At Home and Abroad . . . (1971)

The Home and Abroad Column from the August 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

At Home

The latest, and most famous, example of a politician’s vote catching phrase rebounding back onto him is Edward Heath’s “at a stroke’’ promise to deal with rising prices at the last election. Of course nobody in their right mind took this seriously and the record on prices since the Tories took over proves the point. The Tories made a lot of noise about the promised effects of a reduction in SET and those who are mistakenly under the impression that such things determine prices may have believed it. Perhaps they have learnt better, now that SET has been cut in half and prices continue to climb. The Labour Party, as if they had never broken an election pledge in their life, overflow with false rage about Heath’s promise. Perhaps this rage acts as a sort of tranquiliser, stopping them from looking back at the record of their own government on prices. And finally the Tories, playing the honourable game of politics, keep passing the buck back; for example the confessed economic ignoramus Douglas-Home blaming the Wilson government for setting a “time bomb” of price rises which is now exploding under Heath’s men. This is all very well for the exponents of meaningless political shadow boxing but the working class, who send these people to Westminster, should realise how empty it all is. And if they don’t realise, a look at the shop price tickets should remind them.

One person who can be excused this exercise is Prince Edward, the queen’s youngest child. All workers who may have been worried about what would happen to the prince’s education when his private tutor left him to get married had their minds set at rest by the announcement that he would be going to Gibb’s preparatory school in Kensington where they charge £100 a term to teach the kids, among other things, “respect for property.” This may in fact be something of a waste of time; since these kids come from the class who own all the property, do they need to be taught to respect it? Wouldn’t that be more in line for working class kids who don’t have any property? Coincident with the prince being booked for Gibb’s school the memoirs of Lord Butler were published. He, we may remember, is the man who managed the Education Act of 1944 through Parliament. That was said to be a very daring Act, because it gave everyone equal rights to the best education.

Abroad

President Nixon said that his journey to China had been fixed because of his desire for peace, now and for generations to come. In view of this uncontrollable desire for peace, one wonders why the delay—and when did it come to Nixon, that he might get peace in talking with the Chinese government rather than in rattling nuclear weapons at them? At all events the visit will have the effect of upstaging the “peace” movement in America and it seems the Democrats will have to make some hard running now to have a chance against Nixon next year. It would be fascinating to sit in on the discussions between Nixon and the Chinese: one established, powerful capitalist state at last bargaining with another, new and rising and threatening. What betrayals, what carve-ups, what sharing of the spoils there will be! When the truth about it is known it may well turn out to have been one of the dirtiest episodes in the history of capitalist diplomacy.

One immediate effect of Nixon’s visit may be to end the present struggle in Vietnam, which otherwise threatens to go on for ever. A similar situation may be developing in Northern Ireland, where killings have now become almost accepted as the normal routine. How long ago was it, that the “progressives” in this country were demanding that the British government send in the troops so that the troubles could be ended with typical British fair play? In the event, as was clear all along, the troops have simply become the target of the opposing factions. We might hope that the “progressives” would recognise the struggle has roots deeper than they ever dreamed of, did we not know that fundamental thinking is foreign to their minds.

Politics

Has Wilson at last come down off the fence over the Common Market? In truth, he has never actually been on the fence, since even a master trickster like Wilson cannot entirely erase the fact that his government themselves tried to join the Six. What Wilson has done is to recognise the electoral possibilities of the Common Market issue and, like any good politician, to exploit them. The most popular pictures of the Common Market at present consists of rapidly rising prices in essential foodstuffs while hordes of foreign workers come freshly into England. Anyone with any experience of working class attitudes knows that that is not a vote-winning concept; the government will have to do some intensive propaganda if they are to convince the voters otherwise. Meanwhile, Wilson craftily has the best of both worlds. He still hangs on to his party’s policy of going into Europe but charges the Tories with accepting humiliating terms which would damage working class conditions and worsen international relations with the Eastern bloc. All of this, thrown in with some typical Wilson stuff about the Tories’ cynicism and privilege, may turn out to be a winning formula. If it is, we can depend on it that the doubting and opposing voices in the Labour ranks will be stilled, for they—just like the cynical Tories—will forgive a leader anything provided he brings home the electoral bacon. The fact is that there is nothing to choose between Labour and Tory on the Common Market, or on cynicism.