Harold Wilson’s Sorry Crew

In the middle of January the House of Commons held a two-day debate on the Government’s package of proposed economies. It was a grim and gloomy occasion made no better by a Harold Wilson speech so flat, rambling and vague that the Members gave it the final condemnation. They did not heckle, interrupt or rise on points of order. They just stopped listening.

But one thing of enormous significance happened during the debate. More precisely, the significance lay in something that did not happen, like the dog in the Sherlock Holmes story that did not bark in the night. Edward Heath, leader of the Opposition, who spoke with unusual force and cogency, said, “This Government has lost the will to govern and it knows it.” Then came the non-event. There was no response from the Labor benches. Six months earlier Heath’s next words would have been drowned by violent shouts of real or synthetic rage. Twelve months earlier he would have been silenced by shouts of derision. But there was no response. Harold Wilson, the master of the quick counter-jab, said nothing. His Cabinet colleagues sat “all silent and all damned.” Not a single back bencher had a word to say. None had the fortitude to deny what everybody knew. “No man can govern in the name of doubt,” said Salazar. How long can this Government continue in something much worse than doubt?

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Colm Brogan

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In the middle of January the House of Commons held a two-day debate on the Government’s package of proposed economies. It was a grim and gloomy occasion made no better by a Harold Wilson speech so flat, rambling and vague that the Members gave it the final condemnation. They did not heckle, interrupt or rise on points of order. They just stopped listening.

But one thing of enormous significance happened during the debate. More precisely, the significance lay in something that did not happen, like the dog in the Sherlock Holmes story that did not bark in the night. Edward Heath, leader of the Opposition, who spoke with unusual force and cogency, said, “This Government has lost the will to govern and it knows it.” Then came the non-event. There was no response from the Labor benches. Six months earlier Heath’s next words would have been drowned by violent shouts of real or synthetic rage. Twelve months earlier he would have been silenced by shouts of derision. But there was no response. Harold Wilson, the master of the quick counter-jab, said nothing. His Cabinet colleagues sat “all silent and all damned.” Not a single back bencher had a word to say. None had the fortitude to deny what everybody knew. “No man can govern in the name of doubt,” said Salazar. How long can this Government continue in something much worse than doubt?