Socialist Standard July, 2006 Vol No.102: No.1223 website www.worldsocialism.org/spgb
THE GREASY POLE
No grace without favour
Anyone whose memory is flavoured with a proper measure of
vindictiveness will have little sympathy for the corpses of careers,
once so promising, which crowd into the political morgues of
capitalism. They will not be moved by tales of the bewilderment and
distress experienced by the careerists at the dying of their ambitions.
There will be no bereavement counselling for those who contemplate a
bleak life without a platoon of flunkeys to organise their days, to
usher them unsullied by probing questions from one media-intensive
exposure to another. No sympathetic third ear for those who pine for
the emotional highs sprouting from a passage of adroit fencing across
the Despatch Box. A stolid indifference will be shown to anyone
grieving for red boxes and gleaming limousines, uniformed chauffeurs
and swarming police escorts. And no glimmer of empathy will console
previous inhabitants of the architectural jewels which are known as
Grace and Favour Residences
Dorneywood
As almost everyone who can switch on a television set or
read a newspaper knows, it was deputy Prime Minister John Prescott who,
at a time when he must have been desperate to avoid any more bad
publicity, swung the media searchlight onto the whole matter of grace
and favour residences when he was snapped by a tabloid photographer
playing croquet on the lawn of Dorneywood. Croquet - a game which needs
immaculate turf, traditionally played by men and women in straw hats
with hat bands in club colours. John Prescott, who is supposed to
represent the interests of the people of Hull East, where croquet is
not a popular game. John Prescott - who once decked a man at an
election meeting for throwing an egg at him, who feeds copy to the
parliamentary hacks by gabbling his Commons speeches in a riot of
confused syllables, mangled words and malapropisms. Prescott the ocean
going steward who angered Harold Wilson by being among the leaders of
the 1966 seamen’s strike. And all of this was played out on the
immaculate turf of Dorneywood - Prescott’s elegant grace and favour
home in leafy Buckinghamshire. The tabloids were ecstatic, playing the
game they know so well - making sure as many people as possible are
aware of embarrassing facts which, no matter how trivial, can then be
left to speak for themselves.
Grace and favour residences are big business, coming in a variety of
sizes and shapes and being awarded for many different reasons. But none
of these homes attract the same degree of attention as the few which
are allocated to prominent politicians - “given to the nation” as a
retreat for senior ministers where they can re-energise themselves
after the exhausting business of trying to control British capitalism.
Chequers is unique because it is reserved for the Prime Minister of the
day, donated in 1917 for that purpose by Arthur Lee, the Tory MP for
Faversham and later Lord Lee. The house nestles among the
Chiltern Hills, easily visible from some of the public footpaths around
about. Lee gave Chequers on the assumption that, consequent on the
sequence of electoral reforms flowing from the Reform Bills, it could
no longer be assumed that the Prime Minister would necessarily have
their own landed estates. (At the time, some sections if the ruling
class had not woken up to the fact that this was an unimportant
distinction).
Chequers
Thatcher was enchanted by the place: “I do not think anyone has stayed
long at Chequers without falling in love with it” she wrote - an
assessment which would not have chimed in with the millions of workers
who spend their lives in homes which, emphatically, they do not “fall
in love with”. Ted Heath was also fond of Chequers and stayed there
most week-ends, although he was typically frustrated by the refusal of
Arthur Lee’s widow, who was allowed to live there until she died,
almost forty years after Lee’s death, to agree to the improvements he
was impatient to make. Heath organised social events and concerts
there, when his guests could enjoy the indoor swimming pool which was a
gift from another rich benefactor. If Heath could see no irony in this,
the same can be said about Tony Blair and his fondness for hosting
events attended by fashionable stars of the media and the entertainment
industry - Elton John, David Bowie, Richard and Judy. The publicity was
a useful promotion of Blair’s assumed credentials as a trendy - while
he devoted himself to his mission to govern the rest of us in a
distinctly outworn fashion.
Chevening, a grand house surrounded by a 3,500 acre estate, is now
occupied by Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett - although what this
will do to her well-known preference for caravan life is anybody’s
guess. The Earl of Stanhope left Chevening to “the nation” in 1967,
specifying that it must be used by the Prime Minister, a Cabinet
minister or a descendant of George VI. Prince Charles at first
had his eye on it but then changed his mind; perhaps he was uneasy
about being spoiled for choice. In fact Chevening, along with the now
notorious Dorneywood, has previously figured in events exposing the
meaner, ruthless nature of a politician’s ambitions and their perceived
need to enforce recognition of their standing. When the scandal of
Prescott’s office affair first broke he was adamant that he would not
be forced out of Dorneywood, clinging to the house as a symbol of his
power and influence; to give it up would be to admit to a decline in
his standing. It was not until the pressure on him became too intense,
symbolised by those photographs of him leaning on his croquet mallet,
that he changed his mind, in the hope that this would assuage his
critics and so save his place in the government. It was rather like
Arctic travellers trying to distract a pack of pursuing wolves by
throwing chunks of meat off the sledge - except that in this case it
was not human lives, but the vanity of an arrogant, discredited
politician that was at stake.
Chevening
There has been another, equally illustrative and
sickening, example in recent years. In July 1989 Thatcher had run out
of patience with her Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe, on the grounds
that “…his clarity of purpose and analysis had dimmed”.(which
meant that he had disagreed with her too often). When she came to sack
him Howe was furious, partly because he would have to give up
Chevening, where he was very comfortable. To prevent him becoming too
much of a rebellious nuisance Thatcher offered him another post and
occupancy of Dorneywood, which at that time was occupied by Chancellor
of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson. After a spell of bitter bargaining
Howe settled for Leadership of the Commons, the meaningless title of
Deputy Leader - and possession of Dorneywood. A Tory peer later raged
at Woodrow Wyatt about Howe’s behaviour and the fact that the reshuffle
had been “…overshadowed by a squalid squabble about houses… Why didn’t
he keep his own house?”: to which Wyatt replied “probably because he
doesn’t have any money and maybe he needed the money when he sold it”.
This sordid episode is a commentary on how devotedly our leaders
protect their own interests while they savagely denounce any workers
who dare to resist the constant pressure to depress their conditions.
John Prescott must have found it very satisfying to lord it over
Dorneywood and its acres. It was, after all, tangible evidence that
this man who took pride (and won a few votes) in being rough and ready
had climbed so high up the greasy pole. All the more bitter the irony
then, that the place should have triggered his downfall.
IVAN
Socialist Standard July, 2006 Page 19