POLITICS
A moment of unnatural calm provokes constructive thoughts about the future
SIMON HEFFER
Mr Patten, the Education Secretary, was introducing the second reading of the Edu- cation Bill. It is a sensible and badly needed measure. It allows for the raising of stan- dards by encouraging more opting-out of schools from politicised local authority con- trol. This in turn encourages 'specialisa- tion', a euphemism for 'selection'. It also allows the Secretary of State to send in hit squads to run bad schools, and either to close them down or improve them. In short, it is precisely the sort of thing a responsible government, aware of a prob- lem affecting its people, should be doing.
Because of the preoccupation with other questions, this had been precisely the sort of thing the Government had not, until now, had a chance to do. Although elected seven months ago, this Parliament has only just started to consider matters other than the Maastricht Bill and the economic mess. Last week, ahead of Mr Patten in the queue, the Home Secretary introduced the Asylum Bill, which will tighten up on bogus refugees. Both their measures are philo- sophically in tune with the mainstream of the Conservative Party in the country, and with many more people who have no party allegiance. They are part of the reason why our instinctively conservative electorate voted Conservative on 9 April. If Parlia- ment had had a chance to discuss such measures more, and if they had been prop- erly capitalised upon, the Government might not be in its present state.
The sense of normality, which had been growing since the vote on the Maastricht paving motion last week, did not last much beyond Monday. Impatient because of the unaccustomed quiet, the lobby spotted a new crisis in the collapse of the Iraqi arms trial. It seemed that ministers, some still in prominent positions in the Government, had assisted in or condoned the breaking of arms sanctions; and that four ministers, the Home Secretary, Mr Clarke, the Defence Secretary, Mr Rifkind, Mr Presi- dent Heseltine and the ubiquitous Mr Tris- tan Garel-Jones of the Foreign Office had signed public immunity orders to keep secret the documents that would confirm the Government's embarrassing role. Admittedly this was a more entertaining crisis than all the other recent examples of the genre, but it promised to destabilise the Tory leadership nonetheless.
The Government is widely distrusted and regarded as incompetent. Ministers know this, and are additionally vulnerable as a result. They, their colleagues, the public and the media have little confidence in the Government to emerge cleanly from trou- ble, still less to avoid it in the first place. Because the Government does not com- mand the respect and support it should from all its backbenchers, ferocious tactics have to be employed to keep them in line. This was clearly seen on the Maastricht paving vote. 'It is not that we have only just realised that we have a majority of 21 and not one of 100, and we are having to behave very differently,' one whip told me. `It is that, on some crucial issues, we haven't got a majority at all.'
All the more reason, in such circum- stances, for the Government to try to boost morale by pressing on with its agenda, like the Education and Asylum Bills. But prob- lems seem always to take the upper hand. The farce of the Iraqi sanctions-busting affair points again to the need for the Gov- ernment to equip itself with better politi- cians. Long before it became fashionable to do so, this column suggested it might be an idea for Mr Major to reconstruct the Gov- ernment better to reflect the centre-right nature of his parliamentary party — and, incidentally, to bring in some talent. Now the 92 group of MPs, which speaks for per- haps two-fifths of backbenchers, has taken up the call. Some of their leaders claim, unsubtly, that such a reconstruction would be the 92's reward for the good behaviour of some of its senior members in the Maas- tricht vote. The left-wing group of Lollards, though, threaten Mr Major with the terrors of the earth if he honours his promise to the Right to delay the Third Reading of the Maastricht Bill until after the Danish refer-
endum. Mr Major will have to rebuild his Government, either voluntarily or, perhaps, as a result of the events to which he has become so prone. He now has the addition- al problem of knowing that, however he does it, he will be attacked by one faction or the other or, quite possibly, both.
Even given a run of good luck (and there is no sign of that), Mr Major must still prove to his detractors that the Govern- ment has important work to do, and deserves to survive its next few years in office. He must give his backbenchers, especially, reasons to be cheerful, to attempt to dissuade them from venting their disrespect for him in troublesome ways — like rebelling in large numbers against the implementation of the Council Tax. 'We're quite confident we can make his life a misery when the time comes,' a close adviser of Mr Smith, the Leader of the Opposition, told me the other day. 'It's going to be unfair, like the poll tax, and not least to Tory voters. We'll make sure they know that.' Judging from the rumbles among Tory MPs on the question, Labour will not need to remind anybody. The decision to take the Maastricht Bill slowly through the committee stage on the floor of the House, interspersing it with work on other Bills, shows that the Govern- ment has realised the need to be seen to be doing something else as well. But there remains the risk that 'something else' will turn out to be arguments over the council tax, pit closures, unemployment, welfare cuts, pay freezes, tax increases (now, appar- ently, threatened for the Budget if things do not improve) or any of the other horrors with which the Tories are faced. Although the manifesto was thin, there are other Bills to pursue — though some of them, like leasehold reform, or the privatisation of the mines and the railways, have already pro- voked potentially bloody opposition. It is vital, for his own standing and that of the Government, that Mr Major finds something to provide him and his party with a genuine 'triumph' with which no one can quibble. Events, which have so handi- capped him elsewhere, might be turned to his advantage; opportunism is, after all, the essence of the successful politician. If he has the spirit, seeing off the threat of a trade war between Europe and America, and Jacques Delors into the bargain, might be just the wheeze he is looking for.
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