POLITICS
The distinction between a poker face and an entirely blank one
SIMON HEFFER
The Tories are, yet again, convulsed by scandal. They seem more concerned about a middle-aged MP who 'kissed and cud- dled' a silly girl (and, by contrast, about how many of his colleagues prefer to kiss and cuddle silly boys), than about govern- ing Britain. In Moscow, according to corre- spondents covering Mr Major's visit there this week, the Prime Minister's main object was to avoid the press, lest they indulge in their traditional sport of reminding him of, and seeking opinions on, disasters at home. Meanwhile, 20 points head in the opinion polls Labour is under no pressure to offer alternatives of its own. Comfortable victo- ries are predicted for its candidates in the local and Euro-elections. Its philosophy was succinctly expressed in its slick, breath- less party political broadcast last week, in which the ex-party of high taxation did nothing but sneer at the Tories for break- ing fiscal election promises.
This is a strategy Labour has followed before. As the Tories endured rising infla- tion and interest rates, Cabinet resigna- tions, the poll tax debacle, the fall of Mrs Thatcher, and deepening faction over Europe between 1989 and 1991, Labour said almost nothing. It was as well, because a rare attempt to design constructive policy — on local government finance, by Mr Bryan Gould — showed what an intellectu- al non-event the Labour Party was. Each year, policy review groups of earnest trades unionists would report vaguely to the party conference and be sent away again. Not until September 1991, at the last confer- ence before the election, did something like a set of proposals emerge. Largely because of the explosive taxation plans, Labour lost the election six months later.
'Smith's plan now,' says a confidant of Labour's leader, 'is to ensure the party is not discussed, debated or talked about if at all possible.' Perhaps this explains Mr Smiths own low profile, his diffidence at Prime Ministers' Questions, and why his party is divided about whether he is an average or a bad leader (it is hard to find anyone to say he is positively good). It is not difficult to find those who look back to the action days of Neil Kinnock. Mr Kin- nock, faultlessly loyal to his successor, looks younger fitter and happier since he relinquished power; Mr Smith looks plumper and some of his internal critics suggest he might have slowed up to avoid
another near-fatal heart attack. Meanwhile Mr Kinnock is said to be considering run- ning for the shadow cabinet, if not this year (sitting in on the Jimmy Young Show can be time-consuming), maybe next.
A small dent appeared in Smith's plan of silence last week when, with barely con- cealed acrimony, Bryan Gould announced he would resign his seat later this year and return to New Zealand. 'It says nothing for Smith's party,' said an MP of that party, 'that it could not find room for someone as brilliant as Gould. His giving up is another part of socialism's death.' However, being socialist is not going to win Labour an elec- tion. Indeed, trying to ward off what remains of socialism is already causing embarrassments, and there are more to come. The progressives on Labour's front bench — typified by Mr Tony Blair and his supporters — understand that a centrist, rather than a leftist or even centre-leftist, alternative will attract voters. In this respect, they want to offer the public a choice it has not properly had since the Liberal/Tory hegemony before the Great War. Such a programme cannot, though, be put in place at the last minute. Its negative aspects — the announcement of what Labour will not do — has already started, as Mr Gordon Brown, the shadow chancel- lor, has found to his cost. Mr Brown, once considered Mr Smith's successor, is now under such fire for his un-socialistic desire not to spend money that his prospects are, for the moment, damaged.
Mr Blunkett, the shadow health secre- tary, is routinely being worsted by Mrs Bot- tomley, scarcely a recommendation of his talents. He has hobbled himself by presid- ing over the latest retreat from socialism, the acceptance that the internal market in NHS care, instituted by the Tories, must 'The place was flattened.' stay. Labour is also under pressure to revise its welfare policies. Its Commission on Social Justice has sat since the election, and seems in no hurry to report. There are deep divisions, with Frank Field, the Birkenhead Labour MP who knows far more about wel- fare than Donald Dewar, the party's chief spokesman, arguing a line about targeting the deserving poor and abandoning some universal benefits that even many Tories would find daring.
Mr Smith is, like his predecessors, bound by the fact that his party is a coalition. He is also bound by the democracy of shadow cabinet elections, which have left him with inadequates in some key jobs. Because his deputy, Mrs Beckett, is so out of her depth Mr Smith is having to make expressions of undying love to Mr Prescott in an attempt to dissuade him from running against her, and dividing the party, this autumn. An even bigger disaster is Dr Cunningham, the foreign affairs spokesman. 'He's done the greatest service to Ashdown,' a leading Labour activist told me, referring to Dr Cunningham's poor performances over Bosnia. 'He's made him into the shadow foreign secretary.' Dr Cunningham is, though, Mr Smith's fault. He did badly in the last shadow cabinet elections, and had no right to a senior portfolio. He looks a certainty for the chop this autumn. 'I just worry about the damage he can do between now and then,' a colleague said.
Many in the party feel the leadership's Trappism denies Labour opportunities to make a reputation as an attractive and innovative opposition that could bury the Tories once and for all. 'After all, Thatcher was hardly shy and retiring before 1979, was she?' noted a party elder. In the House of Lords, where Labour peers are less con- strained, debates on Europe, Bosnia and the economy in recent months have shown the party has intellectual life, but is afraid to display it where anyone might notice. There are issues — notably in foreign poli- cy — where the Government is making mis- takes, but getting an easy ride. Mr Smith may be right to keep quiet; it could be three years before he has to fight a general election, and there is no point in revealing his hand now. There is, though, a distinc- tion between the poker face and the entire- ly blank one. Labour learned that too late in the last Parliament, and it had better not forget it now.
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