THE SPECTATOR
TALKING MORALS
When he became leader of the Labour Party, Mr Neil Kinnock spoke of the overriding need to win. This need was so pressing, he said, that it must take prece- dence over the formation of a detailed, thorough-going socialist programme. To this end, Mr Kinnock directed all his energies. He tried to reassert the leader's authority in the party and publish this reassertion to the nation. He developed a set of policies which lacked the painful, vote-losing precision of the 1983 manifes- to. He wanted to temper idealisism with realism.
But what if all this effort is in vain? What can Mr Kinnick say if, as seems likely, his party loses next week? The only argument left to him will be to claim that Labour has won the moral victory. As Tom Lehrer's Folk Song Army says of the war against Franco, `They may have won all the battles, but we had all the good songs'. In the face of unfavourable polls in the last days of the campaign, Mr Kinnock can be expected to make the sort of speech which he delivered at the same point in 1983 CI warn you not to grow old . . .' etc). He will Claim that a mixture of base self-interest and of fear whipped up by the press has prevailed this time, but that he has lit a candle for something more noble. The Tories' very success will he depicted as discreditable. Mr Kinnock will by very passionate and will hug Mrs Kinnock. There will not be a dry eye in the house.
Before this happens, then, let us consid- er the moral case. What are the principles on which Labour bases its politics? What are the principles with which the Conserva- tives counter? In his novel Scenes from Married Life, set in the Fifties William Cooper contrasts the two parties. The Tories, says his hero, are based on nostal- gia and fear, Labour on envy and hope. (He prefers Labour.) This is no longer so. The Tories still depend on fear for much of their support, but they have swapped their nostalgia for Labour's hope. Now we have hope and fear versus nostalgia and envy. The former, for all its contradictions, is surely more moral than the latter.
For morality in politics, indeed in all human conduct, cannot be separated from deeds. In an interview during the miners' strike, the Archbishop of Canterbury sug- gested an opposition between 'efficiency' and 'compassion'. In doing so, he express- ed a common prejudice of the liberal educated classes in England. Feeling com- passion is thought to be incompatible with getting things to work properly — one has
to choose between the two, and the liberal educated man, who is politely brought right will choose compassion. Saying the right thing is all-important. Doing something is thought crass and vulgar.
This is Labour's attitude to all the 'caring' services. Its manifesto does not acknowledge any major structural faults in the systems of health, education or social security. It boasts of past achievements. It proposes no reforms. It merely says how much it cares for these things and that it will prove its care by ,spending more on them. From the moral statement 'we care' comes only one action — higher public spending. Labour's aim is not to make sure that what is right is actually done, but to impress us with its devotion to that right.
To this vacuous high-mindedness is adds something more disagreeable, a scarcely concealed invitation to hate anyone who is at all rich. Mr Roy Hattersley publicly admits that his wealth .tax will not earn significant revenue: he justifies it on grounds of 'fairness'. It is designed, he says, to 'get the Duke of Westminster and a few others'. The Duke of Weatminster may not be a very appealing figure, but what morality can support a fiscal policy designed to 'get' him? Frequent attacks on `City whizz kids' appeal to the same emotions. The language of equality cloaks that most mean-minded of English express- ions, 'It's all right for some'.
In its attitude to defence, above all, Labour delights in the phrases of morality as it recoils from its practice. Again and again, it speaks of the wickedness of nuclear weapons while trying at the same time to avoid discussion of what would happen if Britain disarmed. It proposes the first major break with post-war defence policies, yet Mr Hattersley says that the issue is only of secondary importance. Against all this, the Conservatives cer- tainly do not offer anything very imagina- tive. The critics are right to say that there 'I waited in all morning for the delegates, but they didn't turn up.' are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in Mrs Thatcher's philoso- phy. She is narrow, and much of her support comes from a self-interest which is definitely unenlightened. But her govern- ments have tried to restore certain princi- ples which are essential to decent politics. They have reasserted the necessary con- nection between working hard and making a living. They have stopped powerful groups in the land from tyrannising indi- viduals. They have encouraged millions of people to be freer by giving them more power with their own money. They have not pretended that governmental acts can cure human misery and create an earthly paradise. None of this constitutes spiritual grandeur, but it is recognisably and coherently moral.
And why, after all, should one hope for much more than this from politicians? It is given to very few to have a poet's or philosopher's understanding. One natural- ly suspects politicians who lay claim to such insight. They must be judged by their ability to achieve practical results that are worth achieving. This is the only moral basis on which they should be judged. On that basis, the Conservative Government shows better than average.
No one voting Conservative in this election should imagine that he is sacrific- ing his better self for base expediency. It is true that arguments clothing self-interest in the guise of morality are too easily made; but the self-congratulatory belief that one is behaving morally by doing one's self- interest an injury is even more repulsive. Nothing that Labour has said or done entitles it to superior moral respect. No legend should be allowed to spring up about the romance of Mr Kinnock's cam- paign. It has been irresponsible, light- weight, evasive. Labour's moralistic rhe- toric is as remote from morality as sen- timentality is from true feeling. A vote for Labour is a moral posturing, not a moral act.
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