'THE DIRECTOR! ON WILSON'S DIFFICULTIES from Stan Mills
The June issue of The Director, journal of the Institute of Directors, had a fairly lengthy article entitled "The Tories on the Attack". One could hardly expect this to be an impartial exemination (the Institute has on its Council. 4 Lords, 3 Earls, 1 Viscount, 1 Marquis , no less than 16 "Sirs", 2 Major-Generals, with a Colonel throm in, presumably to make it democratic) but the part most interesting to members of the Labour Party is as follows:
" eeeLabour's lack of real cohesion over essential aims has led to some of the chief difficulties confronting Mr. Wilson since he took over, particularly in defence policies, And it has led the Labour leader into some pretty vulnerable positions. It was, of course, the quarrel between the unilateralists and the rest that produced the Labour Party's present defence policy which admits that membership of the Western nuclear alliance is essential but rejects the claim that we can have our om, indpendent nuclear weapon. As it happens, the development of the American nuclear programme has given some semblance of rationality to this Labour policy, eeee“ven so, there are still big difficulties about Labour's policy. What exactly would they do with our independent deterrent = particularly Polaris? How meaningful is all the discussion about assigning it to NATO? .ccoce
"Mr. Wilson's vulnerablity on these points has led him into a position where he has to emphasise that, notwithstanding its views over the deterrent, Labour is a 'patriotic! Party which would defend Britain's independent role as a power in the Western Alliance. Hence, of course, his words in Washingtoneeeeabout Britain's role, with strengthened conventional forc¢s in helping the U.N. to put out brush fires in trouble spots. Now this is certainly not a role for Britain that is offensive to the Americans, There is nothing that the US would like more than for Britain to take on this sort of duty to a greater extent (our efforts in East Africa were much appreciated in Washington) thus freeing the US of an often painful obligation. But, again, for Britain this could be a policy of more kicks than ha'pence and one must ask whether Mr. Wilson really believes that Labour is offering a more attractive policy than the Tories in proposing that British troops should be more heavily committed than they are already in trouble-spotSeceeces
"Then, of course, there is the gulf between Left and Right over economic policy; and it has become increasingly clear that the Left is not happy about the extent to which Mr. Wilson is prepared to go along with capitalism. ‘So Mr. Wilson has produced his policy of using tax as a means of differentiating between essential and inessential industries and/or firms - which again, is not necessarily a policy which will prove wildly attractive to workers in all industries,