ANOTHER VOICE
Planning the dirtiest election campaign for many years
AUBERON WAUGH 0 ne of the more enjoyable prospects for the year ahead is the promise, faithfully set down whenever a Labour spokesman can find a cringing hack to record his utterances, that the election campaign will be `one of the dirtiest for years'. Already Labour's Shadow Cabinet, converging for some reason at Bishops Stortford, have been urged to attack the 'extremism, in- competence, dishonesty and destructive- ness of the Government'. Oo, oo, oo! What is so touching about all these sonor- ous words, rolling over the frozen political apathy of the great British electorate, is that the Hattersleys, Kaufmans and Kin- nocks of this world really believe them. To the bitterness of being deprived of office and all the illusions of power it affords is added the sincere belief that the nation's poor and unemployed, far from being among the most pampered in the world, have been the objects of deliberate and unscrupulous attack by the Conservative government. Or so they have been screeching at each other from their private tree-tops, like the complaint of pheasants on a warm autumn evening after a good shoot. Perhaps the present cold snap adds bitterness to the debate, as they gather over their mugs of instant coffee and tell themselves they are a meeting of winners. I see nothing but good entertainment ahead.
So Labour hopes to win the election by promising to spend £6 billion of our money on the north-east of England and Scotland, `creating' jobs. Tories hope to win the election by drawing attention to the activi- ties of the loony Left in local government, and to Mrs Kinnock's unilateralist policies. These programmes, we are assured, guarantee 'the dirtiest election campaign for years'.
Most of this £6 billion will be spent on building, which is good news for whoever are the successors of T. Dan Smith and Poulson in the northern Labour establish- ment. It will not be such good news for those who are not 'employed' in this way, when one reflects on the hideous mess which millions of pounds of mostly Con- servative money have created in the centre of Liverpool. All the new building, in obedience to a new building regulation promulgated by the present government, almost unnoticed even in the technical press, will be fully accessible to the dis- abled. This, by demanding lifts in every building of more than one storey and huge
staircases with a tiny gradient, large cir- culation areas and wider corridors, halls and doorways, will make them twice as expensive and half as efficient. A sad aspect of these new building regulations, which are designed to cheer the tiny (if growing) minority of the population which is permanently confined to a wheelchair, is that in the event of fire the disabled will have no means of escape. But the real purpose of everything nowadays is to solve the job problem. However hideous these new buildings may be, one supposes that many of them will burn down in the end, thus perhaps making some further con- tribution, however inconsiderable, to the overall problem.
A large part of the £6 billion bonanza to the north-east which is not spent on revolt- ing new constructions will go, we are told, on 'personal services'. I imagine this is a euphemism, in large part, for City Hall expenditure on itself, plus the fees of outside public relations consultants with Irish connections, but it must involve, also, the employment of the usual armies of race discrimination experts, gay rights super- visors and Lesbian self-defence instructors. In many ways, the North has missed out on all the exciting developments which are even now filling the special wards and hospices of southern England with the beneficiaries of Labour's compassion. I feel the Conservatives would be missing a trick if they failed to draw attention to Labour's commitment to spread ***s in the North of England, as it has already done in the South. This may, indeed, seem rather a drastic way of solving the unemployment problem up there, but in the long run it may prove rather a short-sighted electoral policy for Labour to kill off so many of its natural supporters in this way.
My only serious criticism of Labour's election programme, as it emerged at Bishops Stortford, is that it will have the opposite effect of the one intended. By asking us in the South to contribute the greater part of our incomes to giving the North a better time, they claim to be tackling the great divide between North and South. In fact, they are making it wider. The divide is not primarily an economic one, although it is true that the North is largely unemployed, the South largely employed. The actual differences in standard of living are surprisingly small. Everything is cheaper in the North of
England — beer, food, clothing, and, most important of all, housing. It is a life-style well adjusted to lower levels of income, to greater dependence on state welfare, and also to more leisure. The greatest divide between the North and South of England Is not material but philosophical: people In the North expect a reasonable standard of living — and even, in some cases, a job — as of right; people in the South are for the most part reluctantly aware that the first has to be earned, the second requires qualifications and a certain readiness to oblige the employer. By offering to give the North another £6 billion of other people's money — and by ordaining that it should be spent on 'jobs' for them and other delights, Labour is confirming these people in their own northern philosophY- Is this kind? Is it compassionate, or caring, or (new vogue word on the Left) `patriotic'? I do not think so. Under the circumstances, I feel we might help the Conservatives out a little, with some furth- er suggestions for their programme in the `dirtiest election campaign for many years'.
Labour, having accepted that most jour- nalists, earning more than the average wage, are scared stiff of a Labour govern' ment, proposes to address itself to the People largely through the medium of television. Sad as it may seem, I feel that Mr Kinnock is rather more effective on the box than Mrs Thatcher; even Mr Hatters- ley is not noticeably worse than Mr Law- son. It is an acknowledged fact that partY political broadcasts are extremely unpopik lar with viewers. So, in my experience, are all political programmes, with the single exception of 'Sir' Robin Day's moronic Question Time. Would it not be judged a fine, democratic and liberal act to ban ail election coverage on television, at any rate until the results? If Mrs Thatcher shrank from that, might we not contrive a little strikey-wikey among exploited technicians during the election period?
I have already proposed how Conserva" tives should emphasise Labour's contribir tion to the ***s epidemic, and its proposals to spread the disease in the North of England. What about the personal habits of Labour leaders? We already know much about Hattersley's eating habits. Has he other habits which would be unacceptable to many voters? Would he be acceptable to the BMA as a blood donor? I do not know. I am merely suggesting a few leads.
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