Tories trap Owen on defence
Dr David Owen appeared last night to have been the victim of a Tory stratagem which has enabled the Conservatives to turn defence into a frontline election issue.
However, an angry Dr. Owen saw it as an issue involving the Prime Minister's personal integrity and the willingness of the Tories to fight a dirty campaign using what he called a “foul smear” .
In an angry exchange of letters he accused the Prime Minister of dishonouring her office. In return she accused the Alliance of having an irresponsible defence policy which would destroy Britain's deterrent.
Mrs Thatcher continued to label the Liberals, although not the SDP, as unilateralists, and maintained that there was “little to choose” between the Alliance and Labour on defence. She suggested that the Alliance defence policy was a bogus affair cobbled together for the sake of party unity.
The dispute centred on the Conservative election manifesto, containing passages which effectively labelled the Alliance as both unilateralists and fellow-travellers, and on a Conservative party political broadcast which made prominent use of the Union Jack.
At his morning press conference, Dr. Owen revealed a letter he had sent to the Prime Minister demanding that she withdraw the comments about the Alliance. He accused her of bringing dishonour to the post of Prime Minister by what he called “deeply offensive” charges against the SDP and Liberals.
Mr. Steel said that Mrs Thatcher should not have allowed the language used in the manifesto. “I put it kindly that she allowed it, I don't know whether she prompted it” , he said.
Dr. Owen also criticized the Conservatives for trying to suggest in Tuesday night's party political broadcast that they were the only patriotic party. “It really is sticking in our gullet this belief that only the Tories understand the national interest, only the Tories are patriotic” , he said.
Whatever his own differences with Labour on defence it was a “deep insult” to them too to imply that Labour Party supporters were not patriotic.
“You do begin to wonder whether Mrs Thatcher is now claiming credit for winning the Second World War. There is this extraordinary claim that the Union Jack belongs to the Tory Party, that patriotism is somehow a unique Tory asset” , Dr. Owen said.
He said that the Alliance parties had given Mrs Thatcher unstinting support throughout the Falklands War and the miners' strike. But she had no generous impulse at all. “I don't think there is the slightest capacity to show that wider generosity that could bind the country together.”
The Tory manifesto says in part: “The Liberal and SDP defence policy would be one-sided disarmament by default or inadvertence. The only difference between it and Labour policy is a matter of timing. Labour would scrap Britain's deterrent immediately upon entering office. The Liberals and Social Democrats would allow it to wither on the vine” .
Later it says: “Labour's policy would mean not a secure Britain but a neutralist Britain. And eventually—for there can be no trifling with Soviet power—a frightened and fellow-travelling Britain. The Liberals and Social Democrats would take us more slowly down that same disastrous road.”
In a reply to Dr. Owen, Mrs Thatcher said that there was no more important subject than defence.
“Your manifesto states that the SDP and Liberals would cancel Trident; that our present deterrent, Polaris, would be modernized as necessary until it could be negotiated away as part of a global arms negotiation process.
“Where there is no SDP-Liberal policy is on the question: What would replace Trident? This question cannot be avoided because time is running out. The Polaris force is ageing and cannot hope to do its job properly beyond the mid-1990s. That is why a decision had to be taken on Trident as far back as 1980 and why the work on it is far advanced.
“At the same time Soviet defensive capabilities are steadily increasing. Against this background, the effect of the dogmatic cancellation of Trident and studied vagueness about any replacement would soon be to leave us without any effective nuclear deterrent at all.
“You say you would maintain a minimum deterrent until it can be negotiated away as part of the global arms reduction process. But you do not add that, under your arrangements, in a very short time it would have withered away, leaving no security and no bargaining card worth holding.
“There is only one reason why you are so vague on this crucial defence question. It arises from the need to present a semblance of unity between the SDP and the unilateralists of the Liberal Party.”
Campaigning in Southampton, Dr. Owen said the term fellow traveller was “a deep insult which says someone is accommodating the Soviet Union. It's to say you are effectively fellow-travelling with communism” .