It was obvious from the start that the 62nd annual conference of the Labour party at Scarborough would be in the nature of a pre-election rally at which the leadership would proclaim its faith in victory at the next elections and seek to impart this confidence to the rank and file. And so it was with two reservations. First, the personal rivalry between the deputy leader, Mr George Brown, and the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr James Callaghan, could not be prevented from coming to surface. Secondly, the personal performance of the leader, Mr Harold Wilson, was far more impressive and meaningful than his best admirers hoped for. With his message of change he brought the party face to face with the reality of today and tomorrow thus pushing under the carpet sterile controversies of the past over nationalisation and public ownership. If he did not redefine socialism he spelled out the Labour party’s task in the age of computers and automation.
A great deal has been made and will be made in coming months of the rivalry between Mr Brown and Mr Callaghan. The basis of the rivalry is Mr Wilson’s proposal to establish a new ministry of production or planning in a Labour government. This ministry would be assigned to Mr Brown. Mr Callaghan resents the proposed innovation because he expects to be appointed the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Without the change he would be economic overlord and with it someone else. At its worst the disagreement relates to the machinery of government and not to policies. As such it should be capable of being resolved without too much difficulty. Moreover, such troubles become serious only when the supremacy of the party leader is not assured. In the present case Mr Wilson’s ascendancy is unchallenged and, it seems, unchallengeable. Thus it is Mr Wilson’s concept of change that alone deserves attention.
Opportunity
At the outset it should be noted that the need for change and thus coming to terms with the current technological revolution was the theme of Mr Macmillan’s speech at the Conservative party conference last year. Mr Macmillan, however, took up the position that Britain’s ability to make the necessary adjustment was dependent on her entry into the European Economic Community, a development which could be, and in fact was frustrated by an outsider. The frustration of Mr Macmillan’s hopes presented Mr Wilson with the opportunity to proclaim the Labour party to be the party of technological change without the crippling precondition of merging Britain in a bigger economic entity. In the wake of the fierce debate on the inter-related subjects of sluggish rate of economic growth, inadequacies of the educational system and the mass migration of scientists to America because of frustrations at home, the climate of opinion was ready for Mr Wilson’s message of growth and change. The Conservatives are being beaten at their own game.
Similarly the late Mr Hugh Gaitskell was aware that the presence of Clause Four in the party’s constitution, which committed it to a programme of extending public control over the means of production and distribution, frightened lower middle class voters even though the leadership had gone to great length in trying to explain it away. He tried to get the offending clause removed but failed. Mr Wilson as a better tactician decided to circumvent it. To have sought to get it deleted would have meant inviting a headlong collision with the forces of conservatism and inertia in the party, which are still formidable. In the new scheme of things, public ownership is not to be an end in itself but a means in the service of the nationally accepted objective of accelerated growth and the creation of employment opportunities in the areas of high unemployment. Mr Wilson is reaping the fruit of the struggle the late Mr Gaitskell had waged against the obscurantists and the diehards.
Social Change
Often in the past, the need for change in the attitudes and policies of the Labour party was represented in terms of the compulsion to attract a sufficient number of floating voters to enable it to win at the polls. This interpretation took note of the vast social change which full or near-full employment and rising wages produced in the lives of even the industrial working class. The speeding up of the process of technological change is bound to accelerate the process of what might be called enbourgeoisement of the working class youth. Young boys and girls from working class homes look for mortgages for houses, furniture, television and cars. It is no use dismissing it as corruption of honest working class lads and lassies. For the Labour party to have retained the image of grey austerity and high taxation would have amounted to courting disaster.
The Labour party could not avoid a face lift if it was to be relevant to the national scene. To put it differently, it had to change from cloth cap to a more popular form of headgear. Mr Wilson’s achievement lies in the fact that he has accomplished it without splitting the party. The process of unifying the party conference started at Blackpool in 1961 when it reversed the previous year’s resolution on defence and abandoned unilateralism. Last year’s annual conference saw the closing of ranks on the issue of opposition to Britain’s entry into the Common Market. Mr Gaitskell then alienated some of his close friends but it was then for the first time he had the mass of the party behind him. Since Mr Wilson’s election as the party leader, the hackneyed distinction between right and left have become well-nigh meaningless.
I find it difficult to believe that in a country so democratic and so tradition-bound as Britain any government can produce and implement a plan so comprehensive as can absorb the impact of the technological revolution. Party propaganda apart the Conservatives have been moving in the same direction. The National Economic Development Council which represents the first essay in planning in this country was after all set up by a Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer. There is even a Minister of Science in Lord Hailsham even if it is treated as one of the several odd jobs he is expected to perform.
The renovation of the Labour party started under Mr Gaitskell. It is interesting to note that while Mr Gaitskell played a great and probably a decisive role in making the Labour party a party of power, Mr Wilson was a man in the protest tradition. He was one of those who had resigned from the Labour government in 1951 along with the late Mr Bevan in protest against Mr Gaitskell’s imposition of charge on national health service. Still by instinct Mr Wilson is interested in power to shape events and not in protesting1 against how others use power. This has been reflected in the styles of leadership of the two men.
The difference between Mr Macmillan’s approach and Mr Wilson’s can be accounted for by the fact that the former is dragged by his back-benchers and the latter has to restrain his supporters from pushing him too far in both internal and foreign affairs. It also worth mentioning that Mr Macmillan has been primarily preoccupied with foreign affairs. With the last stage of decolonisation drawing towards a close, with Britain barred from the European Economic Community and in view of the growing feeling that America takes Britain for granted and pushes her around, foreign affairs is not a field where one can canvass votes. Britain is going to be principally preoccupied with internal affairs, development and all. Mr Wilson represents this mood to be matched in the Conservative party, in my view, by Mr Maudling alone.
Renovated
The Scarborough conference is important in the life of the Labour party and the country not because it witnessed the unveiling of a blue-print to remake society but because it celebrated the re-emergence of the Labour party as a united and renovated party capable of governing the country, and the emergence in Mr Wilson of a new Labour leader worthy of being the country’s Prime Minister. Scarborough is the same resort where the party had virtually wrecked itself only three years ago on the question of unilateralism. For the first time since 1951 the people will have a genuine choice if the Conservative party can also recapture élan in time before the election. At the moment the odds are all in favour of the Labour party. Since the Conservatives do not love wilderness, they are likely to put their house in order. Only time is against them.
The Times of India, 5 October 1963