime Minister. Certainly no one could dispute his tactical mastery, particularly in the presenta- tion of himself. Mr. Brown said in his grand reconciliation speech that 'this is not a one man show' (and it is clear that he at any rate has no wish for it to become one). But Mr. Wilson has observed, quite rightly, that in some ways it must be; for the election is likely to be played out for rro the benign shade of Hugh Gaitskell watch- withdrawn or heavily defeated. All this was ing, one hopes, over the scene of his most accomplished without any noticeable 'fixing' or the great televiewing public as a hand-to-hand duel between himself and the Prime Minister (whoever he may be). He must already make his mark. The cult of personality can also be justi- fied by the urgent need to extend his present dominance of the party in the House of Commons to constituency workers and to the trade unions. By careful planning he has ensured that he has personally made the main headlines every day since the appearance of the Denning Report; by very assiduous and unusually genial appearances round Scarborough he has softened some of the distrust of his original opponents.
Mr. Wilson's other achievement has been to make the party extravert. This is partly a question of harrying the Conservative Party in the manner of a medifeval king distracting the attention of his wicked barons by foreign war. But it is also the business of getting the participation and therefore involvement of all sections. of the party. As policy statement followed policy statement it needed very little inquiry to realise how wide the net had been spread to catch helpers and advisers. If, as even some of his old Gaitskellite critics are beginning to think, this turns out to be Mr. Wilson's most distinctive flair, it will be a vital factor in making the present revival permanent.
The doubts begin when one looks beyond the next election. Mr. Wilson's speech on the new age of science was brilliantly delivered and completely adequate to the occasion. The image it projects may even, as many of his supporters believe, be an election winner. But some of the more intel- lectual members of the party are already beginning to ask whether it wasn't unnecessarily vague and superficial.
The same applies to the argument about a new Ministry of Production. Here again Mr. Wilson's tactical sense was superb. By 'thinking aloud' at a Fabian tea party he grabbed the headlines on a dull day and by coming out at last he has resolved, up to a point, the tedious argument between Mr. Brown and Mr. Callaghan over their respective positions in a Labour Govern- ment, Mr. Callaghan can be reasonably satisfied because Mr. Wilson said the Chancellor would have the reponsibility for the balance of pay- ments (and hence effective power of veto over expenditure). Mr. Brown can be reasonably satis- fied because the principle of a planning Minis- try is now publicly conceded, and because the planning Minister may, be presumed to have the last word over expenditure as chairman of the relevant Cabinet committee. Mr. Wilson no doubt intends to see that as Prime Minister he holds the balance, and therefore the reality, of power himself. But does he really know in detail how he proposes to make the Production Minis- try work? What powers is it to have over the Board of Trade or the Ministry of Power? Does Mr. Wilson indeed approve of overlordship at all? The problem may have been thought through, but if so, the results have not perco- lated far.
However, all this is far from the minds of the faithful as they stream happily back to their labours. They have had their sniff of ozone and they believe that they have caught from far off a faint hint of the sweet smell of success. It may, of course, be an illusion, but if so, there is no doubt that Labour is more formidable for being deceived by it.
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