Left or Right?
From Mr David Watkins Sir: Matthew Parris (Another voice, 27 January) argues that the Left of the Tory party is needed to save it, as the Blairite Right saved Labour. The answer is brief, clear and decisive. It was its Left that made Labour unelectable; if the Tory party is now unelectable, it is not the fault of its Right.
Whether John Major has any political principles, beyond determination to make everyone he meets — Margaret, Helmut, Sir Ian — believe that he is on their side, is perhaps uncertain. What is certain is that the government he presided over, and which suffered unprecedented electoral humiliation, was the most left-wing Tory government ever.
It was not the Right which destroyed the voters' belief in the Tories' economic competence by clinging to the ERM, long after it was obvious to everyone not blinded by Europhilia that it was heading for disaster. It was not the Right which, even after Major's good friend Helmut had let him down, pushed through the Maastricht Treaty, thereby bitterly and needlessly splitting the party. (Major did have one senior minister not on the far Left of the party — Michael Howard — and he was also the only one who had his Labour opposite number running scared.) I am sure most 'Tory pinkos' are very nice people. Well, we all love Michael Foot.
David Watkins
Cardiff
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