Whatever the polls say, Tory optimism is not yet an oxymoron
BRUCE ANDERSON
William Hague has a problem. The man is just far too reasonable. The Tories' new posters — 'You paid the tax, so where are the teachers/trains/policemen?' — are impressive, and may well connect with the public mood. But at the press conference for the launch of the posters, Mr Hague made no attempt to create mood music. Michael Portillo was relaxed and confident, with no hint of self-doubt. But William Hague merely delivered a competent little speech and then dealt crisply with the questions. There was no passion. Yet in effect that was the first press conference in the Tories' election campaign.
How different it would have been under Margaret Thatcher. After assembling her advisers at an early hour, she would have tossed and gored several of them while working herself into a state. She would then have swept into the conference hall and gripped it by the throat. Her aggressive delivery would have provoked a more hostile tone in the questioning, which she would have enjoyed. Electricity would have been generated, in megawatt quantities.
There was none of that on Tuesday. Mr Hague's presentation sounded like a seminar at a college of accountancy. Do not tell Ann Widdecombe, but before letting her Leader out on the stump, they are going to have to slip something into his feed.
Behind the flat delivery, there were good points. All Labour governments believe that tax and spend is the only way to produce decent public services, said Mr Hague, but 'this one has tested that theory to destruction'. He pointed out that three and a half years ago there were 2,500 more policemen than there are now, on a lower Home Office budget. This illustrates the point that it is not the volume of spending which matters, but the way in which the money is spent.
Inevitably, Messrs Hague and Portillo were asked where they would cut spending. Mr Portillo provided the answer, which should become one of the key points in the Tory campaign. Labour intend to spend an additional £68 billion over the next three years. The Tories were proposing a lower figure: £60 billion. To call an extra £60 billion a spending cut was 'a vicious abuse of the English language', said Michael Portillo. He was right. It could indeed be argued that a £60 million spending increase would be a vicious abuse of the British tax payer, but we are now in an electoral auction, which is not only the politicians' fault. To judge by the poll evidence, a majority of voters will insist on being bribed with their own money.
Sixty billion pounds ought to be a large enough bribe, and it makes a nonsense of Labour's claim that the Tories are proposing to cut spending by £16 billion. But nonsense can be turned into good propaganda. It is not yet clear which party will manage to implant its figure on the public consciousness: Labour with its £16 billion reduction, or the Tories with their £60 billion increase. That battle of the numbers could swing quite a few votes, and the Tories are now more optimistic about their ability to win it than they were a month ago. Tory optimism is not yet an oxymoron.
The party's strategists believe that, whatever the polls say, they can detect a shift in the public mood. They may be right. Mr Blair is beginning to grate on a lot of people who used to be in awe of him. Until recently they thought him sincere; now they find him slick and smarmy. But this does not mean that they would like a change of government. Though they may be less impressed than they expected both with the Prime Minister and with his performance, they have not yet run out of patience. Partly because the Tories have still failed to establish themselves as a viable alternative government, many voters are prepared to buy the argument that the Blair government needs more time to bring its policies to fruition. The Tories have desperately little time to persuade them to change their minds.
All is not hopeless, however. Recent polls had the Tories on around 32 per cent. and Labour on around 45 per cent, which is almost a rerun of the last election. But there is one difference. The Tory 32 per cent are a determined lot, which means that most of them are certain to vote. Yet some academic analysts now believe that the turnout could fall to 67 per cent. Thirty-two out of 100 is a poor score; 32 out of 67 is much less discouraging.
Labour is aware of the risk of voter apathy; in Downing Street these days they talk of little else. That is one reason why they are attracted to 3 May as polling day. In the last election, John Major opted for a long campaign in the hope that Tony Blair would crack under the strain. But the only thing that cracked was the voters' patience. A long and tedious campaign may well have helped to depress the turnout.
If the election were on 3 May, however, the early stages of the campaign would be interrupted by Easter. This would leave less than two and a half weeks for the final phase, and Labour hopes that this would also leave the voters still interested enough to turn up to vote.
But there is one problem with that scenario. This election will not be a four-week campaign, disrupted by Easter. It will be a four-month campaign, which has already started. There will be plenty of time for the voters to get bored.
There are three further points about the opinion polls. The first is that in most preelection periods, the government's position improves as voters reassess their mid-term disillusion and return to their natural allegiances. This time, however, there has not been a mid-term disillusion, only a lateterm one. This has not yet shown through in the polls, but if it were to do so, it would not be so self-correcting.
The second is the polls' tendency to underrate the Tories' performance on election day. That was true of most polls in 1992 and in 1997. If it remains true, the government's 13 per cent lead is not-bankable. The final point relates to voter attention. I suspect that for most of this Parliament, much of the electorate has taken far less interest in politics than it did during the last Parliament. But if people are disengaged from the political process, less faith can be put in their responses to pollsters. They may say 'Labour' but how deeply do they feel it? A lot of people do not make up their minds how — or whether — to vote until the final evening of the campaign. If Mr Hague can come across as honest and credible while Mr Blair is disappearing up his own glitz, there could still be a late swing; not enough, perhaps, for a Tory victory, but more than enough to make a hole in Mr Blair's majority.
In 1997, Tony Blair seemed fresh, new and exciting. Those of us who always insisted that 'Blair' was 60 per cent air found it almost impossible to convince anyone else. It is different now. The enthusiasm is no longer there, and it is hard to see how the Prime Minister can make the souffle rise for a second time. He is right to go to the country this year.
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