POLITICS

The Conservative Party's golden future that never was

ANDREW GIMSON

0 ne of the most gruelling tasks in the otherwise cushy life of a political columnist is to read, or at least cast an eye over, docu- ments which no sane man would turn to for amusement. On opening a work such as The Best Future for Britain, published by Conservative Central Office, the joys of a life chained to the oar in a galley or breaking stones in a penal colony become apparent.

But just as a strange fit of conscience led me, a year after I had begun to write authoritative articles about the Maastricht Treaty, to spend a morning in Brussels struggling as far as its finely balanced Arti- cle 128 (`The Community shall contribute to the flowering of the cultures of the mem- ber States, while respecting their national and regional diversity and at the same time bringing the common cultural heritage to the fore'), so I felt myself duty-bound, this week, to start reading The Conservative Manifesto 1992, a 50-page pamphlet less well known and also less aptly described by its main title, The Best Future for Britain.

This future is described in English of almost impenetrable blandness. I reached page seven, where I was pulled up short by the following statements:

The Conservatives have been able to raise public spending by nearly a quarter in real terms We are the only Party that understands the need for low taxation

They understand the need for low taxa- tion but have put up spending by a quarter. One sees now that King Herod understood the need for low infant mortality and Cap- tain Bligh the importance of good employ- ee relations. In case we have not got the message, the Conservatives assure us in a blue box on the same page that they aim to `keep firm control of public spending' and `reduce taxes as fast as we prudently can'.

Lest we should hanker after a Labour government, they remind us that public borrowing under the last Labour govern- ment was 'equivalent to £55,000 million today', and point out that `Labour was forced to cut public spending in real terms'.

So enough of us voted Conservative to put them back in, and a year later the deficit is a mere £50,000 million. Before going on their summer holidays, Cabinet ministers wondered whether this vast deficit obliged them to cut public spending in real terms, but as one of them remarked to me afterwards, they were `not exactly poised to bite'. After all, they had to hon- our their 'manifesto pledges' about pen- sions, child benefit and so forth.

The value of the Conservative manifesto as a guide to the Government's conduct is illustrated by the commitment given on page six: 'In due course, we will move to the narrow bands of the ERM.' Member- ship of the ERM is described as 'central to our counter-inflation discipline', though 'it would merely expose the folly of Labour policies'.

By now, the reader may be wondering, in the saloon-bar phrase, whether 'they're all the same'. The answer, in general terms, is yes, but the Conservatives tend to be the more socialist of the two main parties. Not for them the barbarity of cutting public expenditure 'in real terms'. They leave that kind of roughness to Denis Healey.

Consider the most expensive socialist edifice in the country, the Welfare State. The Conservatives have increased spending on social security by two-thirds since 1979. Even excluding payments to the unem- ployed, the underlying growth has been about 3 per cent a year during that time. In 1992-93, almost £75 million was spent on social security benefits, an increase in real terms of 20 per cent since the last review of the system in 1985.

Without wishing to be unfair, one has to say that Labour would almost certainly have failed to match this performance. Nor would a Labour government have managed to keep the pound inside the ERM so long, with the high interest rates and damage to private enterprise that entailed. Nor would a Labour government have launched such a strong attack on the Duke of Westminster's freeholds. Nor would Labour have tried to privatise the railways, a reform which enrages many Tories, though not, I confess, me.

But Labour would have put up direct taxes. In a moving article published in this magazine on 12 October 1991, Auberon Waugh estimated he would have to pay an 1 always leave when the politicians fly back after the summer.' extra £12,500 in direct taxes if Labour were to win the next election. At the time, I was engaged in one of the least remunerative activities known to man, writing a novel, so regarded the prospect of higher direct taxes with equanimity. I therefore advanced the Tory case for voting Labour.

Naturally my advice was ignored. It was Mr Waugh who spoke for Britain. Labour meant higher income tax. Down with Labour.

In last Sunday's Observer, John Biffen advised the Conservatives to put up income tax. The elder statesman warned his party not to become 'ideological about tax . . • The tax increases for the revenue Budget need to be broadly spread.' As if to second him, Tuesday's Daily Telegraph carried a leader-page article by another Conservative MP, Keith Hampson, urging the Chancel- lor to raise the top rate of income tax from 40p to 45p. The Telegraph, which nowadays has about as keen a sense of political direc- tion as a girl guide lost in a snowstorm, pre- sented this idea as 'a suggestion which might satisfy all sides'. To sugar his pill, Dr Hampson wants to raise the level at which the top rate becomes effective, so I shall be well clear of the danger zone. But I fear Mr Waugh may still be caught.

'If we're not going to be ideological about tax, what are we going to be ideologi- cal about?' another Conservative MP whined to me this week. The answer is nothing, not property, not national inde- pendence, certainly not the destruction of the Welfare State, that vast engine for reducing us to a nation of delinquent sheep. The only thing the Conservatives, or some of them, have so far averted is a law against hunting, but their extreme and deserved unpopularity has led to the elec- tion of Liberal councils intent on destroy- ing the finest of English sports by other means, even in Somerset.

I never finished The Best Future for Britain. By page seven, one could tell it was a fraudulent prospectus. It can be encapsu- lated in a single lie: 'We will give you far more public spending and far less taxation., The Conservatives won the election by promising us a golden future that can never be. Kenneth Clarke should begin his first Budget by tearing up the Conservative manifesto, if he's strong enough.