POLITICS
Mr Major prepares to make his appointment with the inevitable
SIMON HEFFER
Unfortunately for them, it is by no means certain they will win on 9 April either, which is why spirits are so low. Some Tories were accused of lacking judgment for hav- ing advocated an election on 7 November last year. The accusers sheepishly, regret- fully, now admit that that should have been the day. Extreme subversives ponder that Mrs Thatcher would have had an election once the tanks had (at her urging) entered Baghdad. Hypotheses are entertaining, but pointless. Reality is about to arrive.
Not long ago this column noted the Tories' pathetic joy at having taken the lead in three successive opinion polls. The pre- diction that their desolation would be equally pathetic once they had trailed in three successive ones has come to pass. This roller-coaster will continue, and become more frantic as time runs out. The reliance upon measures of public opinion to determine a state of mind is a mark of the Tory party's lack of spine, and of its extreme vulnerability. It is not a new phe- nomenon. 'Wobbly Thursday', exactly a week before the last election, saw Mrs Thatcher make unnecessary and confusing upheavals to her high command because one opinion poll had told her that Tory support was falling. It was clear to the rest of the country that, despite a good Labour campaign, the Tories were cruising to an inevitable victory. Unless gallows humour is about to make an unprecedented take-over of the Conservative Party, just imagine how hysterical things might be this time.
All that is preventing panic now is that MPs are resigned to the inevitable — 9 April or bust — and have the hope that next Tuesday Mr Lamont might provide something to kick-start a victorious cam- paign. Hopes of that are not, though, high. If Budget day goes well, elation will be con- tagious. If it goes badly, despair will rage like a forest fire (and dead wood is remark- ably combustible). To call an election in unpropitious circumstances would be the greatest (and perhaps last) test of Mr Major's nerve. It is important, though, for him to realise that even if his ministerial colleagues, his backbenchers, his advisers and his party in the country all heap execra- tion upon him next week for his misman- agement of the economy, delay means cer- tain defeat. He has ignored the old adage that you go when you can win. His gamble means he may have to go only when he might well lose.
Labour, by contrast, are attacking. They are no longer the only party of high bor- rowing, which is the greatest relief to them. There may be (as our leading article this week illustrates) debate about what to do with the fruits of the sin, but the sin itself is now common to all main parties. Pessimists in the Tory ranks at Westminster speculate, indeed, that three or four years of weak Labour government run by the Treasury in some ways looks preferable to three or four years of Tory government continuing the economic policies of Mr Major and Mrs Douglas Hogg. Mr Major should be wor- ried by the tone of criticism from within his party. In their romantic despair at the loss of Mrs Thatcher, some Tories saw defeat simply as the necessary condition for the catharsis that would allow the rebuilding of a radical Tory party. Now, a small number of them also feel that Labour, as an alter- native would not be a complete disaster. And, as they watch Mr Major, with his charters, promises to spend money, class- lessness and all the rest, they see the line between them and their opponents becom- ing less distinct by the day.
The campaign itself, though, on whose threshold we stand, should be the time to highlight distinctions. Some in his party are worried about how Mr Major will fare in the campaign. The obsession with opinion polls has, partly, been fed by the consistent good showing of Mr Major in them. How- ever badly his party and his colleagues have looked, he has had the roseate glow of pub- lic support about him. It is one of the most expensively-purchased glows in British political history. It, too, though, is begin- ning to look somewhat jaded. In the last month his popularity rating has fallen close to the point where more people dislike him than like him. Seeing his popularity as their greatest asset, the Tories are especially worried about this. What further expensive purchases of popularity might be made if that rating continues to drop?
Someone should, perhaps, tell the Prime Minister that one way to become popular is to display qualities not normally associated with the sort of chap you would ask out to lunch. Mr Major is capable of doing this.
His speech to Scottish Tories a fortnight ago, in which he spelled out that there could be no halfway house between main- taining the Union as it is and having an independent Scotland, was probably the best he has made since taking office. It was confrontational, honest, and lacking in eva- sion and euphemism. More courageous of him still, though, was that he issued this declaration in a part of the country where his party risks being wiped out. It is all the more sad, then, that prevarication and compromise seem the precepts upon which most other Tory policies are being based.
The voters want to be led. They want governorship based on principles that will lead to genuine recovery and stability. In its (albeit declining) affection for Mr Major the electorate seems to suggest it would like the present Prime Minister to do the leading. Yet his party is neck-and-neck with Labour in the polls, mainly because the similarities are such that there is little to choose between them. It must be remem- bered, too, that Labour are level or ahead despite having Mr Kinnock as leader.
In the campaign itself the Tories must strike out and portray not simply cosmetic or rhetorical differences between them and their rivals, but real ones. Being honest with the electorate, owning up to mistakes, and searching for something better than public service charters and unaffordable tax-cuts would be a start. Because of its similarity to Labour in so many policy ques- tions, the Tories are handicapped in con- fronting Labour with the true extent of its own vagueness, implausibility and mendaci- ty. Mr Major may never have another opportunity to do this, after the one he must give himself starting next week. He can avoid leading his party to defeat on 9 April, but letting the people feel it will make little odds whom they vote for is not an advisable way to do it.
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