RABBLE WITHOUT A CAUSE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP87-00462R000100130025-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 6, 2010
• Sequence Number: 25
• Publication Date: May 21, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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THE RECTOR OF
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE
National Intelligence Council
NOTE FOR THE DIRECTOR
FROM: Herbert E. Meyer
Vice Chairman, NIC
22 May 1985
This cri de Coeur over the UK's
Conservative Party has an echo that leaders
of our country's GOP should hear.
Herbert E. Meyer
Attachment:
Article from London Times,
May 21, 1985: "Rabbl without
a cause" by Bernard Levin
George Keyworth
Robert Tuttle
Edwin J. Feulner, Jr.
Anthony R. Dolan
Hon. Jack Kemp (via: J. Dave Hoppe)
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Bernard Levin: the way we live- now,
ble wits
I first became interested. in politics
when I was a schoolboy. I used to
read the Parliamentary; Reports `in
The Times, and, kept an annotated
register of M Ps. I ' think I classified
them according to their distance
from my own views; -which at that
time were roughly those held today
by Mr Kinnock -'that is,'base? on
the assumptions that wouldbe'tdiade
by a rather naive, 15-year-old. (My
excuse is that I was a rather naive
15-year,-old: what.iS MrItinnock's?)
A few years wetrt-by,'and" I was a
fellow-student of-Sir-Alfred' Sher-
man, who was 'the leader of the ISE
Comm~nistPatty I always knew he
would, go far'..:I had had ambitions
for a political .,,.career, but at the
universtly -1 Shed them. - pretty
quickly, together with the naive 15-:.
year-old's.vtews.
Another few years and I had
become a journalist, and began to
write about politics, among many
other subjects. I had first voted in a
general election-in 1951; I voted
Labour. A certain amount of
disillusion with Labour set in shortly
afterwards, but I certainly voted for
them in 1955 and 1959. In 1957 I
became 'a-parliamentary correspon-
dent; Gaitsftell became.my hero, not
only for his own qualities but also by
way of reaction from' my contem-
plation of the malignant shadow
dogging his footsteps. >.I may not
have been the first man" to take the
full measure of Harold Wilson, but I
am sure I was the first to proclaim
that measure regularly and fre-
quently, and a fat lot of good it did. I
voted Labour, 4 admit, in both 1964
and 1966, when he was leader, but
by then I had known for many years
that in a democracy it is frequently
necessary to enter the polling booth
holding one's nose. More years'
rolled by; I voted Labour in 1970,
despite feeling strongly that it was a
mistake to do so.
I have not done so since. As more
years passed, Labour began to
stampede not just towards the..left,
but away from sanity; worse, away
from liberty. My recoil from them
was largely based on that, but there
was another element, my growing
conviction that what governments
could do was far more limited than
most of them profess most of the
time. At the list of Sir Karl Popper,
I had learned to distrust the past as a
guide to the future; now I had to
learn that the present was not much
help either. 1 have quoted Michael
Oakeshott's splendid metaphor
before; it will endure another airing:
In political activity, then, men
sail a boundless and bottomless
sea; there is neither 'harbour for
shelter nor floor for anchorage,
neither starting-point nor ap-
pointed destination.. The enter-
prise is to keep afldat on an even
keel; the sea is both friend and
enemy; and the seamanship
consists in using the resources of
a traditional manner of behav-
iour in order to make a friend of
every inimical occasion.
I t was in that sceptical frame of
mind that I watched Britain's retreat
through the Seventies; the withering
of enterprise, the increasing reliance
on the state (and, the -increasing
greed of the state for those willing to
be reliant upon it), the general
political decay, best symbolized by
the rise of Solomon Binding, though
we should not forget Mr Heath's
invcntion,of "comparability", to get
him off the miners' hook."
Suddenly, there was somebody
else. Mrs Thatcher, from the
moment she threw her hat in the
ring (she had'sewn rocks into the
lining, which is why it hurt Mr
Heath" so much when it hit him),
began not only to talk a different
political language, but to behave as
though she,meant what she said. I
sat up sharply to watch the fun, and
voted for her in 1979 with
considerable enthusiasm, and in
1983 with even more. Now read on.
