Macmillan changes nothing
We have been here before. There is no novelty in Government changes, even if they are in one big purge at the top, as Mr. Macmillan has just pushed through. Punch greeted the news with a reprint of a cartoon which showed a shelf full of discarded top ministers from the Balfour government of 1905. Clement Attlee was always liable to make important changes and in some of them won for himself a reputation for ruthlessness.
In one of his reshuffles he called to Ten Downing Street a minor minister who was generally accepted to be running his department satisfactorily. The minister left smiling brightly and the newspapers decided that Attlee had called him only to say, “Well done—carry on.” In fact, the minister had been brusquely sacked and was never seen on the front benches again.
This may have been typical of Attlee’s handling of his men, but it does not fit in with the popular conception of Macmillan. Up to his last purge the Tory premier had stuck to some of his men through thick and thin. When the responsible minister offered to resign after the shake-up over the Portland spy case, Macmillan refused to let him go. He has stood by Selwyn Lloyd under the opposition’s fiercest fire, answering criticism with promotion. This had given Macmillan a reputation for personal loyalty to his ministers.
So we have had a lot of nonsense from the press, who like us to think that the men who run British capitalism are affected in their work by sentiments like loyalty and friendship. There is a certain grim humour in this. Politicians, after all, are the men who must try to hold down our wages, decide to explode bombs which they know will release lethal fall out, declare war which they know will kill hundreds of thousands of people. And while they are doing all this, they must justify it by telling us that it is done in our interests.
So politicians must be hard and cynical and ruthless. They must be cold liars. They must be calculating mass killers. It is too much to believe that they are also the sort of men who will regret sacking a colleague because he went to Eton with them, or because he once took on one of capitalism’s dirtier jobs for them.
The men who are at the head of capitalism’s affairs are very remote from the rest of us. It is, therefore, difficult to discover the reasons for government changes, but we can discuss one or two aspects of them. Were the changes intended to reinvigorate the government? It is a popular delusion that a vigorous minister who runs a better department means a better life for us all. The Guardian plugged that line in 1950, when it thought the Labour government was tired and in need of a rest. It thinks something like that about the Tory government today. It may be that an energetic minister is better at his job than one who has been broken by years of trying to solve capitalism’s insolubles. But nobody has yet demonstrated that an energetic and efficient administration of capitalism benefits its people. Problems like bad housing and slumps and wars persist in capitalism, whoever may try his hand at getting rid of them. Sometimes, in fact, they can transform an energetic minister into one who is washed out. They did this to Anthony Eden. Sometimes they can break an entire government, as they did the Labour administration in 1951.
This goes, too, for the theory that young men make better ministers than old men. This theory is beloved in many places—perhaps most strongly among young workers, who hope that a young minister understands their problems. This was one of the themes on which Kennedy took power in the United States. Yet the facts shoot the theory full of holes. Young men who have risen fast in the government—men like Anthony Eden, Harold Wilson and Hugh Gaitskell—have shown no more skill than their older counterparts in taking capitalism’s hurdles. It cannot even be said for them that they have brought any especial benefits to young people. They have, for example, always eagerly supported the wars in which young men are pushed into the extremities of danger and suffering. In fact, young ministers have run capitalism, as best they may, no better and no worse than old ministers have run it.
Perhaps the Macmillan purge was designed to improve what is called the image of the government—its appearance before the doubtful electors. A government’s image is important; in some cases it wins or loses them votes. Yet in one way the changes do nothing to help the government’s image. For the image must be a successful one. And can a government which has had to be put through a shattering change be described as successful? Perhaps there are different interpretations of the word. Up to the last moment the government were assuring us that Selwyn Lloyd was successful, that his policies were correct and that he was administering them firmly and wisely. What sort of an image has Lloyd, now?
We could go on like this for a very long time; the politics of capitalism are full of double dealing, lies and worse. But let us consider the reshuffle from the point of view of the people who are meant to be impressed by it; the people who vote governments in and out; the people who keep capitalism running; the working class. For them, what are the changes worth?
In a word: Nothing. We have been here before and we have seen it all before. Governments have come and gone, been reshuffled, turned upside down, inside out and up the right way again. Prime Ministers have been ousted and replaced. The governing party itself has been changed. Through it all the same old problems have kept nagging at us.
Many workers who decided in 1945 that the Tories were a pack of played out, hard-faced men, were disappointed at the Labour Party’s efforts to do better. Whatever changes are made in any government’s personnel the results are roughly the same.
There need be no mystery about this. Governments run capitalism. And capitalism will keep throwing up economic troubles, personal insecurity, international disputes and the rest, as long as it exists. Whoever is in charge of any particular ministry can have no effect’upon these problems. Foreign secretaries have failed to remove war from capitalism. Chancellors have not been able to budget poverty out of existence. Housing ministers have been baffled by slums.
The evidence of the past says that this is true. So does the evidence of the present. One of the brightest stars to rise in the recent reshuffle is Sir Keith Joseph, who is now the Minister of Housing and Welsh Affairs. This man seems to have everything. Educated at Harrow and Oxford. A beautiful home, a lovely wife. Oozing with culture and knowledge. The top papers rushed to eulogise him and to tell us how lucky we are to be bossed by somebody like the elegant Sir Keith. One of them, carried away, described him as man who offers his opinions like fine sherry served on a silver platter.
Now what sort of sherry has Sir Keith to offer on the housing question, which nags and depresses and desolates so many workers? This is how The Guardian, on August 1st last, reported his contribution to the House of Commons debate on the homeless in London:
“The remedy was more new houses. At first he wondered if slum clearance could be stopped, but when one realised the condition of some of these slums. Cable Street, Stepney, for instance, no Government would wish to stop their clearance, however bad the housing shortage . . . ‘That is undoubtedly what we need, more low-cost housing in London, and my purpose is to try to help the L.C.C. and other authorities, and private enterprise, to achieve just this’.”
The remedy is more new houses! Not a very original conclusion—we have been hearing it for as long as there has been a housing problem. At the same time, we have also been hearing why capitalism cannot get around to building enough new houses; they can’t be afforded, or must take their turn in the queue behind armaments. We’ll be hearing the same from Sir Keith, before long.
Wondering if slum clearance can be stopped! Here, perhaps, is one solution to the housing question. But it can be extended. Has Sir Keith wondered about housing workers in caves, or in disused coal mines? There are going to be more of these going soon and some of them are probably better than Cable Street.
We need more low-cost housing! In other words, if the working class are to be housed they need more cheap, poky, substandard, working class homes. If they are to be cleared out of today’s slums, tomorrow’s must be ready to receive them.
This is what we are invited to accept as rare sherry on a silver platter. Sir Keith Joseph may be a charming, cultured, educated man. But capitalism has him beaten and fumbling, just as it has the people who vote for it and who don’t need an expensive education to do so. Yes, we have been here before and we shall be here again. Because capitalism keeps throwing up the same problems and bringing us back to the same realities. It is like a nightmarish roundabout, driven by nonsense and ballyhoo and simple lies.
IVAN.