Supply

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 13 May 1948.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mr Tom Driberg Mr Tom Driberg , Maldon 12:00, 13 May 1948

I am sorry; I did not hear that part of the hon. Member's speech. I happened to come in when he was just reaching that point. In any case, I do not understand the revelance of the point, because it would be quite proper to use not only White Papers at such a conference but also a number of pamphlets published by the Labour or any other parties or publishers. Personally, in any propaganda effort I may have tried to encompass, I have always found Government publications, official publications, White Papers and so on, extremely useful. For instance, the one I use most frequently—I hope hon. Members opposite will have no objection to its publication because it can be made use of by Labour Party propagandists—is the monthly Housing Return. I understand that it is the contention of hon. Members opposite that the Government's housing programme is a failure, so presumably they ought to be glad that we should publish and use that Return. As I think that it is a very remarkable and substantial achievement, I find that purely factual and statistical account of what is being done, month by month, of immense value.

He also seemed to imply—although I do not think he meant this in quite so exaggerated a way as I may be stating it —that no issue which is controversial is properly the subject of public information. For instance, he cited a case in which there was a substantial minority of people who disagreed passionately on moral grounds with some policy that was made the subject of public information. Surely there are many great issues about which a minority of people in this country feel strongly? For instance, there is war. There is quite a substantial minority in this House of pacifists, people totally opposed to war, but I do not think it has been suggested that the Central Office, or whoever issues the posters, should not put out information about recruiting, and appeal to people to volunteer. Another example cited—I think by the hon. Member for North Croydon (Mr. F. Harris)—was the diphtheria immunisation campaign. There has been quite a lot of controversy and criticism about that from a minority. Yet the hon. Member said that it was clearly the sort of thing which should and ought to be done by the Government.

I am afraid that, on the whole, the criticism from the Opposition has been, as we have said, throughout the Debate deplorably niggling and petty. The tone was set from the first by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bromley in a speech w lich, I really thought, was far below his normal level. It was more reminiscent of a fourth-form debating society. It was full of a patronising distaste for 'he dreadful times we are living in; he bemoaned these "common" advertisements, this "crude and amateur" publicity. What had really irritated him, I. think, was that it is not amateur; it is done rather more professionally than it used to be The right hon. Gentleman is, of course, the perfect archetypal amateur of life and politics—the perfect hangover from the Edwardian era. He and other Members who followed him complained that all the facts were emphasised which were favourable to the Government, in this official Government Information. If that be so, and I do not admit that it is so, it after all only very slightly offsets the tremendous preponderance the other way in the big-circulation newspapers. He said that no doubt the Minister of Food needed a lot of explaining; this may again be because, of all Ministers, he has been subjected to the most innuendo, misrepresentation, and downright lies in the headlines and in the substance of the articles in some of the Opposition newspapers.

I think that the Central Office can be fairly content if the worst the Opposition can drag up against them are the sneers at slogans and colloquial phrases which always sound excruciatingly funny when retailed in the solemn atmosphere of a Parliamentary Debating Chamber. If we on this side were to condemn private enterprise on the basis of quoting isolated scraps. slogans, jokes, phrases, and promises from advertisements—or even from publishers' blurbs—I think that we could have just as much fun as the right hon. Gentleman had today with the Central Office; but we really would not have put up a very solid argument.

I thought his criticism of the V.D. posters somewhat anti-social. I recalled that that extremely useful campaign, with posters and all, was first developed and made widespread when there was a Conservative Minister of Information and a Conservative Minister of Health. But that by the way. I agree with what my right hon. Friend the Lord President said about the right hon. Gentleman's sneer at the road safety campaign. It would, of course, be unfair to suggest that the right hon. Gentleman wants a lot more children killed on the roads; we know he does not, of course not; but that is the sort of level to which the Debate has largely descended as a result of the lead which he gave in his opening speech. That is the sort of cheap debating level to which we have fallen.

I will not detain the Committee for more than two or three minutes longer. I want to make one specific proposal, and one general reflection. The specific, limited proposal is this: that the Central Office of Information ought to do far more than, so far as I know, it has done already to make known in this country something of what is going on—the great new developments and changes—in the Colonial territories, something of what has been done already by this Government to make the British Empire at last something to begin to be proud of, instead of something to be largely ashamed of. [An HON. MEMBER: "No."] I said "largely." This morning there was a disgraceful article, in my view, in a daily newspaper, the "Daily Worker"—a grossly ignorant or grossly dishonest article—about the great and hopeful, but difficult, groundnuts scheme in East Africa. I am very glad that Members opposite no longer jeer and sneer, as they once did, at that very hopeful scheme, which will do so much 'to raise the standard of living of the peoples of East Africa as well as increasing the total food supply of the world. Since a national daily newspaper, however bigoted against the Government, can print, as facts, statements which are totally inaccurate, I feel that the Central Office of Information ought to be doing more than it is to make known in England the tremendous benefits that the rule of this Government is bringing to the British Empire overseas.

I end by saying this: I think the Lord President has made an absolutely cast-iron case for saying that the Central Office has not intruded party propaganda at all into official information. Indeed, I sometimes feel that it is almost too impeccable, that 'it is almost a little too diffident, and that the Lord President leans almost too far backward in his determination not to allow party propaganda to rear its ugly head—to coin a phrase. I realise the dangers he is determined to guard against; I realise that if, by some ludicrous mischance, there were ever a Tory Government again in this country, it would be unfortunate to leave them with an organ of propaganda which had been used for party purposes. But they have, after all, as I have already mentioned, the bulk of the Press on their side, so perhaps they would not need it.

I see the dangers; but I am not sure that those dangers are not outweighed by the danger that, during these few critical years, tile people of this country will not be sufficiently informed and inspired. It is difficult for propaganda put out by the Central Office of Information really to inspire people, since it is inhibited from reminding them specifically, in so many words, that this is a Socialist Government. [ Laughter.] No, I am not giving any loophole at all; I realise exactly the loophole which hon. Members opposite think they see, but they do not in fact see it at all. It is not there. I have said that the case is absolutely cast-iron, that the Central Office is impeccable, that they always keep right on this side of the fence—of allowing no party propaganda to creep in at all. That is why it is more difficult to get an enthusiastic response from the people of this country than we should get in other circumstances. I am sure that the Lord President of the Council is right in pursuing this policy; but we on this side of the Committee must do all that we can, in our Party propaganda, to supplement the official information. We ought not to be ashamed to remind the people that the positive achievements and benefits of the last three years are primarily due to the steps that this Government have taken in the direction of Socialism.