An outdated Conservative Britain ruled from the grouse moors or a modern Socialist Britain, ruled with technical skill based on equality of opportunity. This was the choice and the challenge Mr Harold Wilson threw out last night in what was designed to be the first major speech of the 1964 general election campaign.
Addressing a capacity all-ticket audience (1,987 at 2s. a head) at the Birmingham Town Hall, the Labour Party leader contrasted a drab picture of a class-ridden and lethargic society with a glowing vision of a Socialist Britain tailored for the scientific age. It was the theme, hammered home, of his conference speech at Scarborough: it will be the central theme of the series of campaign speeches he has now embarked upon.
He returned time and time again to his indictment:
╥We are living in the jet age but we are governed by an Edwardian Establishment mentality.
╥If you fly the Atlantic in a jet you want to be sure the pilot knows his job, that he╒s been trained for it. If you are in a hospital you feel more confident if you know that the surgeon has given his lifetime to fitting himself for his work. Pilot or surgeon, it doesn╒t matter to you who his father was, or what school he went to or who his friends are. And yet in Government and in business we╒re still content to accept social qualifications rather than technical ability as a criterion.
Grouse moor theory
Mr Wilson scorned ╥the grouse moor conception of national leadership,╙ ability measured by upper class accents, and ╥smoothness╙ when it was ╥ruggedness╙ that we really needed. In place of this Labour would create ╥an open society in which all have an opportunity to work and serve ╤ in which craftsmanship will be more important than caste.╙
He went on to touch upon some of the things Labour would do to restore British economic purpose, social purpose, and stature in the world. Steady and sustained economic expansion would have to be achieved in place of stop-go and it would have to be based on planning and priorities.
Steel would be renationalised; an integrated transport policy would replace the ╥amateurism╙ of Dr Beeching╒s accountant╒s interpretation of the transport problem, new publicly owned industries would be set up based on the scientific revolution.
Investment
Mr Wilson dealt with investment in plant, machinery and building but he emphasised ╥a new kind of investment╙ ╤ in human beings. Half of the talent and energy and drive of the nation was going to waste as a result of a vicious system of so-called Älite education.
The Government had accepted the Robbins Report on higher education, but, Mr Wilson said, ╥with their lips.╙ Three months afterwards it had not even decided which Minister was in charge. ╥The Prime Minister has not got the authority to decide the issue between a difficult Boyle and a contumacious Hogg.╙ Higher education had been held back for years: now it was held back by a vulgar clash of personalities.
Priorities would mean controls. Labour would not hesitate to hold back less essential building projects ╤ not least speculative offices. Controls would be needed ╤ controls of starting dates and timing ╤ even if to meet existing Conservative programmes.
An incomes policy was also essential. Labour╒s policy was for a planned growth in all incomes, including rents.
Of Labour╒s social purpose he said: ╥There will be no incantations from us about never having had it so good until we have dealt with the pockets of poverty in this country.╙ Labour would make housing a social service, it would take the profit out of land speculation and bring the ownership of land under the community, it would smoke out the last relics of Rachmanism.
Mr Wilson said Britain╒s stature in the world could only be assured when economic strength at home was fulfilled. The Conservatives, on the other hand, relied on ╥some international old boy network to take charge and see us through.╙
Speaking from a political platform made famous by Joseph Chamberlain, Mr Wilson accused the Government of turning their backs on the Commonwealth ╥wherein lies not only our economic strength but the basis for our world leadership.╙
Earlier at a press conference he had challenged the Prime Minister when he makes his first speech in his campaign series at Swansea today to give a pledge that any Government of which he is the head will consider that entry into the Common Market on ╥any terms╙ would reduce Britain╒s existing freedom to trade with the Commonwealth.
Should the Common Market become an election issue Labour, it appears, has shifted from Gaitskellite to total (Beaverbrook) opposition to British membership.
