Apathy rules
From the Rt Hon. Lord Tebbit
Sir: Peter Oborne’s article ‘The Triumph of Tradition’ (10 December) is badly mistaken in its electoral analysis. New Labour has never had and cannot rely on the goodwill of over 40 per cent of the electorate. In Blair’s 1997 victory his 13.5 million votes comprised 30.8 per cent of the electorate. This year he was down to 21.5 per cent. It was not always like that for Labour. Clement Attlee scored 40 per cent in 1951 — and was defeated by Churchill.
Nor is it true that the ‘Lib Dems were the only real movers’. Nor did they ‘steadily gain ground’ at the expense of the Conservatives and ‘towards the 2005 general election, of New Labour’.
In 1983 the Alliance had 18.5 per cent support; in 1987 16.9 per cent. Under the Lib Dem brand name they had sunk to 11.9 per cent in 1997 when New Labour was first elected and received only 13.6 per cent this year.
What Peter Oborne and so many others miss is that the ‘stay-at-homes’ have been the winners in recent years. This year 38.5 per cent of the electorate did not vote — only three percentage points less than votes for Labour and the Conservatives combined.
Any shift of votes between the parties is small compared with the numbers of Labour and Conservative voters who have lost faith in their parties. The middle ground for which new modern compassionate Conservatives want to fight is tiny compared with the ground they have vacated on the respectable middleand working-class Right.
Tebbit
House of Lords, London SW1
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