Westminster Commentary
BY ROY JENKINS* In another sense, however, it should have been a good debate, for it was notably free from the faults which are frequently attributed, not least by the regular writer of this column, to the modern House of Commons. Some people shouted a good deal during their own speeches, but nobody shouted much during anybody else's: Nor did the parties, whatever else they did, appear as two monolithic masses interested only in a sterile battle with each other. Confusion is at least a safeguard against monotony, and although a good deal of nonsense may have been talked, it was rarely nonsense for the sake of striking a party attitude, and it was quite often new nonsense.
In the midst of this there were a number of unpredictably good speeches. Mr. Christopher Soames, who is now a fully fledged Secretary of State and as such the holder of a political rank which Gladstone thought too elevated for Joseph Chamberlain, sat opposite the despatch box for so long on the second night that it at last became clear that he was going to wind up. When he did so a lot of people expected a slightly more trucu- lent repetition of the muddled afternoon mur- murings of Mr. George Ward (who is another Secretary of State). They got something quite different. At first it was merely apparent that Mr. Soames was speaking with unexpected vehemence, then that he was making a number of penetrating points with considerable force, and, finally, that * MP for Stechford (Birmingham). he was delivering one of the best ministerial speeches for several months. This is not perhaps the highest praise, but it is something.
He had been preceded by Mr. Strachey, who also achieved a minor triumph. In the old days of Bevanite warfare Mr. Strachey used to be some- thing of a 'soft centre'; but, despite this fact and the soothing words which emanated from it, there was too much aridity in his manner for what he said to be very well received. Last week, on the contrary, he was both hard and popular. He was against unilateral British abandonment of the bomb and he made no attempt to hedge. Indeed he denounced the view' that, on moral grounds, we should give up our own bomb and shelter under the Americans' as 'a nauseating, sancti- monious argument.' He also denounced Mr. Crossman and Mr. Sydney Silverman, who were there, and Mr. Ludovic Kennedy, who wasn't, on somewhat different grounds. Some of Mr. Strachey's points were directed against the Government, but the greater part of his speech was concerned with defending the policy of the Labour front bench and answering the critics below the gangway. And this performance, as should be noted by those who think it is only fear of the Whips which prevents every Labour back- bencher from marching to Aldermaston, was strongly applauded by most of those behind him. Mr. Bevan nodded vigorous approval.
These were orthodox speeches, but there were plenty, of varying quality, which came in the other category. Mr. Crossman was against the British bomb, in favour of another five years of conscrip- tion and claimed not to have changed his mind since last year. (To have Mr. Sandys in the same office and Mr. Crossman in the same intellectual position for two Defence White Papers in suc- cession is almost too much of a good thing.) But I do not believe that he then sustained his argu- ment against the dissemination of the NATO deterrent with as good a phrase as: The right to distrust the Americans cannot remain a British monopoly:, Mr. Crossman is often unpredict- able in substance but rarely in form. The verve of his House of Commons speaking never varies. Mr. Nigel Birch was half very good and half very disappointing. It was his first speech since his resignation and he easily held the large House which had assembled to watch Mr. Shinwell's Performance. Despite finding it necessary to con- gratulate Mr. Shinwell on 'a very patriotic speech,' Mr. Birch avoided presenting to the Opposition his normal false front of arrogant He spoke with economy and con- viction. But he faltered on the threshold of his conclusions. The whole tenor of his speech was in favour of Britain withdrawing from the nuclear Club. If it did not mean this, it is difficult to see what it did mean. Yet at the end he contented himself with saying : 'It is a finely balanced argu- ment, and I do not pretend that I know the answer. I advocate no change of policy at the present time.' His speech therefore became an expression of honest doubt, which is often a highly sensible attitude, but is certainly not one of leadership.
Amongst other features of the defence debate Were the Speaker's apparent view that he had heard enough of Liberals ,for some time and his Consequent omission, unusual in a major debate, to call their representative, the constantly rising Mr. Holt; and Sir Peter Macdonald's classic exposition of the way not to roll logs. There is Something to be said for rising grandly above narrow constituency interests and there is some- thing to be said for openly pressing them. But there is nothing to be said for pretending that you have risen grandly, but that by a strange coinci- dence your brooding on the interests of the nation have led you to the exact position which, had you been a different sort of person, your local interests would have demanded. This is precisely what Sir P. Macdonald did; but I doubt whether it did much to help his constituents in the Isle of Wight in general or the employees of the Saunders-Roe company in particular.
This debate apart, the principal interest of the `Week has lain in the new rumblings within the Labour Party. The combination of 'Victory for Socialism' and the Daily Herald's bolting of the official line on the H-bomb has led the news- papers to give more space to the internal affairs of the party than at any time since Mr. Gaitskell became leader. And even amongst Labour MPs themselves there has been some anhiety about these developments. Do they mean a return to the days of internecine warfare, of long and bitter party meetings, of narrow votes, and electoral weakness? The fact that such questions can even be asked is a sign that the long calm days of the past three years have led to a new nervousness in the battle-scarred veterans of 1951-54. Compared with the constant barrage of Bevanism at its height, the efforts of Mr. Mikardo and his colleagues are not likely to amount to more than a few sporadic explosions. And even these may be called off. Mr. Swingler, the chair- man of 'Victory for Socialism,' has after all agreed to see Mr. Gaitskell without insisting on a prior meeting of foreign ministers. The road to this summit has been short, and it may be that ten- sion will be quickly relaxed. The odds are that the new organisation will be only a mild short- term embarrassment to the Labour leadership, although it might be as well to remember that H-bombs are dangerous weapons with which to conduct even intra-party battles.
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