Against all odds

National Review, April 21, 1997 by Anthony Lejeune

'IT'S going to be fun," said Prime Minister John Major at the start of Britain's election campaign. Fun! Most people wanted to bury their heads under a blanket for six weeks, wishing vainly that all politicians would go away. What can any of them say that hasn't already been said in a hundred cliche-ridden sound-bites? And how can Major regard as fun an election which he seems almost bound to lose, when losing means (he had told us so) great damage to his country and the erosion of all that he and his party have achieved?

The Labour Party -- "New Labour," as its leader, Tony Blair, likes to call it -- is now so far ahead in the polls that you can't get odds for a worthwhile bet. Why this should be so is a more interesting question. A reporter from the Financial Times, having just returned from six years in the United States, declared himself baffled. He found a country in excellent shape, its economy the healthiest in Europe, inflation low, unemployment falling, real incomes up, and yet its voters determined to eject ignominiously the government that has been in charge.

Government ministers are equally baffled, and pained. They -- some of them anyhow, including John Major -- had genuinely expected to be in a winning position by now. They fall back on the explanation that, with the Conservatives having been in power for 18 years, the simple slogan "Time for a change" had become irresistible.

There is some truth in this rationale -- as time passes, all governments accumulate enemies and the memory of their opponents' previous misgovernment fades -- but not as much as the self-excusing Conservative leadership believes. Natural Conservative voters, both of the old school and of the new school created by Margaret Thatcher, have been alienated by a whole chain of follies and disasters. There have been huge failures, such as the dramatic day (black or white, according to your point of view) when Britain was forced out of the Exchange-Rate Mechanism, clumsy handling of the infected-cattle problem, and the ugly bullying of Parliament required to push the Maastricht Treaty through; a basic betrayal, when taxation, far from being reduced, was increased again and again; and a relentless flood of trivial but exasperating new regulations, some (but by no means all) originating from Brussels. In addition, an above-average number of much-publicized incidents of sexual or financial impropriety by Conservative Members of Parliament have been handled poorly.

On the three great issues facing any future British government --Britain's relationship with an ever-tightening European Union, the unsustainable cost of the welfare state, and the acceptability of public spending which consumes nearly half the national income --John Major has consistently fudged; people of opposing views come away from meetings with him each believing that he was on their side.

Tony Blair, it should be said, is no less studiedly vague. He smiles and smiles, and walks as if on eggshells. What would a Labour government do about Europe? No one knows, except that it would sign on to the "social chapter," imposing extra costs on business. How would Labour reform the welfare state? No plans have been published. Would the bad old days of labor-union dominance return? No, says Blair, but the unions are still the Labour Party's chief paymasters, and concessions have already been made. Would a Labour Government revert to policies of even higher taxing and spending? Soothing promises have been given that income-tax rates would not increase, but there are many other ways of increasing taxation, and Labour's innumerable promises to spend more on this or that favorite cause would almost certainly require them.

If the issues are all being fudged, what about personalities? Both Major and Blair are more ruthless than they look and more popular than their parties. After the last election, Rupert Murdoch's big-circulation tabloid, The Sun, announced in a huge headline: "It Was The Sun Wot Won It," and this was true, although the Conservatives in their vanity chose to credit John Major's populist performance in the campaign, when he stood on a silly soapbox. The tabloid press convinced enough voters then that a Labour victory would bring higher taxation -- and that a Conservative victory wouldn't. This time Blair has lured Murdoch temporarily to his side.

The middle classes and big business have been, to a considerable extent, anesthetized, convinced that they have nothing much to fear from Labour. It was left to a Liberal Democrat, Lord Russell, to explain what, at the very least, they do have to fear: namely, that much of what both the middle classes and readers of The Sun have objected to in recent years -- over-regulation, political correctness, new taxes, subordination to Brussels -- would surely be exacerbated. But no one seems to care. There is also the little matter of the British Constitution, which Labour is pledged to change irrevocably in various ways.

The young, of course, do not remember the last period of Labour rule. But what happened in those far-off days explains much that has happened since in both parties. It is an eerie, as well as an illuminating, experience to read the speeches made by MPs of the Tory Reform Group in the 1940s. They were in favor of high taxes, nationalization, controls, planning: if these restrictions had enabled us to win the war, why, they argued, should not similar measures help to "win" the peace? When Labour implemented just such a program, those unconservative Conservatives liked it less, but they accepted the trend as irreversible. No wonder it took so long, and required a Margaret Thatcher, before the socialist tide was turned back even a few inches.