THIS COUNTERFEIT COALITION

Mr. Callaghan and his Labour Government have not been reprieved. They have secured a stay of execution but they are still under sentence of death.

Nothing has been changed by last Wednesday's shabby little deal—except that many Labour M.P.s (and several Liberals) have been enabled to hang on for a few more weeks or months to the Parliamentary seats they would certainly lose in the election which the country wants.

This is the only change in the political situation. One has only to consider the Liberals' claims to see that they are completely hollow.

Mr. Steel asserts that he can stop the Government from introducing fresh damaging Socialist legislation.

But the James CallaghanPrime Minister, without a majority in the House of Commons, had no power to do this anyway, quite irrespective of the Lib-Lab pact.

No doubt Mr. Steel fondly believes that he can persuade the Government to introduce some really beneficial, non—Socialist measures.

Harm

But if these were unacceptable to the Labour Left—as they almost certainly would be—Mr. Callaghan would not risk splitting his party just to please the Liberals.

So nothing has changed for the better. But some harm has been done, not least to the reputation of politics and politicians, who are seen to attach more importance to clinging to the sweets of office than to giving a dissatisfied people the chance to elect an effective Government.

There is something else, still more damaging, which the Liberals have achieved by keeping Labour in office a little longer.

This Government, while it had a Parliamentary majority, forced through a number of extreme Socialist measures which are not only unpopular but actually harmful.

The Community Land Act, the Capital Transfer Tax, the Industry Act and the Employment Protection Act are just a few of them.

Amended

It is urgently necessary, in the country's interest, that some of these measures should be repealed and others drastically amended.

Mr. Callaghan will not—indeed cannot—do this, with or without the Liberals. But a Conservative Government could and would do it.

By keeping Labour in office Mr. Steel has effectively clamped these shackles on industry and on taxpayers for a further period of time.

I doubt whether many Liberal voters will thank him for it.

The deal has also, of course, postponed still further genuine reductions in public spending, which are needed to slow down the rate of inflation and enable industry to invest for the creation of new jobs.

I do not think the housewives and the unemployed will have much to thank Mr. Steel for.

So who has gained? Only those who have postponed for a while the loss of their seats in Parliament.

But in the long run even these pathetic time-savers [sic] will not have gained much.

In the long run expediency never pays. The reckoning may be delayed but it comes inexorably in the end.

One might have expected that Mr. Callaghan and the Liberals would have learned at least some of the lessons of history.

Charade

In 1923 and 1929, Labour Governments were sustained in office for a time by the Liberals. In the ensuing General Elections both parties were decimated.

Indeed, in 1931 both parties split—and the Liberals have never recovered. So it will be at the end of this temporary charade.

And what has Mr. Callaghan to show for his temporary extension of office?

He has not regained the substance of power. His is still an ineffective, lame-duck Government.

In fact, life has become even more complicated for him. Before, he had to placate the T.U.C. and the Tribune Group without upsetting his “moderates” too much. Now he has to placate the Liberals as well.

His Government is now a coalition of Labour Right, Labour Left, and Liberals, with the T.U.C. exercising the ultimate control through the Labour Party Conference.

The only result of trying not to annoy any of these will be that no effective decisions will be taken and nothing useful will get done. [end p1]

And this is no time for Britain to be without an effective Government.

The problems—of inflation, of unemployment, of industrial confidence—are too many and too urgent to be solved by the empty words that are all that Labour Ministers have to offer.

Words of hope and optimism are not enough. We have been hearing those from Messrs Callaghan and Healey since 1974—and everyone's living standards have been going steadily down.

The people want an election now. They need the hope of freedom from the shackles of Socialism—a chance to get the Government off their backs and make a future for themselves and their children.

It is sad to see the Liberals, once the party that purported to stand for individual freedom, sustaining in office a Government that has done more to destroy individual freedom and the springs of private enterprise than any in this century.

It will profit them nothing. But the country will lose a great deal.

Before long, the people must be allowed to choose a new Government.

And in the meantime, on Thursday, the electors of Stechford have a chance to pass their verdict on this counterfeit coalition.