2005 BRITISH ELECTIONS DIARY # 1
by John O'Sullivan
Benador News
April 12, 2005

Yesterday the starting pistol for the election on May 5th was fired
with the publication of the first political party manifesto—the
equivalent of a U.S. party's platform but considered more binding on a
future administration. By agreement the Tories went first. They
produced a short punchy manifesto—only 7500 words—built around six
major themes: more police; cleaner hospitals; lower taxes; school
discipline; controlled immigration; and accountability.
One can quibble about each of these: the "lower taxes" promised are
not much lower because the Tories have been frightened out of major
cuts in overall public spending; more police will not cut crime unless
they give up their New Labor role as politically correct bureaucrats
schooled in conflict avoidance; public opinion wants immigration cut
as well as "controlled;" and so on.
But the messages are both populist and popular. And the manifesto's
form signals that the Tory campaign will be a disciplined and focused
one. We are doomed to hear these six themes repeated endlessly until
May 4th.
This self-discipline is news since the Tory party in recent years has
been a by-word for internal wrangling and mixed messages. It is
thought to be the handiwork of two men: the party leader Michael
Howard, and the Australian political consultant, Linton Crosby, whom
he imported from John Howard's successful campaign Down Under. They
have imposed these clear and simple messages on their colleagues—and
sometimes enforced them brutally. Two candidates have been removed
for, in effect, "going off message" and spoiling the party's
presentation of its case.
In addition to focus and self-discipline, Howard and Crosby have also
restored at least some of the Tory Party's self-confidence. That may
be even more crucial. Since the Fall of Thatcher, the Tory Party has
had no belief in itself or confidence in its own instincts. It has
therefore floundered from policy to policy without ever knowing what
it stood for in general. And this psychological uncertainty has been
made worse by the so-called "modernizers" who have denounced almost
everything about the party, its past and its supporters without
producing anything resembling a practical solution to its problems.
(Their most frequently advanced idea of a modernizing policy was the
tired nostrum of gender quotas in candidate selection. It never seemed
to occur to them that this would place too much power in the hands of
the party organization and the political elite in general. Or maybe it
did.)
Between them Howard and Crosby have overcome this masochistic
resistance within the party leadership. They have produced a party
platform that reflects both traditional Tory instincts and popular
opinion (and John Howard's last two campaigns.) It is tough-minded but
defensible on such issues as crime, immigration and education. And
even before the campaign formally opened, it had forced the government
onto the defensive.
The odds are against heavily against a Tory victory—see below. This
time, however, they will not lose because they fail to fight.




Today was supposed to see the publication of the Liberal Democrat
manifesto. In a cunning electoral feint, however, the wife of Charles
Kennedy, the Lib-Dem leader, had a baby. Kennedy promptly announced
that "baby day" was more important than manifesto day and postponed
its launch. Pundits reckoned that Kennedy had made real inroads into
the soccer mom vote, but Labor and Tory strategists scoffed at the
Lib-Dem's continuing amateurishness since all this will be forgotten
by May 5th when the votes are cast. Given the short attention span of
the modern electorate, a truly professional party leader's wife would
have postponed the birth for maximum impact to Monday May 2nd.


Labor's manifesto is due out tomorrow. So far, however, they are
running surprisingly scared. Although Labor is leading in most polls,
its lead is small—generally about three per cent—and their strategists
fear that this support is "soft."
One reason for that softness is apathy. Labor fears that its
supporters are more apathetic than either Tories or Lib-Dems and will
simply stay home on the night. But that is not the worst of it. Some
left-wingers are the opposite of apathetic: they are organizing
tactical voting over the internet in order to defeat Labor MPs, ensure
a small majority, humiliate Blair and bring Gordon Brown to power more
quickly. Of course, that is a dangerous game. It rests on a
conviction that Labor is so certain of victory that they can design an
ideal (i.e., much more left-wing) Labor parliamentary party without
really risking the loss of the election. If the election is closer
than they think, they might inadvertently put the Tories back.
And polls that dig deep warn that the election may not be in the bag.
In yesterdays YouGov poll in the Daily Telegraph, for instance, 53 per
cent of voters expressed themselves either somewhat disappointed (34
per cent) or very disappointed (19 per cent) with the honesty and
trustworthiness of Blair and the government.
The very issue that makes him popular in the U.S.—namely, the Iraq
war—is one of the main factors making him distrusted in Britain.
Sixty-six of all voters and 75 per cent of "the disappointed" told the
pollsters that the government was wrong to involve Britain in the Iraq
war.
And opposition to the war is allied to another reason for popular
distrust Almost exactly the same percentages (63 and 79 per cent)
expressed anti-Blair sentiments because of the "culture of spin and
deceit at the heart of this government."
Labor has huge advantages to offset these signs of softness. The
electoral system is so biased towards Labor that the Tories must win
about six per cent more votes to win an equal number of seats. Blair
must therefore be considered the firm favorite. But he realizes more
than his admirers that this election is not yet won.



