Towards the end of last year, three prominent Fabians delivered a series of lectures on the social programme of the Labour Government. All were critical, even stridently critical, of what had been done, Brian Abel-Smith showed that the old, defunct National Plan had aimed _to secure a smaller growth in the welfare services than had actually been achieved in the comparable ‘last years of Conservative administration, Peter Townsend carefully evaluated the Government's abysmal record in the treatment of poverty, And Richard Titmuss analysed the priorities of the Government's approach to welfare with devastating effect. All three of these lectures were published as pamphlets, and extensively (and warmly) reviewed in The Week. Now they have been reprinted as a book*, together with a long reply by Richard Crossman, who has been pushed out to defend the Government's record against three powerful adversar— ies, who know as much about its retreat from its promises as anyone, since they drafted key sections of its policies, Mr, Crossman's reply is not his best effort. He comments more shrewdly on Plato and Bagehot, who posses an added advantage in that they are unlikely to answer him back. In this case, he finds it necessary to agree with "a large section" of Townsend's critique, to find himself "in a good deal of sympathy" with Abel-Smith, and to concentrate well over half his reply on a passionate acceptance of their complaints that social service information is scant, dis~ gracefully inadequate, and requires considerable augmentation, He gracefully explains that while Nye Bevan pursued the holy grail of power from UDC to County Council to Parliament to Cabinet to inner Cabinet, so he, Crossman, has sought the decision which was taken in the light of the available evidence, It, too, has always eluded hin, It is a convincing complaint: but it will not do as an answer to these critics, The major problem in the social services is not that we do not know enough, although we do not: it is that nothing is being done to meet the problems of which we do know, While more research will be helpful in a dozen key fields, there are many perfectly simple decisions which are clearly necessary in the light of ample evidence, but which are nevertheless not being taken, Mr. Crossman knows this very well. The Art of Government, brought to perfection in England, and now being carried beyond perfection to absurdity by the present Government, is not the art of acting on all the information, but the art of not acting on any of the information, A rough seven-and~a~half million people in poverty would like help now, If it takes a precise count two years to materialise, and then we find that the exact figure is 7,493,099, or 7,501,003, they will still need the help in two years' time that might have been given two winters previously, — Delay saves money: and of money there is none, because the growth upon which all Labour's plans were predicated has not and will not come about. Of course, Abel-Smith and Townsend had both quite rightly insisted that "the gap between private affluence and public squalor could be corrected without economic growth", Robin Hood knew that. But that is precisely what Crossman denies, To take from the rich, allocate to the poor, to cut into advertising accounts to build schools or hospitals, all this used to be an axiomatic demand for all socialists, Today, says Mr, Crossman, it would produce a "siege economy" which would "court electoral defeat", Not long ago, Mr, Crossman would have argued that if this dismal prediction was true, then all, the more
a
reason to court that defeat and be damned. His failure to do so exposes
as sheer wind all the rhetoric about equity in incomes policy, "fair shares",
and “waging war against poverty", which has raged through the conferences
during the past two years. Indeed, the depths of cynicism are plumbed in
his reply to Townsend's reproach that it was wrong to move from a flat-rate
to a graded system of benefits by stages: introducing redundancy payments
and unemployment and sickness benefits first, and leaving earnings~related
pensions for a later stage. "Tf we. had Failed to provide the redundancy
payments and the earnings-related benefits before this winter began", he
says, "we should have been guilty of making no provision for those who have
suffered redundancy as a result of the July measures." In other words, q
"we were going to throw hundreds of thousands of people on the dole, and we
had to cushion their fall first," Either this claim is completely specious
hindsight, or it reveals the most. brazen and conscious denial of every
pledge given by the Labour Party to maintain full employment.
Such a "reform by stages" is not precisely hat the electors expected when
they sent Mr, Crossman up to the government front bench. But even more
damaging is his reply. to Abel-Smith's basic ‘charge about the inadequacies
of the National Plan's allocations to public and welfare spending, "True,
we were going to spend less than, the Tories", he admits, "but that was
because they overspent !",... .. "we took over Departments geared to a
Conservative: four years’ spending programme, to which the country had been
committed without any proper consideration of the. relation between publie’
sector growth and private sector growth,"
se much for the ola war-cry of "Private Agfiuencé, Public Squalor", on
which Richard Crossman ‘bounced into office, | "Local authorities", he tells
us, "were encouraged to work’ out ainbitious expansion plans - more roads,: °
more houses, more hospitals, more schools - combined with fantastic prolgoys
of central development." Little wonder that, in order to curb this orgy...
of conservative public. works , "quite, novel socialist measures" were called:
for, These, such as the incomes’ ‘policy, Mr, Crossman has described else-.,
where, But, by this time, readers will feel that they have read it all:
before, anyway: Mr. Crossman's Ministry of Truth, doublethink and newspeak,
war is peace: shades of George Orwell flit across thése fabian pages. .
Dizzy, we catch on to the theme, Poor is rich, Mx, Wilson is a staunch —
defender of the weak and humble. Two.faces good, one face. bad. Now is. ithe
time for all good t men to SOMITE = ch pal ok RESP og *
* Socialism and AffInence - four fabian essays. Fabian Society, 10 shillings.