All this autobiography has a
point. Tempora mutaniur... I have
moved restlessly through the politi-
cal landscape of my time, and
though it is not difficult; to portray
my journey as a continuous progress
from left to right, it would be
misleading; you will find nothing
like the abjuro of Paul Johnson in
my writings. The sceptical stance in
politics, which I adopted (or which
adopted me) decades ago, still serves
mle well in monitoring political
activity anywhere oil the spectrum,
but it means that I could never drop
anchor, whatever happens. I remain.
and always will. a floating voter. But
there is one, and on!\ one, political
position that. through all the scars
and all inc ch?rigmg s less and
fi:clings, ha, never .1 eyed. nc' i r
come into questipn. never seemed
too simple for a complex world. It is
my' profound and unwavering
contempt for the Conservative
Party.
That is much more remarkable
than, it may at first appear. The
Conservative Party, after all, has not
remained the same; there have been
several Conservative parties in my
time. When that schoolboy pored
over The Times, for instance. the
Tories in the: House of Commons
were the pre-war vintage. Most of
them had supported Chamberlain,
and never stopped hating Churchill;
Harold Nicolson looked round the
room at Chips Channon's end-of-
the-war party, and saw "the
Nurembcrgers and the Munichois
celebrating our victory over their
friend Herr von Ribbentrop".
i Well, it was not difficult to
despise that generation, and to
rejoice when they went down in
1945. But then, as I looked at the
Tory ranks in the six years of the
Labour administration, together
with the new intake when the Tories
returned to power, an amazing truth
dawned; the next generation was
actually worse than its predecessor.
'It was characterized chiefly by
meanness of spirit; they hated the
welfare state, not at all (except for a
handful of the old guard, 'like Sir
Waldron Smithers) because they
foresaw the nanny state that
eventually grew from it. but because
it took money from the "right"
people and gave it to the wrong; I
suppose one of the most formative
political episodes of my life -
formative tar more widely and
deeply than its effect on my politics
- was ,the contemptuous jeering
from the Tories at the thought that
the National Health Service was
giving people teeth and spectacles.
It became a kind of expletive;
"teethandspectacles, teethandspec-
tacles", they chanted, enraged by the
thought?thiLt the poor might live a
better life. If it had not been for R. A.
Butler and his patient, careful work
in nursing a new breed of Tory MPs
and officials, the party would have
descended to a level of Schweinerei
from which it might never again
have risen.
But what actually happened was
no' better. Under Macmillan, who
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offered nothing but his cynical
"Enrichissez-vous!" all principles,
even vile ones, were abandoned by
the Tories, as they fought to get their
bread in the gravy. Going to the
Tory conference in'tibe..Macmillan
years provided,'a unique insight into
the furthest reaches of ;>fatuity,
complacency and. selfishness attain-
able by the human ra e.;I remember
overhearing a middle-aged woman
delegate, with htlsraind ` in tow,
talking to another. sdch couple. One
pair had installed a television set at
home, the other iwem thinking of
doing so. "Yes", she ,aid, "I suppose
we ought. to hAve. a: television, to, 1
know what the ordinary people are
thinking".
I can see her now if I close my
eyes; dowdy; vacant, overweight: I
never saw anything so, ordinary in
my life (her husband matehed her
perfectly). and she wanted to know
what the ordinary people were
thinking. 1 believe, and I always will,
that the premature death of Hugh
Gaitskell was the 'single most
damaging political event in Britain
in the postwar world, for he left his
party to face that Tory attitude, and
the Tory attitudes that grew from it
later, in the hands of Harold Wilson,
an experience from which Labour
has never recovered and the country
only to a Iimited extent.
At the Labour conference there
were and are people very much
worse than that silly woman. There
are people who want to destroy this
country's freedom, and who work
implacably, and with a good deal of
success so far, towards that goal;
there are also the massed ranks of
union delegates, devoid of all
energy, understanding. magna-
nimity, largeness, of character or
imagination the visible, tangible
incarnation of Britain's industrial
failure; and up on the platform men
are jockeying for power, lying about
their beliefs to gain favour with one
group or another, pretending to love
colleagues whom they hate, and
willing to go to any lengths in
damaging the country's interests if it
will help them to get their behinds
`Labour began to
stampede not just
towards the left but
port, pension arrangements,. enter-
tainment of constituents and travel?
