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Some day someone will
publish a step-by-step account of the Conservative Party’s decline
from the heights of its Thatcherite dominance to its present
unimpressive condition. One of the steps recorded will surely be
Norman Lamont’s calm observation that, in pursuit of his economic
purposes, a high level of unemployment was "a price worth paying".
We should spend a while
savouring that remark, appreciating what range and depth of
understanding which it offers to us about the level of regard which
British politicians have for their innocent public. Those sitting in
big leather armchairs in the company of similarly affluent and
important persons; or those sitting around a conference table joining
brilliant others in devising financial policies, will accept without
blinking or twitching, the apparent calm common-sense of Lamont’s
words. If economic planning is kept to theory, and remains in
examination papers or management training manuals, then any plan which
is clever enough to result in material success, will carry "a price
worth paying". The theory falls down when it is applied to the daily
lives of real people; and it was the shocked and frightened natural
response of real people that very quickly made politicians realise
that Lamont had put his foot in it, and that in future they would do
well to remember his unhappy experience and watch what they said.
You’d think that the lesson would have been learned, but of course to
a person who is important enough, powerful enough, vain enough,
lessons may seem something which only lesser souls need remember.
Lamont’ s indiscretion
was about money. What do you make of a man whose indiscretion is about
life? Britain’s Prime Minister was, a short time ago, reported — and
so far the reports have not been denied —as explaining his policy of
full identification with the purposes of the United States. Such
support would ensure, as he saw it, the continuing ability of Britain
to influence America’s rulers. To enjoy this distinction, he
explained, we have to pay "the blood price".
Alliances do often
carry such obligations; and when causes are noble and situations
desperate, then rulers will require collective action from their
people, which will end in death for many. We know this is so, and we
know especially if we have already seen it happen. What I don’t think
we were prepared for was the level of callousness revealed in the
"blood price" remark. Do what you will with your own blood. Call upon
others to be noble and generous in the yielding up of theirs if you
are convinced that the danger is great and the threat is to all. But
do not make light of what you demand. Even if in your mind, you are
playing a heroic rule before invisible cameras; jaw set, eyes
flashing, fists clenched, you are no final authority or arbiter on the
shedding of any blood but your own. The sacrifice of life is the
ultimate that the individual can give to the collective, and the least
that rulers can offer is language which is decent and respectful.
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