POLITICS
Essex does not deserve to have politicians inflicted on it
SIMON HEFFER
Those of us who live in Essex find it odd that our county should be a focus of the local elections campaign. Mr Major came here last week; then Mrs Beckett, the former hard leftist who is now deputy lead- er of the Labour Party, made it her first stop. Essex does not deserve to have these people inflicted on it, since, with the excep- tion of three or four towns like Basildon, Harlow and Southend, there are no elec- tions here. Unfortunately, the parties and the media have swallowed the meretricious myth of Essex Man as a demographic barometer: hence the circus.
Similarly, the holding of the marginal Basildon seat by the Tories early on elec- tion night in 1992 was the harbinger of Mr Major's unlikely victory; a sign that, in Essex, we are so anti-socialist that it will take more than just John Major to stop us voting Conservative. The consecration of Basildon as a shrine of the Tory faith could, though, backfire horribly. Local opinion polls show support for the Government there and in the sister new town of Harlow running at about 20 per cent. If Labour wins more seats in these towns, it can legiti- mately claim that the faith that carried Mr Major to victory in 1992 has died.
The Prime Minister's evasions in the last couple of years have been exhaustively exposed; now it is the turn, however brief, of his opponents to suffer scrutiny. As both main opposition parties' campaigns started this week, mendacity dripped from them. On her trip to Essex, cynically recognising the distaste people here have for taxes, Mrs Beckett made great play with the impact Conservative policies are having on the pay packets of Essex man and woman. It does not alter the fact that, had her party been in power, tax rises would have been even greater, interest rates higher, and even more Basildonians and Harlovians would have lost their jobs, homes and businesses. Also, Labour would have blamed this carnage on the mess created by the Tories, and it would have been hard to prove otherwise.
On local issues, Labour is even more dis- honest. The district councils in which Labour has a say in Essex have the county's highest rates of council tax, not least because of Labour's continuing desire to act as a provider of pointless employment. Labour's initial claim that its councils have an average tax £40 lower than in Tory ones was quickly shown as fraudulent. The aver- age property in a Tory borough is in a high- er valuation band than in the average Labour one. If you live in a three-bed semi in the average Labour borough (never mind in absurd ones like Lambeth, which, as one shadow cabinet minister told me, `we find embarrassing') you will pay more than if you live in an identical semi in a Tory borough. Labour says its council taxes have to be so high because their govern- ment grants are lower than those Tory councils receive. However, the usual exam- ple cited of this iniquity is Westminster. Since Westminster sucks in millions of tourists each year in a way that, say, Basil- don does not, it might just be reasonable to expect the Treasury to help out with the facilities and services needed to manage such an extraordinary and lucrative phe- nomenon. This, however, is conveniently ignored by Labour.
Mrs Beckett also claimed on her visit here that Labour did well in the compara- ble elections four years ago, at the height of the poll tax controversy. Therefore she made a great show of 'expecting' to lose perhaps one or two hundred seats national- ly this time. This, too, is misleading. The Tories, in fact, did well in May 1990. I remember going into Central Office the morning after the elections to see the then chairman, Kenneth Baker, who was almost incontinent with jubilance. Like Labour now, he had talked up the prospect of heavy losses. When the losses were not quite so heavy, it was depicted as a tri- umph. The Tories did so well because the poll tax worked in favour of many of their natural voters; which is why marginal Wandsworth turned rock-solid. Now Mr Jack Straw, Labour's local government spokesman, refuses to claim that either Westminster or Wandsworth will be cap- tured this time. He is probably right, but knows he has nothing to lose should events prove him wrong. Similarly, if Labour swears it might lose up to 200 seats but, in fact, makes gains (as is quite possible), it can then claim the Government has lost the `Hanging's too good for 'em.' confidence of the people.
We have heard this before; a year ago, to be precise, when, in last year's county coun- cil elections, Essex (controlled by Tories more or less since Boadicea's time) came under joint control of the Labour and Lib- eral parties after a virtual wipe-out of Tory candidates. Most of those I knew who admitted to voting voted on national, not local, issues. The same will be true this year. As far as Essex is concerned, it is hard to see where Labour can lose seats, unless to the Liberals. Since there is relatively lit- tle ethnic tension here, the Liberals will be denied one of their usual means of whip- ping up support. It would be merely eccen- tric to publish here the sort of leaflet they put out in Tower Hamlets last year, which seemed to suggest that, if Labour won, around every corner would lurk a big black man with a penchant for martial arts.
In Essex, the Liberals have a distin- guished local government record of incom- petence and profligacy. So bad were they in the closing stages of their tenure of Chelmsford Borough Council between 1983 and 1991 that the Tories, who them- selves have a grasp of politics verging on the subnormal, had no trouble trouncing them at a time of unpopularity for the Gov- ernment. The Liberals have decided, quite reasonably, to concentrate their campaign on the broken promises of the Tories, and on quoting back the things said about Mr Major by disloyal colleagues. Cleverly, the Liberals make few promises themselves, relying on the shortcomings of others to secure election. And, sadly, the disparaging remarks made by Liberal MPs about Mr Ashdown are, so far, only off the record.
Generally, where the Tories run local government they do so for the benefit of those who pay for it. This is usually not true of the other parties, who run it as a redistri- butionist exercise. Sir Norman Fowler, the chairman of the Conservative Party and an Essex man himself, has tried to urge con- centration on local issues, claiming the polls are not a referendum on Mr Major. If the Tories do lose seats, that is how things will stay, and the electorate will be chided for ignoring the issues. If the Tories make gains, it will turn out to have been a refer- endum all along. Mr Baker would have told you in May 1990 that Mrs Thatcher won that one. A little over six months later she was finished.
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