To say that Charles Kennedy faces both ways is to exaggerate the clarity of his position
PETER OBORNE
Even though the election result was very bad indeed for the Tory party, matters have since got worse. The latest opinion poll, carried out by the pollsters MORI for the GMB boilermakers' union, suggests that party support has slumped by one third over the summer. The poll was commissioned to uncover attitudes towards reform of the public services. But it contained the incidental disclosure that the Tories now stand on 23 per cent, the lowest rating ever recorded and 9 per cent down on the election. New Labour is back above 50 per cent.
It should be emphasised that the Mori polling was carried out immediately before both the terror in the US and the election of lain Duncan Smith. But there is no reason to suppose that either event has had much bearing on Tory popularity. If a byelection were to be held at Tunbridge Wells, where rumours suggest that Archie Norman may at some stage stand down, this truest of true-blue seats could easily fall. That is how matters currently stand.
The danger, at Tunbridge Wells as elsewhere, is the Liberal Democrats, whose party conference was held this week in Bournemouth. The Lib-Dem rating has risen to 19 per cent since the general election, according to MORI. If this trend continues, it will not be long before Charles Kennedy eclipses lain Duncan Smith in the opinion polls.
This is why the theme at this jolly and confident week for the Liberal Democrats at Bournemouth was how to transform themselves from successful third party into 'effective opposition'. There was a conviction abroad that recent developments have presented the Lib Dems with an opportunity to make a decisive step forward. The election of lain Duncan Smith has taken the Tories out of serious politics,' claimed David Laws, the new MP for Yeovil and the brightest of the new Lib Dern entrants to Parliament at the election.
This is a faulty premise, and from this premise the Lib Dems have progressed to an incomprehensible conclusion. Anyone with a rudimentary sense of logic might readily conclude — supposing for the sake of argument that the Tories really have moved further to the right — that the Lib Dems would be well advised to seem to occupy the ground thus vacated. And it cannot be denied that there are a number of Tory voters reduced to a mood of prostration and despair by the Duncan Smith victory. Many of these still feel an atavistic aversion to New Labour, and might well be tempted to vote Lib Dem. This logic, however, entirely eludes the Lib Dems, At Bournemouth they moved headlong towards the left.
Their distinctive position on Europe is well known. They are the only mainstream party to champion the euro unambiguously. They want to raise personal tax. On public services it is the Lib Dems, and not Labour, who have adopted the arguments of the public-sector unions. Their education spokesman is a former headmaster and their health spokesman a doctor, and it shows. Dr Evan Harris's motion for Thursday's health debate contained 26 mentions of public-sector workers. There was just one mention of patients, and that was derogatory. On the recent atrocities Charles Kennedy took up a position on the outside left of the mainstream political spectrum by expressing opposition to the restriction on civil liberties attendant on waging a war against terrorism.
All these positions fly in the face of the facts. There is no way that Charles Kennedy's Liberal Democrats are ever going to make meaningful headway in Labour heartlands, as the last general election eloquently demonstrated. If they are to make further progress, it will be in the rural west and the suburban south at the expense of incumbent Tories. The bare electoral arithmetic is hostile: if Labour were to lose 200 seats at the next general election, admittedly an unlikely contingency, just 15 of those would fall to the Lib Dems. But if the Tories were to lose 100 — less unlikely — the Lib Dems would pick up 30 seats.
Hard-headed Liberal Democrats — a select group — recognise this. One of them is Paddy Ashdown, some small shreds of whose former high reputation remain in place despite his barbaric decision to emulate the late Lord Wyatt and publish details of private conversations with close friends. Paddy and Jane Ashdown spent the weekend before the conference in France with Menzies Campbell, who fully grasps the nature of the historic mistake his party is determined to make. At the Guardian debate at the Pavilion Ballroom on Monday, Campbell poured majestic scorn on Evan Harris's witless health document. But the mood of the meeting was with Harris.
It is not clear exactly where Charles Kennedy stands on any of this, but then it never is. It would be tempting to state that he is facing both ways, but that would be to exaggerate the clarity of his position. Kennedy is a prodigious politician and in the end one has to take one's hat off and marvel. The Lib Dem leader has converted lack of substance into an overwhelming political asset. He is walking, talking proof that a background in chat shows can be the perfect preparation for a modern party leader. He projects a genial, moderate, engaging image, which more than compensates for the absence of rigour and the manifold contradictions.
lain Duncan Smith has announced his determination to take on the Liberal Democrats. He has promised a Lib Dem bashing 'unit' (though there is no sign of this to date, and the solitary central office official who paid attention to the Lib Dems has departed). It is highly unlikely that Duncan Smith's unit, even if does get established, will succeed in its task, The trouble is that the Lib Dems fight by no known rules, and are not vulnerable to conventional methods of attack. The kind of row that burst out over health reform at Bournemouth this week, with the health spokesman publicly savaged by a senior colleague, would convulse the Tories. It would be pored over by the media. In the case of the Lib Dems nobody takes any notice. My guess is that they will win more seats at the next election.
But there is a paradox here. The moment they do get taken seriously, the Liberal Democrats will only shatter. Open daylight upon them and, like Miss Havisham's room in Great Expectations, they will fall apart. That is why the Tories can take long-term comfort from Bournemouth. It was the week that Charles Kennedy's Liberal Democrats concluded that they did not really want to be a serious opposition. It was therefore the week that ensured the long-term survival of the Conservative party.
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