One of the by-products of the Profumo affair and the consequent demand for the resignation of the Prime Minister, Mr Macmillan, has been that probably for the first time the method of selecting the Conservative party leader has become the subject of discussion, debate and even recrimination. This is an important development since it can safely be predicted that whatever the method that is adopted it will be more democratic than in the past. The adoption of a more democratic method will in turn influence the composition and policies of the party. All these changes and their larger consequences will take a long time to be fully operative. But no one can deny that the process is fairly advanced.
The Conservative party’s attitude to the selection of the leader in the past was best illustrated by what Captain Ernest Pretyman, a back-bench MP, said 42 years ago when he invited Mr Austen Chamberlain to accept the leadership. “Great leaders of parties are not elected, they are evolved … I think it will be a bad day when we have solemnly to meet to elect a leader. The leader is there and we all know it when He is there”, he said. The process of “evolving” instead of electing the leader was informal and oligarchic in that it was the king makers in the party who settled the question among themselves. They deferred to the wishes of the ordinary MPs only to the extent that they informally consulted them. Mr Macmillan himself was selected in this cabalistic manner,
Informal
When Sir Anthony Eden resigned after the Suez fiasco the Queen consulted Lord Salisbury, leader of the Conservative party in the House of Lords. The only other person who was directly consulted by the Queen was Sir Winston Churchill. In their recent statements the persons involved in Mr Macmillan’s appointment as Prime Minister have claimed that their advice to the Queen was based on an informal sounding of opinion in the party. They could not however claim that Mr Macmillan enjoyed the support of the majority in the party. Mr Butler was bypassed ostensibly on the ground that in view of the strong opposition to him by an influential section he had less chance of reuniting the party than Mr Macmillan.
In the light of subsequent developments it cannot be said that this objection was valid though it is neither necessary nor possible to deny that Mr Macmillan was a better choice. The opposition to Mr Butler at that time arose on account of his lack of enthusiasm for the Suez operation. Mr Macmillan promised to continue Sir Anthony Eden’s policy but he scuttled it. The right wing extremists feared that Mr Butler would retreat from the policy of domination of the White minority in Central Africa. In fact Mr Macmillan’s greatest achievement has been to break that domination. Specialists in keyhole journalism have it that the “wind of change” speech which Mr Macmillan delivered in South Africa was written by Mr Butler for his own use and he slipped it into Mr Macmillan’s pocket. This story might not be true but the partnership between them has been a fact.
Mr Lloyd George once said: “The fools have stumbled on their best man by accident.” This is equally true in the case of Mr Macmillan. Soon after his appointment as Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury discovered to his great discomfiture that this crofter’s grandson (crofters are small peasants who managed the vast estates of landlords in Scotland when the latter found it more profitable to convert them into grazing fields) had a mind of his own and a mid-twentieth century one at that. Surely neither he nor Sir Winston Churchill would have recommended him to the Queen if they were aware that he would preside over the liquidation of the British Empire in Africa.
Distrust
These references to Mr Macmillan’s political outlook and behaviour are relevant to show that his elevation to the office of Prime Minister was a case of mistaken identity. He was aware of the Conservative party’s distrust of liberalism and ability and shrewd enough to hide both. My own view is that if the old method of selection was to be applied now, only a happy mistake as in the case of Mr Macmillan, could produce a leader who would be in tune with his times. Since the Conservative party is well on the way to becoming a middle class organisation, drawing room and club politics have become not only inappropriate but positively risky.
The situation is altogether interesting. Some of the back-benchers demand that the leader be elected by secret ballot as in the case of the Labour party. The vast majority of Conservative MPs would resent it if their views are ignored. There are no “senior statesmen” to play the role of Lord Salisbury and Sir Winston Churchill, not of the same stature in any case. Lord Poole who was called in to become co-Chairman of the party with Mr McLeod so that he could streamline the organisation, has assumed a much bigger role. He is opposed to the election of the leader by MPs but wants the “predominant membership” to be consulted which smells of the influence of the late Mr Harold Laski.
A fortnight ago I referred in these columns to the relative powers of the Prime Minister, Cabinet and Parliament in connection with the question “who rules Britain.” Since then a social scientist, Mr WL Guttsman, has spotlighted an important characteristic of the British political elite – its predominantly upper middle class character and predominance within it of the products of the twenty top public schools, Eton first among them. Facts speak for themselves.
Between 1916 and 1955 public school boys made half of all Cabinet ministers and four-fifths of Conservative MPs. The first worker was elected as MP in 1874 and by 1955 only 40 men of working class origin rose to Cabinet rank. The Labour party which was 92 per cent working class in 1918 was only 64 per cent working class by 1935. The process of professional men replacing trade unionists as Labour MPs goes on.
What is true of the top public schools is even truer of Oxford and Cambridge. From 1916 to 1955, 87 men from these two universities became Cabinet ministers compared with 23 from Redbrick universities. Mr Harold Wilson began his career as a don at Cambridge. The late Mr Hugh Gaitskell and Lord Attlee were similarly Oxbridge-men.
Mr Guttsman has calculated that 11,503 men ran the country. That covers the Government and Parliament (730 active members), the top civil servants (169), the judges, the top brass in the services, directors of big business and industry, scientists and top men in the universities, professions, church, trade unions and members of the large number of councils and committees that advise the Government.
Interlocked
The different power centres are interlocked. For example, a majority of Conservative MPs hold directorships. Civil servants and Ministers join business on retirement. A majority of those who serve in different committees and commissions hold position in business, industry and politics. Sir Anthony Eden said in 1925: “We have not got a democratic government today. We have never had it. What we have done in reform and evolution is to broaden the basis of oligarchy.” The critics might claim that the statement remains valid even today but the evolution continues. The democratisation of the Conservative party would be a step in this evolutionary process.
It is interesting that at a time when the western alliance is in turmoil, the Central African Federation is being dissolved and Malaysia about to come into existence, these issues continue to dominate the thinking of the people. The popular gaze remains firmly turned inward. The ferment at home commands all the attention and energy. Unless all the indications turn out to be false, one can confidently anticipate a big step forward in the social services, which do not mean only more schools and hospitals, better pension schemes for widows, the aged and the infirm. The urge for a more egalitarian and just society is becoming principal lever of political activity.
The Times of India, 13 July 1963