Portraits and Miniatures(56)

Her stamp upon every aspect of her government’s policy, on the other hand, was incomparably greater than that of any of my other three Prime Ministers. There was no question of her reserving herself for major constitutional issues. Indeed, I doubt that she had much sense of what was a constitutional issue and what was not. There was no departmental minister who was able to sustain an area of prerogative. It was impossible to imagine her being asked for advice, and saying to Geoffrey Howe, as Baldwin said to Austen Chamberlain, ‘but you are Foreign Secretary’. She was equally interfering in the military, economic, industrial, social security, Commonwealth and law and order aspects of the government’s policy. She sought no respite from politics, in the sense that did Asquith, Baldwin and Attlee. Her impact was bound to be greater by virtue of her determination and longevity in office. She reduced the influence of the Cabinet: if she had improved Britain’s influence, that might have been taken as having been a fair exchange, but any improvement in this respect was distinctly temporary.

Over the nearly a century I have been considering, the scope of government obviously increased enormously. Public expenditure rose from approximately £170 million, perhaps £5 billion in present-day values, to about nine hundred times that in money terms and thirty times it in real terms. Great new departments, like Health, Social Security and the Environment, sprang up with an entirely different pattern of ministerial duties from anything remotely prevailing before 1914. The essential role of the Prime Minister did not change as much as this might lead one to believe. The function of a conductor is not greatly altered by introducing new instruments into the orchestra. The style is much more a product of a man or a woman than it is of the epoch. President Reagan at least showed that modern government need not be too strenuous. Mr Major would no doubt like to achieve a reversion to the calmer habits, if not of Asquith at least of Attlee, but that requires an authority which has so far eluded him.

What has changed permanently, however, is the necessary involvement of the head of the government of this or any other comparable country in external affairs. The interdependent world, not to mention the European Community, has changed that for ever. The calm insularity of Asquith and Baldwin, even to some extent that of Attlee, must equally have permanently disappeared.





An Oxford View of Cambridge


(With Some Reflections on Oxford and Other Universities)


This is a lightly edited version of the 1988 Rede Lecture delivered in the Senate House at Cambridge on 10 May of that year.





The Last time a Chancellor of Oxford delivered a Rede Lecture was when Curzon gave it in 1913. In many ways he was a rasher man than I am, as he showed in India and then at Oxford, where in his first year as Chancellor he moved in, asserted his undoubted right to preside over the Hebdomadal Council, and generally set about ruling the university and not merely reigning over it. As in Calcutta and Delhi, his Oxford assertiveness ended in a mixture of achievement and chagrin.

In Cambridge, however, he behaved more circumspectly than I have boldly undertaken to do. His lecture was on Modern Parliamentary Eloquence. I would now find that a difficult subject. However, it would have been a much safer subject here to have lectured upon than my Oxonian view of Cambridge. When I first suggested it to the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge I think he was apprehensive. My understanding of his fears increased when, a little later, I told a distinguished Oxford historian of somewhat polemical temperament who recently retired from a seven-year spell as a Cambridge Head of House, that I was committed to this subject in this place. ‘If by chance,’ Lord Dacre said con amore, ‘you feel at all unwell as the occasion approaches, do not hesitate to send for me as a substitute. There is no subject on which I would rather talk before an audience in the Cambridge Senate House, if necessary unprepared. I could do it spontaneously.’ But I feel reasonably well, and intend to devote myself not to polemics or even to Oxford flippancy (of which more later) but to looking at the interaction of our two universities upon each other and to a glance at their relationship to others at home and abroad.

Exploring the history of Oxford and Cambridge for the purposes of this lecture I have been struck by the symbiotic nature of the relationship between the two universities. Over eight centuries they have greatly influenced and cross-fertilized each other. They have been more pacers than rivals. At times one has gone ahead (indeed it could, I suppose, be argued that in the Middle Ages Oxford was fairly consistently so) but the other has then caught up or overtaken, frequently building on a development initiated in the first one. The result has been an historical relationship a great deal more fluctuating and interesting than the average course of the sporting event for which we are best known in the world. During these fluctuations certain differences of style and even ethos have developed. About them one can generalize with mild amusement and a modicum of accuracy. But the similarities have remained much greater than the differences. Increased influence and prestige for one has usually meant the same, perhaps after a time-lag, for the other and neither has ever significantly gained from the other’s misfortune.