Wilson’s story from inside Government

Press, 11 December 1976, Page 12

Wilson’s story from inside Government

By

SIR JOHN MARSHALL

Harold Wilson retired as Prime Minister of Britain on April 5 this year. Within a few months he has written this book describing in 10 easy lessons how Britain is governed. It is not a profound or definitive study of the Constitution. It is unlikely to take its place alongside the classical treatises of Bagehot, or Dicey, or even Jennings; but is is a book which none of them could have written. It is a Prime Minister’s eye view of the way the government of Britain is conducted. It is the inside story and so has an authority which outside observers cannot have. He describes in considerable detail, and in 200 pages, the functions of the Prime Minister, his relationship with the Cabinet, the Cabinet secretariat, the House of Commons, the party, the electorate, the Commonwealth and the world at large. The book is interesting also because Harold Wilson is interesting, and his personality permeates the book — confident, clever, cunning, contriving, calculating — a master politician. Tn one revealing sentence he says a Prime Minister “is

wise to ensure that there is no single crown prince. I never had less than three or four and at one time — it happened to be crucial — six.” Machiavelli could not have put it more succinctly. The name of the game is power and Harold Wilson was a past master in a party as divergent as the British Labour Party at setting off both ends against the middle. There is in one of the end papers of the book a cartoon showing nine characters, all with Harold Wilson’s features, in a circus ring performing numerous feats of balancing, juggling, somersaulting, tight-rope walking and, to cap it all, riding three horses named Labour Right, Centre, and Left. A cartoon

on one page can sometimes be more revealing than a whole book. Perhaps, by including this cartoon in his book, Harold Wilson is happy to be remembered as a supreme politician. He does, however, in a few instances appropriate to himself the title of statesman. 1 rather, think that in the judgment of history that honour may elude him. He is of course, a man of many remarkable qualities. There is no doubt about his political acumen which in itself makes his observations on the office of Prime Minister pertinent, penetrating, and particularly revealing. He deals with the current debate about the so-called trend towards a presidential system in which it is claimed that the Prime Minister is becoming more powerful and Cabinet less effective. Wilson disposes of this thesis forcefully and convincingly. “Cabinet is a democracy, not an autocracy; each member of it, including the Prime Minister, seeks. to convince his colleagues as to the course to follow. It is Cabinet, not the Prime Minister who decides.” That is also my ex-

perience of Cabinet in New Zealand. It would be a sad day for Parliamentary democracy if it were otherwise. While Cabinet still makes the major decisions, there is no doubt that the power and authority of the Prime Minister is greater now than ever before. This is due to Government responsibility.

Harold Wilson illustrates this trend by comparing the work load over the period of his two terms of office from 1964 to 1970 and from 1974 to 1976. Even in that space of 13 years, the work load had grown excessively. He gives an analysis of a typical period of three months tabulating a wide range of appointments and activities and concludes with a path-

etic and rather wistful note: “Christmas apart, I was not able to record a single private or social engagement.” It is not quite as bad as that in New Zealand, but the comment illustrates the sacrifices of personal pleasure and leisure which high public office entails. By contrast he notes that Gladstone was able to spend many weeks each autumn at Hawarden felling trees. This reference also illustrates an« other thread — a golden thread — which runs through the book, and that is the awareness of history. This is something which we are just beginning to feel in New Zealand but, in the Mother of Parliaments, the ghosts of 700 years haunt the corridors of Westminster. The book abounds with allusions to the past; not, it is true, back for 700 years but back to the eighteenth century when Walpole, the first Prime Minister, appeared on the scene. Clement Atlee was one of Harold Wilson’s mentors and

models and there are numerous references to and quotations from that quiet, wise man which throw light on the art of government. There are also many topical and perceptive comparisons with all the Prime Ministers of modem times, made with dispassionate impartiality which only a retired Prime Minister could afford to indulge in. One aspect of the relationship between the Prime Minister and Parliament to which Harold Wilson devotes a surprising amount of space is to questions in the House. He claims to have answered more than 12,000 Parliamentary questions in eight years as Prime Minister, but the comment which I found surprising was his statement that he faced the answering of oral questions with apprehension, and he always spent a great deal of time in preparing his answers. In my own experience I always enjoyed question time as much as any part of Parliamentary debating and looked forward

to the impromptu cut and thrust of supplementary questions. This different attitude to Parliamentary questions may perhaps illustrate a difference between the House of Commons and our own Parliament. The British Prime Minister performs on the world stage for an inter-

national as well as a domestic audience. A loose word may set off a run on sterling, or a careless phrase may cause a riot in Cairo or a strike in Coventry. Similarly, in the party political setting, Harold Wilson puts forward the proposition (with which I entirely agree) that a Prime Minister cannot express personal views or make party propo-

sals without giving them the authority of his office. In the context of speeches to party gatherings he says, “the Prime Minister, being a composite being, political and administrative, cannot utter a word that is not that of the head of the British Government.” The shortest chapter in

the book is headed “The Prime Minister and National Security.” It is eight short sentences occupying less than a full page. He quotes with approval a statement by Harold MacMillan. “It is dangerous and bad for our national interest to discuss these matters. It has been a very' long tradition of the House to trust the relations between the two parties (on national security) to discussions between the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister of the day.” We could do well to adopt that tradition in New Zealand. Harold Wilson is a fluent and facile writer. He has some claim to scholarship. He began life as a university don and has had a life-long interest in the theory of politics. I do not claim to have known him well, but I met him regularly on the rather frequent visits which I made to England during the 1960 s and early 19705. On one occasion I recall sitting with him at the long table in the Cabinet room at 10 Downing Street for the best part of an hour. After we had discussed the matters I had come to see him about, he invited me to stay on while he rehearsed a statement which he was to make in the House of Commons that afternoon on the right of the Courts to require the production of State documents. I was familiar with the problem from my own experience as AttorneyGeneral in New Zealand, f found he was well briefed, but he also knew his subject from his own thinking about the problem. The same could be said of this book. Bearing in mind the limitations of its subject matter — the mechanics of the machinery of government — and the speed with which it has been put together, it will still be of great interest to political scientists, and students of politics, and to anyone with an inquiring mind who likes to know what goes on behind the scenes.

As a former Prime Minister, Sir John Marshall is well qualified to review a book by another former Prime Minister, having been involved in the governance of New Zealand for many years. He does not claim to know the author of “The Governance of Britain” well, but he met Sir Harold Wilson regularly on his rather frequent visits to England in the 1960 s and 19705.

The Governance of Britain. By Harold Wilson. Weidenfeld and Nicolson and Michael Joseph. 219 pp. $11.50.