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POST-MORTEM
Page 82
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j• UDGING by what has happened subsequently, the General Election shattered the Labour party, and their leaders have been trying ever since to pick up the pieces and put them togk.Ther again. Many Socialists are convinced, not merely that they were robbed, but that their cause was sabotaged. Their approach to the disaster that should have been no more than a setback is to find the persons or the circumstances responsible From this point of view, the argument about nationalization rthat preceded the election is bound to seem to have played a great part in determining the result.
Because the internal dispute since the election has been much concerned with State ownership and the notorious clause 4 of the party constitution, the Socialists are beginning to realize that what is an important factor in keeping the split open may have been an important factor in causing it. The more moderate among them see clearly the need to revise the constitution. Others refuse to bow to the obvious. The present emphasis on nationalization they blame on the industries and associations that a year ago were campaigning in favour of free enterprise.
The complaint from the doctrinaire Socialists is that until the campaign began few people were interested in nationalization one way or the other, and that millions of pounds were subsequently spent by trade and industryin influencing public opinion against • the Labour party. Evidence that will help to decide the truth of this contention has -now been assembled in the impartial, semi-official account_ of the 1959 election produced by. two .experts in psephology .from Nuffield College. _
Publicity expenditure regarded as ' politically relevant " is calculated by ,the..authors . as -£1,435,000. About. one third of this, or £475:,000, was .spent.onthe extensive poll of public opinionsarried. out..hy,Colin Hurry,:and the iron and steel interests-'wereresponsible for another £556,000. The share of -the.-ROadrHaulage Association is given as £19,000, with the explanation that the total expenditure was about double that figure but that the intention of the advertisements was to attract business -for hauliers as well
as to combat the-threat of nationalization. .„ .. _
The book states frankly that the industries concerned wished to defeat the Labour party. There was, however, a distinction between their aimsand those of the Conservative party..' The ultimate goal of the industrialists, says the survey,was to put an end to the debate on
nationalization and then to get out of politics. The emphasis they put on nationalization was absent from much of the propaganda of the Conservatives, "who preferred to concentrate on the positive achievements of their years in office rather than on a negative issue." .
Rousing Opinion No doubt the Conservatives were right from the point of view of winning an election. This does not mean that the threatened industries were wrong in rousing public opinion on a point that was particularly important to them. It should be noted that they, were not, as their detractors are fond .of saying, "attempting to influence" the public. They might well have failed in such an object. What they had to do was.to bring public opinion to the surface. .
That they were successful is clear from the new election survey. In the summer of 1959, it is pointed out, only 6 per cent. of people interviewed in public opinion polls were mentioning nationalization as a major issue. The ol6
Gallup poll after the election reported that 20 per cent. of people regarded nationalization as one of the main causes of the defeat of the Labour party. According to a poll carried out by The Daily Telegraph, 40 per cent. of ex-I:abour voters thought the party should drop the item from their policy.
The contention that the publicity campaign by the industrialists somehow deflected people from their true opinion is one that should be made with caution in a democracy with universal suffrage. In fact, there is evidence that members of the public who expressed their views on nationalization to the pollsters knew their own minds very well. The evidence comes, somewhat surprisingly, in a research survey carried out by' Dr. Mark Abrams and published in instalments in the monthlyjournal Socialist Commentary.
He finds no evidence that people as a whole have either a blind faith in nationalization or a blind prejudice against it, They discriminate and they speak as they • find. A substantial majority consider public ownership has been a success in some industrieselectricity, atomic energy and airlines. They emphatically think it a failure only in the coal-mining industry -and in the railways. Their reasons for praise or blame were consistent, says Dr. Abrams. They praised public ownership where they thought it had helped them as consumers and as taxpayers, and they Condemned it where they considered it had failed to help. They were againSt any extension of public Ownership by nearly seven to one.
--Specific.Preppsals Those people interViewed..itrthe:survey who expressed wish for more natiorialization--71.treT made up11 per 'cent. " of the sample-were asked. to name ,which industries they had in mind. -Steel-was 'namedby 35 per cent. and road transport by 23 -per 'cent. In other words, something between 2 and 4per .cent of thepublie were actually in favour of the specific prOposali 'for nationalization contained in the. Labour party's election manifesto, Britain Belongs' To You. This is confirmed by another part of the survey. When asked what would have pleased them most in the Labour programme had the. party won the election, only 2 per cent, of the sample mentioned the prospect of more nationalization; when asked what would have pleased them least, 33 per cent. of them " spontaneously mentioned further nationalization."
The Conservatives did not make as much. of the subject as they might have done during the election campaign. The Socialists did their best to avoid the subject completely, and where they were Compelled to mention it they referred to public ownership rather than nationalization. The public were not deceived, and from Dr.. Abrams' survey they emerge as more sophisticated than the politicians. . The verdict by.Dn. Abrams could almost equally well have explainedthe 1945 election as the '1959 election. When the Socialists were returned with a large majority after the war,. their programme involved taking over a number of industries. _They had the support of most of the public for possibly more thanthree-quarters of the programme, and Dr. Abrams has shown that this support is still there. The remainder of the-programme was progressively unpopular and nationalization of road transport was most unpopular of all. This is still the view of most people.