THE TORIES ARE SITTING DUCKS
Bruce Anderson says that New Labour may
soon have rolled up the Tog party and destroyed kin Duncan Smith's leadership
THE crucial battle has already begun, yet one of the contenders is not even at action stations. Now that Tony Blair is preoccupied by international affairs, Alastair Campbell is even more in charge of the domestic battlefield. He has already dispatched his light cavalry in a feinting manoeuvre to probe the Tories' defences, while he prepares a massive thrust along the entire front. Yet Mr Duncan Smith's troops seem incapable of pushing back the feint, while remaining oblivious to the major threat. On present indications, there is a possibility that within a few weeks the Labour party will have rolled up the Tory party and destroyed lain Duncan Smith's leadership.
The Tories still do not realise how much they owe to Osama bin Laden. If his men had not hijacked four planes on 11 September, Alastair Campbell's men would have flown their planes into Conservative Central Office on 12 September. The defectors were in place, while Labour also had a dossier of unfashionably rightwing comments by Tory MPs and activists, including some unguarded observations by Mr Duncan Smith himself. At that stage, Alastair Campbell's war aim was clear. He wished to ensure that before the first weekend of lain Duncan Smith's leadership, the new Tory leader would have been indelibly impressed on the public consciousness as a swivel-eyed extremist who had enabled the British National party to seize control of his own party. The aim was to nail the Tories on the defensive and keep them there for the rest of the Parliament, in the hope that the Liberals could then overtake them in the popular vote.
There are a number of explanations for Alastair Campbell's behaviour. The first is the sheer exuberance of militant animal spirits in political warfare. The second, related, is tribal antagonism. As ideology has declined in importance, this has become an increasingly significant dynamic of Labour politics. Irrespective of policies and programmes, Alastair Campbell wants Labour to win and go on winning, while the Tories lose and go on losing. But this does not exclude broader strategic goals. New Labour is as adept as it is cynical in its relentless struggle to win over the alle
giance of Middle England: Daily Mail England. Good as he is at it. however, Alastair Campbell does not enjoy flattering his natural political enemies. But if the Tories were so crippled that they would no longer be able to mobilise more than a rump of their traditional supporters, New Labour would not only be freed from the need to suck up to those whom Mr Campbell despises; it would be able to do what it liked on Europe, the economy, the constitution and political correctness. It would no longer have to govern an essentially Tory country on sufferance. It could set out to eradicate the instincts and the institutions without which Toryism could never revive.
After 11 September, however, everything changed. Wars breed bipartisanship. Once lain Duncan Smith had committed his party to standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Mr Blair, the anti-Tory offensive had to be cancelled. There was one brief revival. When lain Duncan Smith ventured some mild — but unjustified — criticism of the government's failures to explain its war policy, there was a momentary recrudes cence crude being the word — of the original Campbell strategy. Charles Clarke, the chairman of the Labour party, promptly described Mr Duncan Smith as a 'nutter'. That would have been the tone of the Campbell offensive, even if the language might have been slightly more elevated.
Long before the Labour chairman's lumbering snarls. Mr Campbell had altered course. Though his objectives remained the same, he knew that it would no longer be possible to stigmatise Mr Duncan Smith as a neo-fascist; the voters, who had seen him in reassuring contexts, would never believe it. But there was mounting evidence that the voters could not really see the point of Mr Duncan Smith and could not see any reason to take him seriously. So Mr Campbell binned the 'nutter' approach in favour of characterising Mr Duncan Smith as a nonentity. The voters must be encouraged to think that IDS stood for In Desperate Straits.
All this information comes from a Liberal party memorandum, which was conveniently leaked, and which also contained suggestions that the Liberals should distance themselves from Labour. But the provenance is irrelevant. This may masquerade as internal advice to Charles Kennedy; the true source is Alastair Campbell. As ever under Mr Kennedy's leadership, the Liberals' highest ambition is to act as Mr Campbell's cat's-paw. As for the supposed distancing from Labour, Mr Campbell will encourage it. He is in favour of anything which will enable the Liberals to masquerade as an independent force, because that will help them to steal Tory votes.
The main thrust of Labour's new offensive is already apparent, and it is timed to begin as soon as Mr Campbell decides that British domestic politics is returning to normal. This could happen within a week of bin Laden's death. The Tories have had warnings of Mr Campbell's intentions. So what have they done to prepare for the inevitable campaign?
Nothing. Most of the key positions in Central Office are still occupied by holdovers from William Hague's failure. They are amiable fellows, adequately competent, but with no strategic zest. There is no tincture of Montgomery's key attribute: 'grip'. Mr Duncan Smith has qualities. A decent man, happy in his own skin, he could be presented to the public as a non-political politician: a potent message in an era of mass disillusion with polities. Intellectually, he is on a par with Tony Blair, even if he lacks the PM's political genius, which is based on instinct, not intellect. But instead of trying — and failing — to rival Mr Blair in that respect, he should rely on straightforwardness and honesty.
There are strengths to play on. But nothing has been done to play on them. Instead, the Tories have wasted most of the past ten weeks in poodling around, rearranging the office furniture, trying to integrate the people kin Duncan Smith brought in from his campaign with the existing Central Office staff, many of whom feared for their jobs (more of their fears ought to have been justified). As Alastair Campbell masses his Panzers, the Tories are as well-equipped to resist them as the Poles were in September 1939.
the Duncan Smith leadership ends in Polish gallantry, it will be so disappointing. Those of us who supported him had to argue against his detractors, who insisted that he was simply not a big enough man to be leader. He will show you, we said. Thus far, he has not. Mr Duncan Smith intends to send his sons to Eton. It is not impossible that before their arrival, Eton's greatest poet will be deemed to have written Mr Duncan Smith's political obituary: 'Alas, regardless of their doom, the little victims play.'
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