Political Commentary
The unkindest Coutts of all
Ferdinand Mount
Blackpool All morning, drizzle falls on the Winter Gardens. Outside, there are crush barriers but no crush, apart from a few shoppers with plastic rainhats tied round their chins staring glumly across at the windows of Freeman, Hardy & Willis. Some people gather behind barricades on spec these days the way they used to join queues after the war. Wandering amongst them, equally forlorn, is a bosomy blonde in shorts with strong brown thighs and SAY NO TO BUILDING NATIONALISATION across her tee shirt. It must have sounded like a good idea in the boardroom at the time. The only bystanders who seem to know why they are there are half-a-dozen sturdy smartly turned-out shop stewards from Fords. One of them, a mountainous, genial man, hands out leaflets which tell comrade delegates that 'Ford profits increased during the period of wage restraint from £141 million (1966/77) to £241 million (77/78) and anticipated profits of £300 million plus (1978/79). THE TRADE UNION CLAIM IS BASED ON THESE FACTS.'
But did he believe that British Leyland workers should have the same money even though they weren't making any profits at all? The shop steward grins more hugely still. No offence taken. A naive question, but he is entirely amused by its presumption. 'Yes of course. But that's up to them, isn't it? Nothing to do with us. Our claim is based on Inside, the mental confusion is equal, but the goodwill less. And no wonder. Labour is the party of full employment, as Joan Lestor, the party chairman, points out — in fact she points it out twice — and yet here we are debating mass unemployment under a Labour government. Several delegates claim that 'Savage Coutts' are to blame. This seems a little unfair. I bank with Barclays myself and I know about bankers' ramps but you can't just single out one . . . oh, savage Coutts in government spending, I see. And the future for employment is bleaker still because of the chips. Not the Blackpool fish-and-sort. Silicone chips, micro-processes, wave of the future, bound to throw millions out of work. No speech on unemployment is now complete without a reference to microprocesses, just as no speech used to be complete without a reference to the threat of computers. Of the main abiding cause of unemployment in modern industrial nations — the coercive monopoly power of trade unions — we hear not a squeak.
The Conference Prize for Economic Illiteracy goes to Mr Alan Fisher of the National Union of Public Employees who in a sustained shriek simultaneously demanded a minimum wage, an attack on unemployment and free collective bargaining, as nice a trio of irreconcilables as you'll find. He received a great ovation, but so did Mr. Sid Weighell of the NUR who told Mr Fisher 'if you go for 40 per cent, I'll go for 40 per cent and I've got the power to get it.' (so that's what Away Day means). And he told Mr Joe Gormley that 'you can produce as much coal as you like, Joe, but you won't get it moved.' After this much acclaimed display of fraternal moderation, the Cabinet Ministers' bench was wreathed in smiles. Defeat was certain but at least they would be able to say afterwards that they had won the argument. In fact, Denis Healey did say it. He always does.
But they lost the vote. And lost it by a street. What's more, they knew they were going to. Yet they behaved as if the union votes were not yet committed. There was a strange delusion of freedom in the way Michael Foot pleaded for a change of heart. Even the Prime Minister's speech the next morning showed signs of having been originally prepared on the assumption that the conference was going swimmingly.
Luckily his audience, somewhat abashed after the excesses of the previous afternoon, was ready to be charmed. And he charmed them. He was rueful and wry. 'The government has failed,' he said, a thing that only very experienced politicians know how to say. Nothing succeeds like failure when gracefully acknowledged. The government would have to try again. There was to be no fighting and no resigning. The trench so carefully dug would be neatly evacuated overnight and a tidy retreat beat, under the protection of an artillery barrage of emergency measures — credit squeezes, tax increases, even perhaps more cuts in public expenditure. But surely that would be wicked Thatcher-type monetarism? Hush, dear. Anything would be better than a stand-up fight of the kind that poor Mr Gaitskell was so liable to start.
In any case, trade union leaders were not soiling for a fight. They reacted to their victory not with exultation or even satis faction, but with relief. They had got the government off their backs. After three years of policing pay limits on the gov ernment's behalf, they were back at work, plying their esoteric profession, restoring eroded differentials and the eroded sense of their own importance. As for winning the election, it was too late, in Mr Gormley's words, to 'get the lads on the knockers'.
Yet the success of Mr Callaghan's speech cannot make up for the serious damage done to his election chances. The Social Contract is good and dead — as dead as well the Lib-Lab pact. Labour cannot deal with the unions any better than the Tories can and everyone now knows it. Mr Callaghan has been forced to dismantle what he himself had designated as the main loadbearing beam of his economic policy — although there were a couple of asides in his speech intended to downgrade the importance of pay norms. Too late, too late. Those who live by percentages are destined to perish by percentages. But why ever did he land himself with an inflexible 5 per cent? Because he was intending to hold an election in October and 5 per cent was a nice firm round number to impress the voters with, that's why. The figure was adopted in a great hurry at the end of the Parliamentary session without any real thought whether a fourth year of rigid pay restraint would have any chance of working. After all, it would not have to be put to the test until after polling day. The trouble is not that incomes policies become more difficult to police each year; the trou'ble is that they become easier. Gradually, civil servants develop eyes and ears. They learn their way around the bargaining calendar. Even before the company made its offer, it seems Ford managers were constantly being rung up by the Departments of Industry and Employment and asked let us know what you are thinking.' There is less and less possibility of 'flexibility', that is, of fudging or delaying or evading the issue. .And the inflexibility of the bureaucratic machine which has grown up over the past three years is compounded by the inherent inflexibility of the Labour Party, which has all The disadvantages of a democratic constitution with none of its responsive and representative virtues. Expedients instantly ossify into party dogma. A change of policy always entails a painful struggle. And how greedily the Labour Party piles up precedent and tradition. As Nye Bevan said. . . As Clem Attlee said . . . As Tawney said . . Joan Lestor who was party chairman last year too, quotes Tawney again this year, and, what's more, the same bit of Tawney. And in case anyone missed it, Jim quotes Joan quoting Tawney. And Sid quotes Nye's dictum that socialism is the language of priorities.
The Labour Party is so clogged by its past and by its procedures that it is incapable of reacting clearly and decisively to anything. In this Great Movement of ours the only sign of real movement is a drowsy spasmodic yet seemingly irreversible drift to the Left. Ian Mikardo off the national executive — good. Denis Skinner and Doug Hoyle on — bad, bad. No mandatory reselection of candidates— good. But the principle of reselecting your MP in each Parliament is conceded — bad, probably a lot worse than the moderates who thought up this so-called compromise have understood. One step forward, two steps back? Lenin's formula doesn't quite apply. In the Labour Party it's one step to the left, one scramble back and two skids sideways.
Previous page
