Politics
Westminster market
It doesn't, however, appear that the fluctuations and febrilities of Westminster insiders have much direct impact on public opinion — if they did, the opposition parties would feel less frustrated. As it is, the Government has bad week after bad week. Acres of Norwegian forest are felled to chronicle those bad weeks — and end up wrapping fish and chips, with the Govern- ment still at 40 per cent in the polls.
Why? In the first place, as they'd say in the other market, voters might be taking a view on fundamentals — Government seen as basically on course, Opposition looking implausible. Also, Westminster may have discounted victory over the miners — in the country, ministers are still given much credit for their handling of the strike. Moreover, it is debatable to what extent the Government's failures reduce the deadliness of its major political weapon Mrs Thatcher herself. After all, it's well known that she doesn't think much of the Government either. The President of Boli- via recently went on hunger strike against his Cabinet — one suspects that his feelings would be understood in Number 10, though her methods would be less Gan- dhian.
Anyway, having as its leader a quasi- regal figure who soars above the sordid- nesses of politics is as much a benefit to the Government collectively as her visitations are painful to ministers individually.
Can the Government, then, go on hav- ing bad weeks forever, with impunity? Some Opposition politicians are coming despairingly to think so. From their van- tage point, that 40 per cent of the polls looms impregnably over the political land- scape, like the Golan Heights seen from Galilee. And Opposition assessments of Mrs Thatcher's political assets must be treated very seriously, especially when they come from the Labour Party, which still includes quite a number of those assets. However, most Conservative MPs take only the wariest reassurance from their opponents' lamentations: to do Tories justice, complacency is one of the few political vices not currently in wide- spread practice on their benches. If things don't improve, many of them feel, then something most unpleasant will happen, even if they are not clear what or how. Sir Ian Gilmour once warned his party that if the voters are told often enough that there is no alternative, they'll find one. At least as regards electoral prospects, a significant number of backbenchers would now echo his warning.
One way of avoiding future difficulties was suggested to me last weekend by a junior minister. 'Interesting times,' I had banally observed to him. He sharply re- minded me that 'May you live in interest- ing times' was sensibly regarded by the Chinese as a curse, and said that what the Government now needed above all was a period of therapeutic dullness. 'Surely —' I replied — 'Yes,' he interrupted, 'I know what you are going to say. But competent dullness. Seven-hour hundreds at The Des- patch Box, with never a ball beating the bat. We want laureates of the Geoffrey Howe School of Anaesthesia.'
This was a thoroughly understandable reaction to the events of the last few weeks. But one can still doubt whether the Tory Party really should be praying for dullness. For a start, there would be the small problem of a spectacularly undull Prime Minister, who neither will nor could adjust herself to Baldwinesque tempi. John Biffen, another extremely witty man who can see the merits in pedestrianism, has indicated his desire for a more sedate mode of government, and warned that the British people have only a limited appetite for crusading rhetoric. There is, no sign what- soever that the Prime Minister will take any notice of his doubts.
Boredom could only threaten her politic- al prospects. There is indeed a danger that the electorate might become bored by the increasing divergence between Mrs Thatcher's grandiloquent style and the rather more limited substance of the Gov- ernment's actual achievements. Crusading rhetoric is all very well if one really is on the march to Jerusalem — it begin to jar a bit if it's clear that we're not going any further than Southend. But be that as it may, the crusading rhetoric is absolutely certain to continue: there is no prospect of the Government deliberately setting out to be dull.
Nor, despite five and a half years in office, will it take serious steps to become political. About half the Cabinet retains the admirable belief that if only the policy is got right it will sell itself. Rarely if ever since universal suffrage have we had a Government so many of whose members are ambivalent about the arts of politics.
But it would, alas, be over-charitable to attribute all the political failings of Cabinet ministers to an excess of highmindedness. There seem strong arguments for some changes in personnel — especially as the Government now has a fairly powerful Second XI, with enough good junior minis- ters to fill lots of vacancies. Men like Kenneth Baker, Kenneth Clarke, Ian Gow, Norman Lamont, John MacGregor, Patrick Mayhew, John Moore, Tony New- ton, Chris Patten, Geoffrey Pattie and Malcolm Rifkind — not an exhaustive list — are all more than equipped to serve in Cabinet.
Unfortunately for them, though fortu- nately for those they might replace, Mrs Thatcher seems increasingly to take the view that as matters only go well for the Government when she takes personal charge, why bother replacing one minister with another?
So neither dullness, nor a more political approach, nor even the introduction of a lot of new faces, seems at all likely. But if things go on much as they are, there will be dangers for the Conservatives. All the governments which have lost elections since the war — 1951, 1964, 1970, 1974, 1979 — forfeited their authority some time beforehand. They had lingered in office, but no longer in power — and their defeat at the polls was a ratification of what had already occurred.
Of course circumstances have changed. As long as we have three parties fighting in a system that was designed for two, it is very hard to see how the Conservatives can be defeated. The sweeping majority of June 1983 was won with a Tory share of the popular vote half a per cent higher than in 1966. Next time, the 39.8 per cent that the Conservatives gained in 1945 should see them home quite easily. But they should not take comfort from that. It would not make for successful or stable government if an administration that had become visibly exhausted managed to stumble back to office merely because the opposition par- ties were divided.
Bruce Anderson
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