POLITICS
On the rocks at Brighton, the Tories contemplate the swamps of Westminster
SIMON HEFFER
Brighton
nity at a Conservative conference is not a question of everybody thinking the same. It means everybody pretending, at least in public, to think the same. When the leadership does something foolish, the workers usually cannot bring themselves to complain, or to announce a sense of betray- al. Instead, like a delinquent son, the lead- ership is forgiven. That attitude has been evident this week, but by no means widely. As was shown by the rapture with which the assembly received Lord Tebbit in the debate on Europe, the party is not united, and will not even pretend to be. A large minority here cannot see why Mr Major is so keen to sign the unpopular Maastricht Treaty: they have much to learn about vani- ty, and how it is driving this regime.
Leaving the Grand Hotel with a promi- nent Tory, I listened while he was inter- viewed by a BBC reporter. Would he give his views on how the conference would go? Of course, said my friend. The party would pull together, they would remember the common enemy was socialism, they would support the Prime Minister wholeheartedly in the steps he was taking, and so on. As the reporter disappeared to look for his next scalp, my friend looked ashamed. 'I didn't believe a word of it,' he said to me apologetically. 'I don't know how long I can go on saying these things.'
Mr Major's task at Brighton was to reassert authority over his party. His next and more important task, to reassert Prime Ministerial authority over the country, will be even less easily accomplished. For all the barracking and name-calling, and the sight of Mr Major squirming during the Tebbit offensive, the conference and the party are relatively easily controlled though that is not to diminish the embar- rassing split that has occurred. Thanks to Labour, the House of Commons may not provide as many obstacles to the ratifica- tion of the Maastricht Treaty as its oppo- nents would like. But these are side issues. The real problem is one of economic man- agement, and it is that, rather than Maas- tricht (to which it is, however, linked), which will provide the worst misery for Mr Major in the weeks ahead.
Perhaps because there have been no res- ignations over the economic debacle, there has not been a coming to terms by the Tories with the enormity of the mess into which they have dropped Britain. The recession means lower tax revenues must meet higher demands, particularly from social security. If the Government is to carry conviction in the international finan- cial community, and if sterling's value is to have a chance of holding up (let alone improving) there must be either tax increases or public spending cuts. The for- mer would be unthinkable to many cabinet ministers — so they say. So low, however, are moral standards in our public life now that no one should bank on any minister resigning if taxes went up. The word has gone out that Mr Portillo, the Chief Secre- tary, in the public spending round he is cur- rently conducting, will have to be severe. He was planning to be severe anyway; now he will have to be downright sadistic.
Mr Kenneth Baker, in a fringe lecture where he announced he would vote against ratification of the Maastricht Treaty, led the back bench call for spending cuts. He made the distinction between cutting capi- tal projects (which, in the interests of pro- viding work, he is against) and revenue cuts (which he is for). Many Tories take his line. A public sector pay freeze and real reduc- tions in welfare are the cuts they suggest. Others, notably in the Government, see things differently. They point to projects (like the road programme) which can go, or, more justifiably, the £2 billion Lady Chalker stuffs in her handbag to dole out to her friends in the Third World. Most cabi- net ministers have, as they see it, a political interest in not cutting revenue spending. For example, Mrs Bottomley does not want her saintly reputation as Health Secretary to be soiled by a running dispute with Cohse and Nupe. Mr Howard, the Environ- ment Secretary, is keen for a slush fund of at least £2 billion with which he can cushion the impending blow of the Council Tax. Only by making everybody unhappy, how- ever, can Mr Portillo hope to make an impact on this problem.
The other great challenge for the cabinet now is to start acting like one. Since his humiliation on White Wednesday, Mr Major has been careful to assign any of the rare decisions he takes (or which his kitchen cabinet told him to take) not just to
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himself, but to 'the cabinet' as well. He seems desperate to share with others any blame that is going, as if he is afraid to stand or fall by his own decisions as Prime Minister. The others will, for reasons of ambition, usually accept collective respon- sibility, as he well knows. If cabinet ministers are to be morally blackmailed in this way, they should start to cover themselves. If this is what Mr Major understands by cabinet government, then the cabinet should be less reluctant than it currently is to tell him he is wrong. There are some ministers who must be finding it hard to look themselves in the mirror at the moment, as they contemplate the reintro- duction of the Maastricht Bill with (Mr Major tells us) their supposed approval, when some of them have been privately complaining about the Treaty ever since it was initialled. While he is in his present hole, Mr Major is likely to continue this habit of claiming full cabinet support for every silly thing he does, whether it be wasting £1.5 billion try- ing to save sterling and his face, or pushing through the Maastricht Treaty against the wishes of what the latest poll claims are 68 per cent of Britons. If the cabinet find themselves regularly being blamed for Mt Major's misjudgments they might at last start to raise their voices. The trouble with the modern Tory party is not that it lacks people who believe Mt Major is making fundamental errors, but that it lacks any with access to him who might tell him the truth. This is the gravest failure of our so-called democracy. It is not that those with access are afraid of 11011, indeed, it seems that they are most afraid of hurting his feelings, which says much about their regard for his resilience. It gives the lie to this being a Government of pals: True pals are supposed to be able to tell you when you have contracted the political equivalent of BO. Mr Major's pals seem to fear that they will cease to be pals if they speak up. 'John Wakeham might do it, one Minister told me, 'but only after the event. Mr Major is no doubt being told by the same advisers who brought you the HR , `triumph, the Germans-are-guilty `triurriP11; and the Mellor-will-not-resign `triumph that the ill-defined course being pursued on the economy and foreign affairs will encl to `triumph' too. No doubt it will: a triuMP" just like all those others.
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