[There are times in a politician’s life when he is obliged to take the wrong decision. Wrong economically, wrong industrially, wrong by any standards — except one. It is a curious fact that something which is wrong from every other point of view can be right politically. And something which is right politically does not simply mean that it’s the way to get the votes — which it is — but also, if a policy gets the votes, then it can be argued that that policy is what the people want. And, in a democracy, how can a thing be wrong if it is what the people will vote for?
The incident in question only came to light slowly. The first reference that we can find to it is not in Jim Hacker’s diary, but in Steel Yourself, the memoirs of that uniquely outspoken Chairman of the British Chemical Corporation, the diminutive Glaswegian industrialist and scientist, Sir Wally McFarland.
McFarland was known for his plain language and his unwillingness to bow to government interference in his nationalised industry. He was an expert both on chemicals and on business management — and he believed (rightly) that Hacker knew little or nothing about either. His low regard for Hacker was matched only by his contempt for Sir Humphrey’s skill in business. Like many businessmen, he believed that in commerce the Civil Service was not safe with a whelk stall — Ed.]
From Steel Yourself:
On 16 April I had a meeting with Sir Humphrey Appleby at the Department of Administrative Affairs. It was the umpteenth meeting on the subject of the manufacture of Propanol on Merseyside under licence from the Italian Government.
To my astonishment Sir Humphrey seemed to indicate that there might be a problem with the Minister, but his language was as opaque as usual and I could not be sure of this.
I asked him if he was havering [Scottish word, meaning to be indecisive — Ed.]. He denied it, but said that we cannot take the Minister’s approval for granted.
This was and still is incomprehensible to me. The Italian government was offering us a massive contract to manufacture Propanol at our Merseyside plant. This contract meant saving a plant which we would otherwise have to close down. It meant taking people on, instead of laying them off. And it meant big export royalties. We’d been fighting for two years to win it against tough German and US competition. It seemed completely obvious that it had to go ahead.
Appleby raised some footling idiotic question about what the Minister might think. In my experience Ministers don’t think. In my ten years as Chairman of the BCC I dealt with nineteen different Ministers. They never stopped to think, even if they possessed the basic intelligence necessary for thought — which several of them did not. As a matter of fact, they were usually too lazy to talk to me because they were usually talking to the trade union leaders and bribing them not to strike.
I told Appleby my views. He denied that trade union leaders were bribed. Naturally. It may not be technically bribery, but what else do you call conversations that amount to ‘Have a quango, Tom. Have a knighthood, Dick. Have a peerage, Harry’?
Appleby said that the Minister was worried about the Propanol scheme. If so, why hadn’t anything been said till now?
At this stage I — unwisely, perhaps — brushed aside suggestions that the Minister was worried. He’d never shown any real interest in the scheme, so he could know nothing about it. Naïvely, I assumed that his ignorance would prevent him interfering. And, in any case, all Ministers are worried. I never met a Minister who wasn’t worried.
