4 - Wednesday, October 29, 1986 - North Shore News Bob Hunter SENATOR KEITH Davey is an unlikely candidate for anyone’s sympathy. Vet l feel sorry for him. I met him once during lunch in Toronto, He was at the peak of his power then as the real-life Machiavelli wha had whispered in) Trudeau's car: Forget the West! And had thus returned the Liberals to power in Ottawa, He spoke softly, as befits an architect of political victory. The people 1 was having lunch with fawned over him someshing awful. They treated him more like a Caesar than a mere senator. He had, I recall, a pair of stee- ly eyes that passed over you like a lab technician counting mice. He reeked of royal jelly. No one would use the word warm to describe him, that’s for sure. I watched him on TV a little while ago as he hyped his book. He was being interviewed by Barbara Frum, who could barely control her snickering as he squirmed and wiggled, trying to avoid charges of treason. Poor guy! The fact is that the debate he deliberately triggered about whether good Liberals have to be loyal to the party or to the leader raises a perfectly valid question. And timely. It is delightful to watch the true Grits in their lily-white togas closing in around the emperor. The Liberal color, red, is suddenly quite ap- propriate. Blood red. It is difficult to find out much about people in power, since they can always hoist the castle drawbridge and pull down the blinds while they duel among themselves, Out of power, they are much more visible, even if they still try to maintain a facade of common purpose. The sharpening of the knives intended for John Turner’s back echoes loudly. One hears the dull thud of a body hitting the floor here, the crash of an ambitious minion bumping into a_ wall there, and we can easily make out the silhouettes of struggling par- tisans. The plot to embarrass Iona Camponola by starting a fund to pay off her mortgage, even though she is already the first paid president in the party’s his- tory, is an interesting piece of in- ternecine skirmishing. Poor Iona! She’d have been a senator herself by now but for the Tory landslide. Then there’d be no need for messy fund rais- ing. Iona, of course, takes the posi- tion that party members owe their foyalty to the leader. Senator Davey says not so, even though, when Trudeau was boss, Tz ® strictly personal Davey follow -the- leader. Is the Well! But there’s ne point holding that against him. fe comes with the tarf. The reason t teel sorry for him is that, no matter how soiled his hands must be from all thase years of backroom wheeling and dealing, he is absolutely right this lime around, The idea of loyalty to a leader rather than a party harkens back to the carly realpolitik of living in a cave. What did ideology have to do with fighting off sabre- tooths anyway? The point was to find the big- gest, meanest $.0.b. and give him a pointed stick and a rock and send him out to do battle. was) big oon senittar a hypocrite? Then came the cra of god- kings, wherein loyalty to everything hinged on loyalty to the guy on the throne. The an- cient Egyptians assumed that even the spring floods were ticd to the Pharaoh’s every little mood shift. Until recently, the Nootka In- dians still equated the appearance with whales off the coast with the sex life of their chief. It is only to be expected that leaders themselves have a strong tendency to see the fates of their teams, tribes, corporations or countries inextricably mixed up with their own destinies. That, too, comes with the turf. But intelligent modern follow- ers should know better, If Liberals really owed their loyalty to the leader, not the par- ty, they ought to change the name of the party every time they get a new leader. The Pierre Trudeau Party would have evolved into the John Turner Party. Why call yourself a Liberal if you aren't, indeed, a liberal? 1 could have sworn that the | idea of parliamentary democracy | was to gather sets of political beliefs under one banner or another, thus offering the elec- torate a concrete choice based on principles, platforms, positions, policies and pledges, not JUST personality. In theory, at any rate, the par- ty is supposed to wag the leader, who is merely there to give voice to the group’s needs, versa. Liberals like to pride themselves on having more brains than Tories or New Democrats. Yet here they are, about, agonizing over basic stuff. I think maybe the Liberals went too long under the imperial } Trudeau. They got caught up in the strange notion that the feudal system of ruling was best, after all. Long live the king! Iona is wrong. Senator Davey, astonishingly enough, is right. DUNDARAVE WEST VANCOUVER not vice { thrashing { PPE EEE ELAS SEE SESEEL IEEE? 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