. . . MRS THATCHER GOES ON AND ON

Despite appearances, Mrs Thatcher's policy on Europe is not for turning, writes Noel Malcolm

'DO YOU think that the time has now come to slow down on the introduction of radical policies?' The young woman who addressed this question to Mrs Thatcher at the Conservative Women's Conference last month was being both brave and timid. It was brave to ask the question at all; but saying 'radical', when what she really meant was 'unpopular', was a piece of timidity which made it easy for the Prime Minister to burble on in her best 'onwards and upwards' style. 'It is like climbing a hill,' she replied. 'You think you are nearing the top and then you see another peak further on. We shall never run out of steam. There are always things to be done.'

After that specimen of spiritual Alpin- ism, however, the very least the audience might have expected was the description of a few distant summits, a handful of trium- phantly radical policies. Instead, what did they get? A 'crackdown' was promised on local education authorities which try to stop parents from choosing a school for their children — this would be a piece of administrative tidying-up, surely, rather than a radical new departure. 'We are looking at the whole question of family life,' she continued — a topic of radical importance, no doubt, but not one sus- ceptible to treatment by radical policies. And then there was something about keep- ing dangerous dogs off the streets, and building extra motorway lanes for lorries, or perhaps it was keeping lorries off the roads and building lanes for dogs. . . .

Somewhere in the middle of this miscel- laneous shopping-list there were two items of larger importance. One was a promise to proceed with a couple of new privatisations — meaning British Coal (which has been promised already) and, presumably, Brit- ish Rail. And the other was the proposal that all council-house tenants be allowed to convert their rents into mortgages. But neither of these ideas seems quite as vote-catching as it would have done in the glad, confident morning of Thatoherism seven or eight years ago. The unpre- cedented condemnation, by a House of Commons Select Committee, of the hand- ling of the electricity privatisation has cast a shadow over all such future plans; and the economic conditions of the last two years have taken much of the shine off home ownership.

Where the progress of radical Thatcher- ism is concerned, then, the conditions seem to be indicating a change of gear, a change of speed, or even a change of direction. As advanced motorists (who learn how to do these things) will tell you, there is sometimes not much difference between a hard touch on the brakes and a U-turn. Of course the lady is not for turning; we have her word for that. But might she not be for a controlled skid instead?

There are plenty of reasons for thinking that this is happening already. There have been minor climbdowns: on war widows, on haemophiliacs, on football identity cards, on the back-dating for Scotland of the new rules for poll tax relief. Some major policies, such as encouraging schools to opt out of local authority control, have run into the sand. Government ministers and advisers have been going round mak- ing speeches about caring, the community, the family — trying to reach the parts that Thatcherite economics cannot reach. And so on.

In fact, it is the sheer multiplicity of evidence for a U-turn which makes me think that the very idea of a U-turn is inappropriate. For what this hoary old metaphor implies is that the political activ- ity of a government is a single, unitary thing, an ideological juggernaut which can move in only one direction. Whereas in real life governments and political parties act on many different fronts, speak at different levels and set themselves diffe- rent aims, both short- and long-term, all at the same time.

Even in its most triumphalist years, the Thatcher administration was never en- gaged in the single-minded implementation of `Thatcherisms. Some of the most famous examples of policies which seemed to be ideologically inspired were in fact arrived at almost by accident: 'popular capitalism', for example, which was an expedient for selling off large quantities of shares. The strongholds of the welfare state were hard- ly touched during the first decade of Thatcher governments, and many of the most `Thatcherite' schemes offered by the think-tanks (education vouchers, for exam- ple) were passed over in silence. When Government spokesmen reject `U-turns', they like to pretend that they have spent the last 11 years thundering down a politic- al motorway. The truth is that they have been pottering along winding country lanes, stopping and reversing a little here, taking some unexpectedly successful short- cuts there, and generally skirting round all the most awkward obstacles on the route. 'There is one difference between now and the mid-1980s,' a Tory back-bencher told me, 'which is that her Government is now full of wets'. But even this change is not as definite as it seems. The term 'wets' started off with quite a narrow meaning: it meant those who opposed the harsh econo- mic measures of 1979-82. Now, if it means anything, it stands for several different things at once. It may mean the Emollient Tendency, as personified by Sir Geoffrey Howe. Sir Geoffrey, of course, was the archetypal 'dry' of the early years; if he is called wet today, it is only because he looks rather dejected and makes speeches about how the Government should 'win friends as well as arguments'. Or the term may mean the old Heathites — Heathites by career rather than by conviction, men such as Mr Baker, Mr Hurd and Mr Chris Patten. Or it may mean those who make speeches about caring, the family or the community, such as Mr Robin Harris (the head of Mrs Thatcher's policy unit) or Mr Waldegrave in his Swinton lecture last week. But there is a whole range of attitudes there too, and nothing very novel about any of them: from old-style Tory paternalism to Catholic social teaching, and, for that matter, the values of the Grantham hearth.

Even if Mrs 'Thatcher's government is riddled through with attitudes and values which differ from those of pure 'Thatcher- ite' free-market economics, that is no cause for alarm among her supporters; it was ever thus. So long as wetness is so multi- farious, it poses no threat. The alarm bells can start to ring only when enough of Mrs Thatcher's Cabinet colleagues find a com- mon cause on which to oppose her. That is indeed happening today, but on one issue only; the issue of Europe.

If anything deserved to be called a U-turn, it would be Mrs Thatcher giving up her struggle against the monetary and political unification of Europe. Those Tory backbenchers who have been her suppor- ters on this issue have become increasingly alarmed during the last few weeks, first by Mr Major's apparent hints about early entry into the ERM, then by the Prime Minister's complaisant performance at the Dublin summit, and then by Mr Major's curious plan for a 'hard Ecu' which might eventually replace the pound. Is she pre- paring the way, they wonder, for a full- scale retreat at the Inter-Governmental Conferences which begin in December?

The prospect of her signing new treaties for economic and political unification fills them with dread, for two reasons. They think it would be bad for Britain; and they also think it would be disastrous for the Tory Party, turning a disagreement into an unbridgeable split in the run-up to a crucial election.

There are signs that the disagreement is already becoming more heated. On the one side, that elderly organisation, the European Movement, was 're-launched' this week, with the federalist MP Hugh Dykes as its chairman and Sir Anthony Meyer on its board. And on the other side the 'No turning back' group of eager young Thatcherites is showing a new degree of interest in the European issue: when Mrs Thatcher came to lunch with them a few weeks ago they lectured her impatiently on the importance of keeping floating ex- change rates.

Did she turn a deaf ear to them, and is she now planning to accept defeat graceful- ly? Downing Street insiders insist that she is not. Indeed, it is because she is planning to dig her heels in all the more thoroughly at the Inter-Governmental Conferences that she is being so Euro-friendly today: there is no need, she feels, to fight the coming battle in advance when she is going to fight it anyway.

For the present she is happy to gain some temporary advantages by being unex- pectedly nice, and to string things along by getting the Treasury to bodge together a stalling alternative to monetary union.

Once the IGCs start, however, she will be stubborn and procrastinating, yielding lit- tle and spinning out the negotiations for as long as possible — preferably until after the next general election.

There are two risks in this strategy. One is the gamble she takes in assuming that her power to procrastinate at the Confer- ences will be greater than her European partners' power to steamroll the whole process. And the other is the gamble she takes with her own party in the meantime, as the uncertainties of her phoney war in Europe lead to outbreaks of increasing hostility between her own MPs. Her refus- al to U-turn in December will seem a small consolation, if the car she is driving has already started to fall apart before she gets there.