POLITICS
Our leaders wait for a sign of what the led would like them to do next
s MON HEFFER 0 ne of the better examples of alterna- tive comedy with which politics has lately provided us came last Saturday, in Sir Geoffrey Howe's response to advice on the national question given to voters by his for- mer colleague Mr Nicholas Ridley. Mr Rid- ley, like Mr Enoch Powell, articulates the basic instincts of ordinary, unpolitical peo- ple, and in our democracy is, therefore, regarded as a nutter. Sir Geoffrey articu- lates the refined prejudices of a very small group of Tory grandees, and in our democ- racy is, therefore, regarded as a key figure in political debate. Mr Ridley advised those faced with a federast Tory candidate at the general election to vote, if possible, for someone against European union. Sir Geoffrey, in that impeccable de haul en bas tone that former foreign secretaries can get away with using to a chap who only ever roughed it as trade secretary, said Mr Rid- ley was mistaken: popular feeling was very much in favour of involvement in Europe.
To be charitable to Sir Geoffrey, the Surrey seat for which he sits is hardly typi- cal. It is just possible that in the saloon bar of the Jolly Stockbrokers at Oxted the talk is of little other than the excitement the regulars feel at the 'deal' about to be done at Maastricht. Mr Ridley would claim this does not reflect the view of the nation. There is no way of telling who is right, because the signals from the public are not as clear as they are, say, on the health ser- vice, or as they were on the poll tax. How- ever, an article in last Monday's Today newspaper proclaimed that 'Britons have fallen deeply in love with Europe and politicians who think otherwise are out of step.' Today bases its claim on a survey by an advertising agency showing that 'more than half of those questioned feel Euro- pean first and foremost', that 53 per cent favour a single currency, that 73 per cent 'like the way a united Europe would chal- lenge economic giants like the US' and, most entertaining of all, that 'one in four Britons backs the election of a European President with supreme [sic] power',
As well as highlighting the dangers of asking unsophisticated questions when polling opinion, and the shortcomings of our education system, the survey reveals the difficulty of finding out what the public really thinks about anything. Politicians, civil servants, columnists, lobbyists and a few other psychiatric cases are obsessively fired up about Europe. Despite being bom- barded with arguments about it in the media, and being told their liberties are under threat, the voters so far seem not to give a damn, and are not writing in their millions to MPs and newspapers about it. The parallels with the 1930s are obvious. Perhaps when Mr Major returns from Maastricht waving his piece of paper, like his hero Neville Chamberlain, the public will be motivated to press for political re- armament. But by then it will be too late.
And if we look beyond Maastricht, into what for some Tories is the terrifying world of the election campaign, other matters are equally confused. For years we have been told that the consensus is against tax cuts, and moving to the view that more should be spent on public services. Now, though, yet another poll reveals that more than half the voters want a tax cut, hence renewed pressure by nervous men on the Conserva- tive back benches for the Chancellor to provide one in his budget; not because it will appeal to MPs' principles, but because they feel the people want it.
Similarly, the party leadership (or, more specifically, Mr Heseltine) decided the poll tax had to go because the people did not like it. When, last Monday evening, Mr Heseltine led the Second Reading of the Bill that is intended to provide the Council Tax, he found himself under persistent sniper attack from his own backbenchers. They have experienced genuine public opinion at first hand, the public in question being the poll-tax payers of the leafy Eng- land most Tory MPs represent. It told them this particular section of the public does not want to subsidise through the council tax Labour voters in the north of England. Moreover, the public detects that it has a master and servant relationship with the Government of a sort it has not had for years, in which it is increasingly setting the terms and conditions of service.
The central question may seem to be whether governments should lead opinion or follow it. This Government seems to favour the second course, though that may reflect the proximity of the election. The fat spending increases announced by the Chancellor in his autumn statement will be the last of their kind for another four years, should the Tories achieve the increasingly less likely feat of re-election. The problem with preferring to follow opinion (and this
really is the central question) is how the Government decides what opinion is. The newspapers, read assiduously by senior Ministers of the Crown and their homrnes daffaires, are not a reliable guide, since (their reports of surveys of varying degrees of dubiousness aside) they reflect only what a few editors, proprietors and columnists think. By-elections are no guide either, since between general elections everybody tends to blame the Government for every- thing from a severe economic recession (which is undeniably its fault) to dog turds on the pavement (which, on balance, prob- ably are not). The message that went out from Kincardine and Deeside last week, from the Chairman of the Scottish Conser- vative Party, Lord Sanderson, was that everything might have to be reconsidered. One shudders to think on what basis this reconsideration might be attempted. The blame for the current confusion of direction can be laid at two doors. First, as in all administrations top-heavy with inex- perienced ministers, the civil service has too much influence. Second, the poll tax has been a great, but misleading, lesson to the Government about how to treat public opinion. The theory goes that if you listen to the people in the first place (as a substi- tute for offering them any vision) you don t have to spend years undoing the damage. That depends, though, on reading opinion properly in the first place, and not every- thing as is clear an issue as the poll tax. Europe, though, seems to be the one issue on which the Government is reluctant to pursue this theory, no doubt because it would mean being different from the rest of the EEC. More to the point, though, a government that follows opinion cannot have a policy on Europe because the peo- ple have yet to express their opinion. lins creates a further problem. Poll taxes and their like can, if things go wrong, be undone relatively simply, as the Govern- ment has found. Undoing a commitment to European Union is likely to prove ab- lem of far greater magnitude. Spouting 'trust the people' is all very well, but It should be clear to politicians of all parties that the public are so uninterested in most political questions that they are liable t.o regard this trust as something of an impeal" tion. It would be far better to look to the principles that delivered the last three elec- tion victories, and trust them instead.
Previous page
