The two Johns' adversity is Paddy's opportunity
SIMON HEFFER
Earlier this week the Daily Telegraph published a pointless Gallup poll: pointless because there cannot have been a man, woman, child or even domestic pet who could not have - predicted the findings before the poll was even commissioned. Asked whether politicians on television were being (a) truthful or (b) spouting the party line, 91 per cent of those asked plumped for spouting the party line. Asked, then, whether politicians (a) try to answer the question or (b) are frequently evasive, 93 per cent went for 'frequently evasive'. Asked, finally, whether (a) politicians fairly often break new ground or (b) you've heard it all before, 94 per cent had heard it all before. Something has to fill the newspa- pers on a Monday morning, but it would have been a better story to expose the lack of effort by the authorities to round up the six per cent who thought politicians told the truth and have them put safely away.
Disgust with politicians is nothing new. During Lord Wilson's governments the talk was of little else. But distress now is proba- bly higher than ever; the result of a discred- ited government, a disorganised opposition, and a mercurial third party which, despite its rhetoric and bluster, has yet done noth- ing to 'break the mould' of British politics.
Already, the political commentating classes are salivating expectantly at the week of hell and horror that awaits Mr Major at Blackpool in just over a fortnight. Throughout the summer holidays, any Tory MP venturing into his constituency has had juggernaut-loads of abuse directed at him about the performance of the Government in general and the Prime Minister in partic- ular. Much of this has come from Tory activists — or rather former activists, for, as one distressed shire MP told me the other day, 'the cash has just stopped coming in'. But in our obsession with the decline of the Tory party, we forget decline all around the political map. The truth — which some, according to taste, may find either alarm- ing, relieving or awful — is that the Tories have not lost the next election yet.
Labour, whose conference is the week after next in Brighton, is in a frightful mess. With one or two exceptions, its front- benchers are lacklustre, cynical and com- placent, causing some to pine for the days of Kinnock, Kaufman and Hattersley. This week it was finally revealed, by a Labour MP, that many party staff would be regarded as unemployable in any other walk of life, and were stretching it even for the Labour Party. Most of the policies Labour has trum- peted lately have been utterly incredible, notably their commitment to keeping taxes low while embarking on a welfare and public `investment' binge of the sort that John May- nard Keynes could not picture even in his wildest fantasies.
But at the root of all Labour's difficulties still is the trades union movement. It does not want to surrender its block vote in poli- cy-making and its widespread control of the selection of candidates. The twisting of arms and the issuing of veiled threats will be almost incessant in the next ten days, as Mr Smith, the Leader of the Opposition, and his so-called 'modernising' friends try to yank the unions out of the era of Keir Hardie. 'The problem,' one moderniser told me before the recess, 'is that even when we have lost another election Edmonds and Morris will still say it was because the unions had too small a say in how things were done.' Edmonds and Mor- ris — the leaders of the General and Municipal Workers' Union and the Trans- port and General — hold the success or failure not just of Labour's conference, but of Labour's future, in their hands. Mr Smith's docility in their presence is his way of acknowledging this unfortunate fact.
The earnest hope among Labour short- termists is that the Brothers will accept enough of the reform package to prevent the Tories starting their conference in an atmosphere of surprising good cheer. It is a hope that may yet be completely fulfilled. Mr Smith's greatest opportunity, some of those close to him believe, is to appeal to Mr Edmonds' vanity, which is towering. Mr Edmonds used to be a bit of a moderniser himself. However, his modernising enthusi- asms have trailed off since he realised that he was not, following Mr Smith's election to the leadership last year, to be one of Mr Smith's closest soul mates. Given that the last person the leader of a progressive party wants to be seen consorting with is a trades union leader, that was entirely sensible of Mr Smith. However, a few favours may now have to be offered if the reform package is to be salvaged. And, if Mr Edmonds is pla- cated, Mr Morris is likely to follow suit.
Before these issues are resolved, though, the third party must have its day. At Torquay next week, the Liberal Democrats will be taking the risk of exposing them- selves and their activists to the scrutiny of a public whose willingness to vote for them is never so great as when they are not adver- tising themselves. Mr Ashdown and his friends have every reason to be in good heart, but the word from his camp is that there is to be no triumphalism at the con- ference. This is wise, since apart from their by-election victories of the last few months (both directly attributable to the catas- trophic record of the Conservative govern- ment) a party with only a handful of MPs has very little to be triumphalist about.
However, the Liberals seem to do less than other parties to upset the 91-94 per cent of voters who have found politicians out. They have had a good year in local government elections and by-elections, with every prospect of success continuing in next year's local and European polls. They are being watched with increasing anxiety by Labour and Tory strategists, who fear the Liberals might just be about to translate their by-election and local successes into widespread gains in the south of England at a general election. If Mr Ashdown had the nous to start attacking Labour properly, his prospects might be rosier still.
The unsurprising findings of that Gallup poll provide the reason for this supposition. When people say they mistrust or even despise politicians, they tend to mean those who govern, have governed, or have a chance of governing them. One has to be 78 to have lived under a Liberal govern- ment, so Liberal politicans tend to find that they do not figure highly on the lists of unforgiving voters' opprobrium. Sensibly, the Liberals' rather low-profile attitude to politics (though not to campaigning, which they undertake with the doorstep subtlety of the Jehovah's Witnesses) further helps to distance them from conventionally hated politicians. Their task now is to grow as a political threat to their two big opponents while not becoming as despised as they are. To judge from the extent and depth of pub- lic disillusion with politicians, and the Lib- erals' own well-concealed history of suc- cessful subterfuge, duplicity and mendacity, they are in with a chance.
For the next six weeks, while Simon Heifer edits The Spectator in Dominic Lawson's absence, Matthew Parris will be writing the political column.
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