It is widely believed in Washington that the Tories are weak on Iraq.
Here is what the Tory manifesto says on the topic:
"If a Conservative Government ever has to take the country to war, we
will tell the British people why. Mr Blair misrepresented intelligence
to make the case for war in Iraq, and failed to plan for the aftermath
of Saddam Hussein's downfall. It is nevertheless the case that a
democratic Iraq would be a powerful beacon of hope in a troubled part
of the world. So we believe that Britain must remain committed to
rebuilding Iraq and allowing democracy to take hold."

A little more measured and less passionate than Tony Blair's personal
position—though a great deal more satisfactory than that of most Labor
ministers and MPs—but firmly on the American side.. On the longer-term
and more vital question of the common European foreign and defense
policy, moreover, the Tories are somewhat closer than Blair to the
U.S. They would oppose the European Constitution which imposes a
common foreign policy and they believe that European cooperation in
defense should occur only within the framework of NATO—a commitment on
which Blair is very slippery.

American conservatives and neo-conservatives who pine for a Blair
victory should consider two points. First, Blair is a personal
phenomenon with a short remaining shelf-life. Within a few years he
will be replaced by a leader, probably Gordon Brown, who is more
reflective of his party. And, second, that a Labor victory even under
Blair would entrench the European integration in defense and foreign
policy that might deprive the U.S. of British (and Italian, and East
European, and Baltic) support in some future Iraq crisis.




British elections have a unique feature—the party political broadcast.
This is a five- or ten-minute propaganda film, shown on all television
channels, in which the party gets professional help to present its
point of view. Last night, for its first PPB, the Labor party had very
up-market assistance indeed in the person of Oscar-winning film
director, Anthony Minghella.
Since everyone knows that Tony Blair and Gordon Brown detest each
other and that Brown will almost certainly try to oust Blair from
Downing Street in the event of a large reduction in the government's
majority, the Labor campaign has set out to demonstrate that they are
the warmest of friends. The Minghella film rather overdid this. It
showed Blair and Brown in the softest possible focus, seated around a
bottle of Highland Spring water, swapping the sappiest platitudes and
earnestly agreeing with each other about everything.
One was reminded of the line from that Tory wit Canning: "A sudden
thought strikes me: let us swear eternal friendship."
It would, of course, have been almost impossible to disagree with a
line like this from Brown: "Every child is precious; every child is
unique; every child is special; every child deserves the chance to
develop its own potential." But as Tom Utley wrote in the Daily
Telegraph, if your own friend said anything like that in the course of
a conversation, you would instantly assume that he had been drinking
something much stronger than Highland Spring bottled water.
My own guess is that the British electorate is simply too cynical to
be impressed by this sort of thing. Its soupiness requires the
suspension of disbelief. This may be granted for a romantic movie like
Minghella's "The English Patient," but it is unlikely to be extended
to the practiced patter of politicians.
Labor was, incidentally, taking a risk by employing the director of a
movie called "The English Patient" when the National Health Service
remains dire despite Brown's massive injections of public money.
Waiting lists for treatment are so long that the plural of patient is
said to be patience.

******************************************************************

Yesterday, for my Chicago Sun-Times column I rang up William Hill, the
famous London bookmakers, and asked about the odds on the election.
They were offering odds on which party would win the largest number of
seats as follows: 1-12 on Labor (i.e., place $12 and get $13 back if
Labor emerges with a plurality of electoral districts); 6-1 on the
Tories; and a whopping 66-1 on the Lib-Dems.
William Hill assures me that American can bet on British elections. So
how should you bet?
My investment advice to Sun-Times readers was that those odds were
about right for the Lib-Dems, a little too favorable to Labor, and
distinctly mean towards the Tories (and therefore good for you, the
punter.). My own judgment is that the odds for a Tory plurality should
be no better than 4-1.
So putting $100 on the Tories at 6-1 would be a risky bet but one with
a decent pay-off. Bet now before an avalanche of bets from Chicago
reduces the odds.

Printer-friendly version   Email this item to a friend