Now the most signifidant.aspect
of this state of affairs lies in the fact
that an astonishingly high 007
portion of Conservative leaders
have despised their followers' quite
as much as I do. Obviously,
Churchill did; more subtly, though
no less ddeply, Macmillan: did;
Heath would have been mad, or
almost incredibly generous, if he
hadn't, and not only after they
removed him from the ,leadership;
above all, our present Prime
Minister dries.
And so she should. For she is the
one post-Churchill prime minister of
either party who actually ,has a
vision of this country's tranforma-
tion and future; who has offered that
vision to the nation, who has seen
the nation beginning to respond to
it, and then finds that the moment
the opinion polls show a blip on the
screen, fully two and a half years
before there is the least likelihood of
an election, blue funk. is running
through her party like Aids at an
orgy.
When Mrs Thatcher makes it
clear that she wants. to destroy the
class structure of Britain, she means
it When she insists,on returning to
private ownership concerns like the
telephone system. British Aerospace.
the Gas Board, British Airways and I
hope many more, site makes sure
that the public, and not just the City
friends of some of the spivs on her
hack benches, can obtain a share in
the country's potentially profitable
assets. When she decides that
council-house tenants should have
the right to buy their homes, she
introduces legislation to that end.
What do you suppose it was that
first gave Mrs Thatcher her appeal
to the country? To find out the
answer to that question.., you only
had to stand still for 10 minutes and
listen; you could hear it all :round
you, and from those who disagreed
with her policies as much as those
who believed in them. it was, that in
Margaret Thatcher the country had
again, after many a summer, got a
leader who knew her own mind,
spoke it, and acted upon it. And
what was, what is, her mind? It is
nothing less than the transmogrifi-
cation of Britain into a nation of
self-reliant, prospering individual-
ists.
She will change the way people
see the world and the way they
think. She will make us all see that
to save for our-old age is not only a
morally commendable thing to do,
but is also likely to make our old age
much more comfortable than relying
on the state', pension. She will
persuade us that it is not wrong that
those who can afford more than a
token contribution to their medical
care should be obliged to pay it and
when she has taught us that lesson,
we shall teach ourselves to make
better and more careful use of such
facilities. Nor will she stop there.
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on the government benches. And yet
their veins are full of blood, not
Babycham. and the visitor does not
want to go out into the corridor to
quell his shuddering stomach,
whereas I truly believe that I have
not spent a full day at any Tory
conference without at some point
longing, in Cassandra's famous
phrase, for a quiet corner, an
aspidistra, a handkerchief and the
old heave-ho.
It is only very recently, with the
rise of Thugdom Triumphant, with
the Scargills outside Parliament and
those who have taken to practising
has become intimidation me that
to
despise the Labour Party as I despise
the Tories, although for different
reasons. Yet still, one look at the
other side and the,deviout will be
inclined to cross themselves, the
superstitious will- fingera rabbit's
paw and- the wholly materialist will
call for brandy.,,
For today, difficult though it may
be to believe, the party's condition is
worse than ever. The old guard
condemn Mrs Thatcher as a lower
never
middle-class swot who the has
read any history, and
ones, who have never read- any
history themselves, or' anything else
either, are so busy selling their
sgrvices to. bucket-shop proprietors
in need of an MP.on their letterhead
to impress the,punters-that it is as
much as they' can do to romember. to
have their Herbie l?rogg shitty
monogrammed.
romiriets
d a "
crib
d
.
p
e
es
I once
Conservative - never mind=which"
one - as having the vision of a molt,
the passion- of a speak-your-weight.
machine and the oratorical dlo'-
quence of a whoopee-cushion. But I
did so in the .course of urging
support. for him, and;the reason for
d
" to
my urging was that he wante
change this country for what
thought was the better.
Not the better off: the befttprry,
Today, if you lined up;.
MPs, the conference representatives
and the entire staff of,Central Office
you could throw coconuts at them,
for an-hour . and`-'a half without
hitting one who knew the difference.
Where among them are more than a
handful who dream of changing
Britain, of offering her citizens an
aim beyond a bigger car and the
suppression of football hodl'ganism,
of belies ing that there is a moral
content to national life. of building
cathedrals and pulling down Victo-
ria Street?
