Another voice

A man called Evans

Auberon Waugh

Among all the ululations over the passing of Emperor Jones — the most Powerful Man in Britain, if not in the world — scarcely a glance has been thrown in the direction of his successor. This seems to be rather odd. If the general secretary of the TGWU is the man who rules the country, one might expect a little curiosity about our new ruler, but apart from a turgid and unreadable profile in one of the Sunday newspapers I have seen practically nothing.

The thing which worried me most about Emperor Jones was not his admiration for various communist regimes in eastern Europe — one could see he was a man of limited vision and little curiosity about the type of society he sought to impose — but the admiration of our business community for him. As soon as he emerged as a supporter of wages policy, all the captains of industry fell over themselves to clutch at his trouser legs. If it occurred to them to ask why he was prepared to incur so much unpopularity in this cause, they must have assured themselves that he had the survival of the capitalist system at heart. Nothing could be stupider or further from the truth. The political shortsightedness of our business community and its lack of any historical perspectiveistrike me as morel worrying than the long-term subversiveness of the trade union left because, while one can accept and fight against the latter, one has no chance of winning if our troops are all facing the wrong direction or fighting on the enemy's side.

Every large company should have a political adviser — not some half-stoned MP to tell them about Westminster but someone with a grounding in Marxist analysis and a knowledge of the trade union power struc ture to tell them what is happening in the country. Perhaps I had better spell it out yet again.

The long-term programme of the effective left — by which I mean the official trade union left, as opposed to the noisier parliamentary, intellectual and revolutionary left outside the trade union power structure — is to advance on two fronts, increasing the economic power of the state and the political power of the trade unions simultaneously until such time as the two merge in a workers' state. This will come about at the end of a long series of surrenders until Parliament effectively takes all its orders from the trade union cabal or junta.

Jack Jones was under no illusions about the historical course on which he and Hugh Scanlon and, surprisingly, Len Murray have set the country. Fools and opportunists could rail against the incomes policy, but Emperor Jones was rock-solid and incor

ruptible. As the Telegraph pointed out on the day of his retirement, the nine years of his rule have seen a vast increase in the economic importance of the state and an increase of nearly fifty per cent in the number of civil servants, from 475,000 to over 700,000. They also saw a huge increase in the political power of the trade unions, until it is nearly true to say that the TUC economic committee writes the Budget.

So it really is quite important to know something about our new Emperor. Anything will be grist to the mill. As we take up suitably reverent attitudes we should ask ourselves whether he is the sort of person• who would prefer to be called President Evans or Chairman Moss. Why did his mother call him Moss in the first place? It seems an odd name to choose for a boy. Even apart from such vital questions as whether his wife prefers frilly knickers or plain, I would like to know which newspapers he reads, how much he drinks, whether his children are frightened of him. Who or why, or which, or what is this Akond of Swat? Above all, how much ideological training has he had and how corruptible, if at all, is he likely to prove? By corruptible I do not, of course, mean in any PoulsonAndy CUnningham sense. I do not even mean to suggest that he might be open to such totally blameless habits as pocketing the odd £500 by way of a fee, like Ted Short (now Lord Glenamara, God bless him) or innocently accepting the presidency of crooked enterprises like poor, dear, misunderstood Reggie Maudling. I merely ask to what extent he might be seduced from the

exercise of real power by the enjoyment of its trappings — lunches in the Café Royal

with Daily Mirror executives, conferences with the Prime Minister in Downing Street, meetings with important officials from the Soviet Union — like so many of our beloved political leaders.

When one asks oneself how stupid he is, and what forms such stupidity are likely to take, one must tread carefully. It is my observation that many proletarians become extremely angry if one laughs at them.

Many are also extraordinarily sensitive to any criticism. And on the question of how angry His Majesty the Right Honourable Field-Marshal Evans, PC, QC, VC, is likely to get, I think I may, have some evidence.

For many months now I have been brooding over the text of a speech made to a TUC conference on trade unions and the media by a Mr Moss Evans of the TGWU (later to become His Imperial Highness, Chief of Chiefs, Lord High Executive Person etc etc). It appears on first reading to be

inspired by a touching concern for the common good, and especially for the community at large: 'The ability to regularly [sic] convey news and views on a mass scale carries with it great power to shape and direct public opinions,' observes this Solomon of the Valleys. `Therefore the media possess great powers, potentially very dangerous to the community at large, and particularly dangerous to the interests of any class, section or group who do [sic] not have effective control over any section of the media.'

Puzzling, really, to know what he means. Which class, section or group do you think he is worried about? Working as I have done in newspapers and magazines, on television and occasionally on the radio these last twenty years, I can't honestly think of a class, section or group which has had effective control over me. But as one reads on, his meaning becomes clear. Robbed of its heart-plucking rhetoric — `the public are [sic] entitled to protection from abuse of this power to influence it [sic]' — Chairman Moss's thoughts on the media may be summarised thus:

1) The trade unions have a bad press. This must be remedied.

2) Ownership of any newspaper etc must be subject to an `operator's licence', terms of which are to be decided by TUC policy.

3) A standing commission for the media, on which trade unions will be represented, will supervise and impose appropriate 'balance' in the selection of news and commentary.

4) The trade unions must have their own newspaper, paid for by a levy on advertising in all the others.

5) In addition to the standing committee, there will be a 'continuous monitoring service' by the trade union movement 'to keep under scrutiny treatment of all our activities and those aspects of domestic and international policy relating to our activities' (my italics) — this will be 'to protect our essential interests'.

6) Television and radio must be taken into 'real public control'.

In return for these guarantees of a 'free press', trade union representatives within the industry will recognise a responsibility to pursue good industrial relations 'through full recognition of trade union rights at all levels, and the active encouragement of industrial democracy in the industry'. The tone of Mr Evans's pronouncement is impatient, not to say hectoring. Such

demands have been consistently made, but

'this consistency has not been matched by the necessary degree of persistence in get ting action taken on the policies supported by the TUC. . . There has been little or no progress in achieving the ends specified . . • we remain very light in action.'

Next week, unless something intervenes, I shall discuss Lord Goodman's speech to

the Stock Exchange: 'The Media and Business' — delivered last September, but only recently released owing to 'circumstances beyond our control'.