New Style in British Politics
MARQUAND, DAVID
THE DECLINE OF ELEGANCE New Style in British Politics By David Marquand London The British Conservative party likes to think of itself as the party of order, stability, tradition— and...
...If he fails to deliver the political goods he is stripped of the purple, and gently persuaded to walk the plank...
...if he does, there is a fair chance that he may win...
...However, a bill is actually before Parliament which will make it possible for peers to relinquish their peerages —and it would be an easy matter to speed it up so that the transfer of power could take place in good time...
...The sort of economic policy which the country needs if its rate of growth is to be speeded up would hurt inherited wealth and might also hurt the City of London...
...For this reason I doubt whether a new Tory Leader would in fact succeed in remodelling the Tory party in time for the next election...
...And yet—who is to bell the cat...
...One is Selwyn Lloyd, Chancellor of the Exchequer until Macmillan's purge last summer, and something of a hero to the fixed-income Tory middle class who fear inflation above all things...
...Disgruntled Tory voters, it was said, were voting Liberal to teach the Government a lesson...
...that the country has been stationary far too long...
...Even before the Profumo scandal broke, Labor was some 20 points ahead on the Gallup poll: a figure which, in theory, would give it a parliamentary majority larger than it had in 1945...
...In that case the strongest candidates would be Reginald Maudling, the Chancellor of the Exchequer...
...and his appetite for power seems to be undiminished...
...But today its mood has changed...
...As soon as a general election appeared on the horizon, the Liberal revival would collapse and the disgruntled Tories would return to their normal allegiance...
...Iain Macleod, the Leader of the House of Commons...
...On five occasions in this century the elders of the Conservative party have deposed their tribal chief— without much public fuss and without mercy...
...Militarily, Suez was a humiliation...
...But although the odds must be against his continuing in office for more than a few months, they are by no means as overwhelming as one might think...
...This happened to Arthur Balfour in 1911...
...By careful juggling he has made sure that the forces which might otherwise be arrayed against him are divided against themselves...
...Macleod is bitterly distrusted by right-wing Tories for his allegedly liberal policy in Africa, and Heath is a bachelor...
...And in any case, Macmillan's standing in the country had dwindled almost to the vanishing point, even before the Profumo affair blew up...
...If sheer ability and political nous were the deciding factors, he would be the ideal Tory leader...
...Yet the fact remains that incompetence, though doubtless human, and even endearing, is scarcely a glowing recommendation in a Prime Minister...
...Macmillan's public face is urbane, cynical, unenthusiastic: an 18th century face, ideally suited to reassure a nation which has been bruised and bewildered by the 20th...
...Labor's by-election successes in the spring and early summer of last year could be explained away as the result of Liberal interventions...
...It was rather like Drake playing bowls while waiting for the Spanish Armada—with the difference that on this occasion the Armada had already arrived, and had, in fact, won the battle...
...David Marquand, a regular contributor, is now completing a political biography of Ramsay MacDonald...
...Still—and this is the strongest weapon in the hands of Macmillan's critics in the Tory party —a new and more vigorous Tory leader might be able to tune into the new mood as skillfully as Harold Wilson has done...
...In the late '50s this pose of aristocratic languor suited the country very well...
...Its attitudes are certainly not Socialist, and not even particularly sympathetic to the Labor party...
...So long as he is securely in office his authority and power are incomparably greater than those of his Liberal or Labor counterparts...
...It would be wildly over-optimistic to suggest that the British people have at last adjusted themselves to their true place in the world, but they are at least less maladjusted than they were six years ago...
...Macmillan's handling of the substantive issues raised by the Profumo scandal has been lamentable...
...It sees Macmillan as a pathetic and rather ludicrous survivor from another epoch...
...In 1940 there were two— Churchill and Halifax—but there was little doubt as to which of them could command the most national support...
...Harold Wilson has tuned in to this mood, responded to it, and in turn helped to direct it toward the Labor party...
...So long as his leadership is successful, his power is virtually unchallenged...
...On paper, at least, even Tory seats with majorities of eight and nine thousand are now in danger...
...In that case the obvious candidates are Lord Home, the Foreign Secretary, and Lord Hailsham, the Minister of Science...
...The municipal elections, held at the beginning of May, told the same story...
...But it is down-toearth and unsentimental...
...Even in 1911 there were only three...
...In his own person he symbolizes the aspirations of the young technologist and white-collar worker, of the lab assistant and secondary schoolteacher, of the "scholarship boy" who has to make his own way in the world with nothing but his brains to help him...
...He was Macmillan's main rival when Eden fell after Suez...
...THE DECLINE OF ELEGANCE New Style in British Politics By David Marquand London The British Conservative party likes to think of itself as the party of order, stability, tradition— and leadership...
...Two darker dark horses remain...
...and to Anthony Eden in 1957...
...For the last six months it has been further behind in public opinion polls than any government in recent history...
...The really damaging feature of the affair from Macmillan's point of view is that it has come as one more blow in a long succession of disasters...
...In a confused and muddled way they realize that the outside world has changed faster than they have...
...The other is R. A. Butler, the Mona Lisa of the House of Commons, and easily the cleverest man on the Tory front bench...