That is a lot to ask, is it? Then let
me ask less. How many arc not
hankering for a return to "consen-
stis", for the tiniest increase in
inflation (5 cent, say), for a
programme of artificial job creation
that will make the figures look better
until after the next general election,
for leaving the rating s},tcni alone,
for lust a little espan`r'ui of the
supply. t,u an in.reasc M
me
y
nu
-,
pai?liantcittary all,~~~anees fix std
f? c.__:....i t-..i., arch hell), trans-
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She will make trade upion leaders.
responsible to their members 4nd .if,
she lives long enough she willo n
l
J ttot
to make the members respons
the industry th tsWill nifte
better of if.th ,allow`fi.:t , S1te
count . once, again moose
"
when the
who produce the wealth
water nscs, all the boots. r'ise' with
it") of nattgtl> ,
.,
c
i am Jpkltl. 6f
isora
.
not do . inch thlda,='th
the 1979 'election `for `them single-
handed; . , she' h 4d.," rat*' ,more
support from her colleagues inti1983,
but that a only bi at a thC.1 Y
landslide ortty, andAben7 pled
astonished''w she hastened to get
rid of him as'soon as she was back in
Downing Street.)'Now a couple, of
parliamentary:seats have-.'been lost,
the local. elections have proved a.
serious disappointmet, and the
opinion polls, arc adverse; the
standard of'revolthas-therefore been,
raised and U-turns .ar-e demanded.
Come; talk; gentlyto the TUC, tell
more;- money
Sir Keith to make..,
available, cover the 'country. with
factories in which. a million men
may be found' einployttient in
`Above all Tory leaders,
the present one despises
her followers.-.and so
she should'
extracting moonboams'frotn cucum-
bers. above all don't be so ahrassive.
Be like Mr Julian Critchley; he's not
abrasive, and look where tie's got -
writes regularly for 'I/' Listener, he
does. and the ladies of' his
constituency association posiusely
adore hint.
And why doesn't she lower her
voice? And drop the GU' Bill as a
gesture to national unity? And give
up confrontation'' And above all,
save. of r .seats. Save out seats by
hook or by crook, or by both; save
our seats by the abandonment'of the
vain (and anyway far too abrasive)
hope of changing the country: save
our seats by a liberal distribution of
Danegeld: save our seats by making
the compassionate Mr Walker
Chancellor of' the Exchequer; save
our seats by hinting at an alliance
with the'Alliance; save our seats by
putting Mr Pym in the Cabinet and
Mr,Prtotabd Mr Heath and indeed
Mr Critchley; save our seats by what
we would do in similar circum-
stances - that is, save our seats by
fudging and smudging and nudging,
by. pretending that Britain's prob-
lems can be solved without pain to
anyone,: by seeking the,. Middle
Ground, thq Middle Way and the
Middle Ages. Ldtus lean neither too
far to the right rortoo far to the left,
neither Excessively forward nor
exaggeratedly back, neither too
much up nor superfluously down.
That way we shall save our seats: we
know that many of us in the new
intake of 19.79 and 1983 look, sound
and behave like so many used-car
salesmen who do a.bit of safe-blow-
ing on the side, but we wouldn't
want to earn our living that way if
we could help it.
'Have you noticed that some
people hate Mrs 'thatcher? That, I
dare say, upsets Denis more than it
does her. But it dismays me not' at
all. For.it means that the medicine,
nasty- though it tastes, may yet cure
the patient. Who hated Macmillan,
Home. Heath? Who hated Wilson,
Callaghan, Foot, and who hates
Kinnock?
They sly they hate her for her
"manner", her "ruthlessness", her
"obstinacy", above all for her "lack
of compassion". They lie; they hate
her because they are afraid she
might, succeed, and transform
Britain into, a country where
endeavour thrives, . where merit
advances, where the. invaluable
uniqueness of each individual, is
promoted and,made much of, where
success, not failure, is commended..
To sum up.in terms as offensive as f
can fin4 words for, Margaret
Thatcher wants Britain to be a
country in which nobody has power
and influence either because he went
to bed at Eton with a. future Cabinet
minister, or because he commands
at the Labour Party conference
hundreds of thousands of votes half
of which were rigged and the, other
half bought.
That is the kind of country I. and
many others, want too. Shall we
have it? Or 'shal we let the
Conservative Party ensure that we
do not?
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