POLITICS
Here's another fine mess he's got himself into
SIMON IIEFFER
We have not had a moral government in Britain since Oliver Cromwell, a former Member for Huntingdon, ran a theocracy during the Protectorate. What we used to have, though, were ministers who knew the social responsibilties of their position, and acted accordingly if they compromised it. Had it been necessary, there were prime ministers who would see to it that standards were maintained. Such men were not stupid — however much of a mess they might have made of the country from time to time — when it came to recognising the importance of standards to the electorate. As such, one did not need to have a moral government. The individuals within it could be relied upon to act morally or, if it was shown they did not, to make a quick exit. How unlike today this is. We have long known Mr Major was (to give him the ben- efit of the doubt) intensely misguided when it came to running the economy, or manag- ing relations with Europe, or in choosing people to serve in Her Majesty's Govern- ment, or in simply believing anything Mrs Douglas Hogg tells him. We also know that, like most politicians, he is an oppor- tunist. Most — one thinks especially of Macmillan and Wilson — have been smart enough to engage in opportunism in a way that does not make them look venal and idiotic. Mr Major is not so blessed.
Perhaps his stupidity extends to thinking he has the wholehearted support of his ministers in his fight to redefine 'back to basics'. However, he does not, as anyone who has spoken to a cross-section of the Government in the last few days knows jolly well. Keeping up his pretence that we all misunderstood what he meant in his party conference speech at Blackpool, Mr Major is starting to wear a bit thin. We appear to be witnessing spiwery and char- latanry of an extremely high order.
Because it is intellectually bankrupt, this Government has to rely more than most on deception. Famously, in the 1992 election campaign, Mr Major said he had no plans to widen the scope of VAT. He subse- quently devised such plans. Similarly, he may believe that his and his ministers' waf- fle about personal and individual responsi- bility at Blackpool did not apply to some ministers. However, in the advantage his party seemed to gain after its conference, nobody rushed to distance themselves from the perception by Tory activists that the policy embraced 'family values'. Only when the policy is hopelessly compromised, by the ghastly Mr Yeo and by Mr Major's pusillanimous failure to contain that prob- lem, does an incredible redefinition begin.
Even leaving out sexual morality, 'back to basics' was simply another in the long line of stunts and frauds that include doling out MBEs to bus conductors, combing Sarajevo for children with colds and flying them to Britain, and pretending peace deals can be done with the IRA. On law and order, for example, the 'basics' to which most Tory supporters want to get back include hang- ing and flogging: no chance. In social poli- cy, they want welfare benefits to the unde- serving poor to be ended and those to the deserving poor better targeted: no chance. In government, they want decisions made at Westminister, not in Brussels: no chance. The whole policy is a con, designed to con- ceal the gutlessness and lack of principle of the people who invented it.
As usual, the press is being blamed. Mr Alan Duncan, who (it being the day before the resignation of poor Lord Caithness) uniquely did the decent thing, nonetheless came out with the line about 'an orchestrat- ed campaign by the press'. What we have in fact seen is an orchestrated campaign of sleaze, fraud and hypocrisy waged against the public, and simply reported by the press. The fraud starts the moment some MPs enter the system. When the merchant bankers and used-car salesmen present themselves for selection by committees of nice old ladies, their wives are in atten- dance, beaming dutifully. When the elec- tion address goes round, colour pictures of Mrs Merchant-Banker and the infant Mer- chant-Bankers adorn it. No wonder con- stituency activists, who are usually drawn from the non-fornicating classes, feel they have been had when this turns out to be a sham. No wonder they want blood when their MP refuses to see any wrong has been done. No wonder they daily despise their party's leaders all the more for their failure to do nothing about this duplicity.
If Mr Major did not know his conference speech would be immediately interpreted by activists as commending exactly the code of behaviour they themselves follow, and want others to follow, then he must be an even bigger fool than he appears. If he did not like the few ministers who genuinely have high personal standards — like Mr Lilley, Mr Patten, Mr Redwood and Mr Portillo — making speeches about stan- dards from unhypocritical bases, he should have told them to shut up long ago. That he did not suggests he thought, rightly, that such rhetoric does him and his party some good in the country. He did not, though, have the nous to realise the terrible dan- gers involved in seeming to endorse such a policy while not being Oliver Cromwell.
Unfortunately for Mr Major, so ridiculed and reviled is his administration as a result of the events of the last ten days that noth- ing he, or his ministers, tries to do to rede- fine the position can do anything but harm. Every time he opens his mouth he invites a higher level of derision than before. With his track record, nobody believes a word he has to say. Every time one of his ministers, or his party chairman, seeks to defend the retreat they, too, are humbled by the sheer weight of public contempt. Most clever ministers — and one notes particularly Mr Kenneth Clarke — have avoided getting involved. Poor Mr Howard, who is not a bad chap, diminished himself the other day by insisting 'back to basics' was not about 'those matters which are more the responsi- bility of the pulpit than politicians'. He for- got Carlyle's dictum that all power is moral; he confused the inadvisability of an explicit moral policy with the implicit, and essen- tial, moral underpinning of a government.
Despite this new catastrophe, and thanks to the stupidity of most of those in whose power Mr Major's future as leader lies, I stick to my view, expressed last week, that it will not be easy to sack this Tory leader. However, much more of this and the panic will become uncontrollable, at which stage anything can happen. Tory newspapers, their correspondence columns fat with the loathing their readers feel for the Govern- ment, will continue to search out minor scandals to satiate the national appetite for revenge. Reporters are now finding more and more people — some of them involved with naughtiness themselves, and so speak- ing empirically — willing to volunteer information about improprieties. The emphasis is now moving away from the car- nal to the pecuniary, which, if anything, will make matters even worse. Some of Mr Major's friends are urging him to make a speech setting out his policy again. If you think the wolves are excited now, just wait until they get their teeth into that.
Previous page