...Yet during the last six months the Liberal revival does seem to have collapsed—and the decline in the Government's electoral fortunes has continued at an accelerating rate...
...His failure to realize that Profumo was lying when he denied any "impropriety" in his association with Christine Keeler was clearly a failure of competence, not of integrity...
...The authority of a Tory Leader is granted to him as part of a tacit bargain...
...Over the heads of timorous Tory backbenchers, who want to get him out because they fear losing their seats, has been dangled the threat of an immediate dissolution of Parliament—which would, of course, make a crushing defeat inevitable...
...But the pomp and mystery which cloak the innermost workings of the party machine from profane eyes have usually concealed as tough and unsentimental a body of politicians as any to be found in the Western world...
...But if the Conservative party felt that all was not yet lost it would be wise to pick a younger and more attractive figure, capable of stealing some of the New-Frontiers thunder which Harold Wilson has sounded with such panache since he became Leader of the Opposition a few months ago...
...Macmillan's elegant sang-froid, which once seemed reassuring and in its way almost magnificent, now seems antiquated, artificial, and silly...
...He is, in almost every way, a perfect foil for Macmillan...
...Their mood today has something in common with that of the American people in 1960...
...He might try, though, and if his efforts were sufficiently dramatic he might win back at least a large proportion of the ground which the Macmillan Government has lost...
...diplomatically, it was a disaster...
...The question which is now fascinating most people in this country is whether or not the same process of genteel butchery is about to be applied to Harold Macmillan...
...The Commons debate on the Profumo scandal cleared the Prime Minister of the charge of deliberate deception...
...Europe" of the Common Market negotiations...
...The strongest card in his hand —and it was not put there by accident—is the absence of a Crown Prince...
...that their standing in that world is not what it ought to be...
...With a bland nonchalance, which seems even more impressive in retrospect than it did at the time, he contrived to suggest that nothing untoward had really happened, and that it did not matter if it had...
...He came to power immediately after one of the most ignominious defeats which this country has ever suffered...
...He is, without question, one of the wiliest and toughest politicians of this century...
...This is Macmillan's greatest handicap in the present succession crisis...
...Of these, Maudling is probably the strongest...
...Such a leader would undeniably face a number of formidable obstacles...
...This time the bettor is faced with a multitude of dark horses, and no obvious favorite...
...and, as was said in rather different circumstances of Thomas Dewey, "a soufflé does not rise twice...
...Moreover, the pendulum which has been swinging away from the Conservatives for the last 18 months is no longer getting stuck in the middle ground occupied by the Liberal party...
...He is closer to Macmillan's generation than to Harold Wilson's (or Kennedy's) and—worse still—he has already been passed over before...
...but his handling of its political consequences has been brilliant...
...It would favor big progressive firms, but it would penalize small, inefficient and nepotistic ones...
...to Neville Chamberlain in 1940...
...There is little doubt that the popular revulsion against the Conservative party is a revulsion, perhaps not against him personally, but against his political style and the atmosphere surrounding his Government...
...to Winston Churchill in 1955...
...The evidence suggests that one of the most resourceful politicians in recent British history is now fighting for his political life...
...That, at any rate, is the possibility which is now tantalizing the rank and file of the Tory party...
...In 1955, and for that matter in 1922, the reigning leader had one obvious successor waiting in the wings...
...The party Leader (and the capital "L" is used advisedly) is surrounded by an aura of dignity and deference...
...Nevertheless, if it had come as a bolt from an otherwise blue sky, it might not have led to a crisis of leadership...
...It is not certain, however, that he is so prepared...
...Every Conservative MP whose seat is in danger —and on the showing of the latest public opinion polls half the Conservative parliamentary party comes into that category—must be anxious to see him go...
...Many of the interest groups which the Conservative party represents are instinctively hostile to the attitudes of the "scholarship boy...
...In the end they were prepared to put their party ahead of themselves...
...If Macmillan is prepared to do the same, his exit cannot be far away...
...If the circumstances of Macmillan's retirement were such that most influential Tories, in their innermost hearts, had conceded defeat at the next election they would presumably decide on a leader who would limit the damage, put as much heart as possible into the troops before the battle began, and provide the most vigorous leadership in opposition after it was over...
...Macmillan's remedy was simple, and effective...
...Instead it is swinging right across the political spectrum to the Labor Opposition...
...At present both men are debarred from the Premiership by their membership in the House of Lords...
...and that vigorous leadership is needed to move it forward...
...In the circumstances, an each-way bet is the only safe one...
...to Austen Chamberlain in 1922...
...There is a fair chance that he may make a fight of it...
...That class is now the fulcrum of British politics...
...and Edward Heath, the "Mr...
...But he has two grave handicaps...
...It now looks exceedingly improbable that the Conservative party can win the next election under Macmillan's leadership, no matter how long it is delayed...
...The five Tory leaders who have been deposed in this century were deposed, at least in the last resort, with their own consent...
...It has been obvious for more than a year that if a general election were held without notice, the Government would be heavily defeated...
...The Profumo affair would have embarrassed any government and shaken any prime minister's hold on any party...
...His main critics in the Cabinet have been maneuvered into making such emphatic statements of support that it is hard to see that they can now withdraw from them...
Vol. 46 • July 1963 • No. 14
