Who are the dogmatists?

If I were to sum up in a phrase what was wrong with the last four years of Labour government, the words I would choose would be “dedicated negligence” . This is no mere rhetorical flourish; the word “dedicated” and the word “negligence” have an equally important part in the indictment.

Negligence there certainly has been, on a scale which is both grotesque and palpable. It has been shown in the decay of our defences, which has grown steadily worse as Russia has re-armed at an unprecedented pace. It has been shown in the Government's total failure to respond to an increase in crime at home of dramatic proportions. It has been shown in the Government's refusal to grapple seriously and responsibly with the task of stemming immigration into this country at a time when jobs are scarce and the economy and the welfare service are under strain.

Most conspicuously of all, it has been shown in the country's economic decline, which brought us to the brink of ruin two years ago and which has been checked (albeit only temporarily and superficially) only with the aid of massive foreign loans granted on strict conditions.

Defenceless

The total effect of these derelictions of duty has been to leave us more defenceless than ever before against foreign attack, and to expose our social order to dangerous and ever growing stress. As far as the economy is concerned, amid the welter of statistical comparisons (almost all decisively unfavourable to Labour) to which the public has been exposed in the last few weeks, one clear truth stands out: production remains stagnant, wages and public expenditure continue to rise.

One does not have to be even economically literate to know what this means. It means that, in the coming months, the rate of inflation will again rise and, if something drastic is not done, we shall soon be back at the nadir we reached in 1976.

So much for the negligence: where does the dedication come in? Well, the paradox is that it is the dedication which is precisely the cause of the negligence. Take every one of the failures of Labour, and you will discover that it springs not from mere sloth, incompetence, much less from ill-will or corruption, but rather from a fanatical adherence to fixed dogmatic prejudice.

Indifference

So it is with the running down of our defences: essentially, it has been done in deference to the wishes of the Left wing of the Party, which is traditionally hostile to military expenditure and doctrinally pre-disposed to the view that Russia, far from being a threat to the West, represents in some respects the vanguard of social progress and idealism.

Similarly, the Government's indifference to the crime wave is the by-product of a philosophy which holds that anti-social behaviour is always the product of bad social conditions and can never be deterred by mere punishment. The sober discussion of immigration has also been frustrated by the characteristically Left-wing assumption that anyone who says that a society needs a measure of cultural homogeneity is a chauvinist.

But, of course, the most glaring instance of the way in which uncritical dogmatism has worked against this country in the last four years is the handling of the economy. Here, there is but one sovereign shibboleth—the idea that government intervention in commerce and industry is the cure for every evil. This theory dispenses altogether with the need for foresight. Everything is to be achieved by direct, off-the-cuff, ad hoc action.

If jobs are in danger because of the failure of some enterprise to satisfy its customers, the instant Socialist reaction is to prop the enterprise up with a subsidy paid for by taxing successful enterprises—and thereby, of course, creating unemployment in them.

If wages show a tendency to rise excessively, the instant Socialist reaction is to announce a norm for all wages rises, to be observed without regard to circumstances, without regard to the capacity of particular industries to pay, or to the special demands of talent and craftsmanship, or even to promises that have been made and expectations that have been created.

Rigid

All this has produced a night-marish economy—one in which hard work goes unrewarded personal saving is penalised, and the plums go to those who have had the cunning to learn how to work the system.

The crucial point is, however, that all this is the result of a rigid dogmatism. For some time that dogmatism has been masquerading as common sense, moderation and prudence. But in reality the characteristic quality of Labour administration has been a tired but undeviating fanaticism, not, indeed, a triumphant revolutionary march to Utopia, but a sleepwalkers' procession to catastrophe.

The remedy is not another dogmatism, not some huge [end p1] programme of instant legislation, but a government which will have as its objective to do properly its own, fundamental, primitive business (that of defending the country, putting down crime, maintaining the nation) while otherwise concentrating chiefly on creating the conditions in which the citizen can do his business (that of creating wealth and looking after himself and his dependants). Only such a society will have the means to care for those who cannot care for themselves.

Absurd

Some things must be done as soon as we are rid of this Government: the nation's defences must be brought back to the minimum level of safety, the police force and the penal code strengthened and anxieties about future massive immigration allayed.

Above all, every item of unjustifiable government expenditure must be cut and the proceeds distributed in tax deductions. But for the rest, the task must be gradually and judiciously to recover the ground which has been surrendered to Socialist dogma.

To represent this as the policy of a party of doctrinaires is to turn reason upside-down. To represent it as a policy of confrontation is even more absurd: indeed, it offers the Trades Unions their only chance of returning to their natural and historical function—that of working for better conditions and higher wages for their own members.

Such is the case which I would have presented to the electorate had Mr. Callaghan chosen to expose himself to the risk of an election. As it is, he has chosen to protract his Government's death agonies and thereby, I believe, to increase still further the probability of a decisive Conservative victory. But though time is on our side, the nation has none of it to spare. The task of starting to get Britain back on course must not be postponed a day longer than it need be. So I am determined that no legitimate opportunity shall be lost in the next session of Parliament to force Mr. Callaghan to submit to the people's judgement.