Fortnight Publications Ltd.

Don't Forget 'Poor Old Tom'Author(s): James NaughtieSource: Fortnight, No. 275 (Jul. - Aug., 1989), p. 11Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25552012 .

Accessed: 28/06/2014 12:37

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Fortnight Publications Ltd. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Fortnight.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 92.63.97.126 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 12:37:11 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

I-1 JAMES NAUGHTIE previews the impact of the cabinet reshuffle]-1

Don't forget 'poor

old Tom'

T1 I OM KING may be stuck. Another re

shuffle comes round and the longest

.,_1 serving secretary of state may have to

extend his record-breaking run. It can't be a par

ticularly happy thought, but at least he is used to

it.

It is naturally depressing, not least for Mr

King, to realise that the job is not seen at the

centre of the cabinet reshuffle. So used have we

become to the lack of political progress?to

I making judgments more on the basis of the odd

industrial initiative or success than any deeper achievements?it is no longer thought odd.

In all the traditional reshuffle foreplay?the leaks to favoured newspapers and the frenzy at

the gossip-strewn lunch table?the position of

Northern Ireland has been secondary, a dispo sition to be made when other moves are com

plete. There have been plenty of cries of 'poor old Tom'?he is liked and granted sympathy? but no one has thought of his future as a priority.

And what that demonstrates, of course, is

that the province is no priority either. If Mrs

Thatcher had plans, or hopes, she would not

simply be wondering about Sir Geoffrey Howe?now likely to be saved, improbably, by

Deng Xaioping?or how to make up for the fact

that she has to keep Nigel Lawson at the Treas

ury, but worrying about Mr King. Four years is

long enough for anyone in Ulster?especially when the spark seems to have gone.

He is still seen as a candidate for highish office in the right circumstances, but the one

opening which could come this year outside

Whitehall may be denied him for the old reason

of security. In the Tory party he is seen as good

chairperson material?a tub-thumper for the

troops, utterly loyal and dependable. But it

would be foolish to ask him to spend the next

couple of years traipsing round village halls and

front parlours on the fete and cheese-and-wine

I circuit, because his protection could not be

guaranteed. It is probably the job that he'd do

best?it is also the one he simply can't do.

It is not impossible that he could be made

defence secretary or (much more unlikely) home

secretary but he knows he can't count on such

luck. Mrs Thatcher is not going to savage her

cabinet. She understands?as so many appar

ently don't?the point about Harold Macmil

lan's 'night of the long knives', when seven

ministers went in a single night: it didn't work.

With sagging popularity and coming storms she

will want to exude confidence, not panic. But what confidence can there be in the

maintenance of the regime at the Northern Ire

land Office? If Mr King stays, others must go. There could be no more miserable signal than

the suggestion from Downing Street that the

ministerial team was thought to be doing a good

job. The innovatory spirits of earlier times have

gone: it is a mediocre bunch that Mr King has

gathered around him. If he doesn't move, at

least two others must be pulled out.

There is plenty of evidence that Mrs Thatcher

wants to freshen up the junior ranks of the

government, and that gives some hope for

changes at the NIO. Richard Needham, who

was exiled with Jim Prior, has been in Ulster too

long. Peter Viggers is no ball of fire, while Brian

Mawhinney shows signs of the pessimism which, sooner or later, afflicts everyone in the

province. Ian Stewart has the virtue of not being John Stanley, but a more forceful deputy could

help Mr King. Lord 'Charlie' Lyell is Wode

housian and therefore regarded with consider

able affection, but for how long? No Prime Minister can sack a whole depart

ment, but they will not all survive. If the wider

problems of a cabinet shake-up keep Mr King in

place, he should be given a more lively team to

work with. There are plenty of restless spirits in

the Tory party who could serve well and who

might breathe life into an office which some

times seems nearly moribund. The question is:

what does she want? Progress or inaction?

Politically, what signs of progress are there?

Precious few. Mr King is no ardent devolution

ist and, like Mrs Thatcher, part of him will be

Peter Brooke?his arrival would mean more of the same

happy that things aren't moving faster. But

what a dreary landscape he surveys. Everything in the last year or two has turned on security and

the flash-storms of Gibraltar, the Sinn Fein ban

and the Ryan affair. For Mr King, sitting on the

lid has been as bumpy as ever.

If Mrs Thatcher were committed to another

burst of political activity on the constitutional

question, she would contemplate major changes. But she isn't, so she won't. Particularly at a

moment when the government is facing eco

nomic troubles of a familiar and threatening kind, and when her relationships with the other

pillars of the cabinet are being questioned anew,

she has less time even than before for Britain's

greatest constitutional and social problem. She would say that the review of the Agree

ment has been progress, because some of the re

cent difficulties with Dublin have been settled

and the atmosphere has improved?and she'd

be right. But where is the hope of a renewed

political effort to capitalise on the convers

ations that have been going on across the divide

in recent months? The government argues that

it cannot do the job of the province's elected

politicians for them, but it could do more.

In this government, Mr King is seen as a

reliable pillar. He won't collapse, he has been

there a long time, he is predicably robust, he is

familiar, he will survive. This is a slightly

dangerous image for any politician to have,

though it springs from decent human qualities. It means that you are always likely to be taken

for granted, and ignored. No Northern Ireland secretary should be

ignored. After nearly four years in office it is

hardly surprising that Mr King is showing little

sparkle. Living day to day with the knowledge that any progress is measured by the inch?and

that matching setbacks are never far behind?

extinguishes originality. The penalties for risk

taking are so great that it always seems easier to

batten down the hatches and hope to stay dry. It's a prime minister's job to stop that hap- i

pening. The point of cabinet restructuring is to

breathe life into areas where it has gone. Mrs [ Thatcher knows where the weaknesses lie in

social and economic policy, but it's difficult not

to conclude that if she were to give Tom King a

break it would not be because she saw a need to

rewrite policy?or even to encourage some

fresh thinking by an outsider, as a start?but

simply because she felt that someone who has

carried that burden for so long needs a break and

should not face the cruelty of dismissal.

It could still happen. It may be that in some

delicate manoeuvrings round the cabinet table

there opens up an obvious place for Mr King, where he'd fit snugly and be given adequate reward for trusty service. In that case there

would be several contenders for his job?all with familiar disadvantages.

Sir Patrick Mayhew, the attorney general, would be an obvious high-risk appointment?

though he'd love it?but Peter Brooke, the

greyish but fondly-regarded Tory party chair,

might be a natural choice. His arrival, however, would presage no new departures: it would be

business as usual, a commitment to calm and

little else.

More adventurous appointments seem un

likely. Mrs Thatcher has many policy worries

and there is not the faintest sign that she can see

ahead of her a new Northern Ireland policy

waiting to emerge. It is a question of manage ment, not innovation.

But this is such a depressing outlook that she

will be compelled to make the office look a little

more exciting. Assuming that Mr King stays, he

will be given at least one?and probably two?

new ministers to help him appear fresh and full

of life, whatever the reality. Picking them from

the young bunch in the lower reaches of the

government is a lottery: who would have pre dicted Mr Viggers?

If Mrs Thatcher doesn't try to change things, it will be a statement of complacency. There are

voices enough around her which will tell her

that such signals must not be given. The de

pressing thing is that she probably does have to

be told: in political parlance Northern Ireland

has gone off the boil. Tom King knows that this

is rubbish, but has he got the energy to do

anything about it?

After the reshuffle it is likely that we'll have

yet another chance to find out.

Fortnight July/August 11

This content downloaded from 92.63.97.126 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 12:37:11 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions