POLITICS

The Tories are fighting a good campaign, but does it matter?

BRUCE ANDERSON

It is open to doubt whether election cam- paigns really matter. Back in 1979, the Tories were in a high state of readiness. Everything had been prepared for the autumn 1978 election which Jim Callaghan decided not to call; the intervening six months gave the Saatchi brothers even more time to refine their black arts. By early March, Tory HQ had a detailed day- by-day plan for the entire election.

That plan started to disintegrate on day one, and never recovered. Despite all their preparations, the Tories had made a basic miscalculation; they had not expected Labour to run such a long campaign. Mr Callaghan held his first press conferences before Easter, while the Tories delayed their launch until after the holiday. As a result, they never caught up. From the onset, the Tories found themselves replying to the accusations Labour had made in the early days, while the Tory artillery was still silent. All the advance planning went for nothing, and Saatchi's performance was also disappointing. Their earlier party polit- ical broadcasts had been some of the best ever made, but the election broadcasts were uninspired. Labour won that 1979 campaign on points.

Much good it did them. The Tories were in a clear lead when the campaign started. The odd wobble apart, they held a clear lead throughout, as was confirmed by field reports from such habitual pessimists as Ian Gilmour and Chris Patten. There are good grounds for suspecting that the result of the 1979 election would have been almost iden- tical if the campaign had never taken place.

Inasmuch as there was an election cam- paign in 1983, the Tories won it. With Michael Foot, Tony Benn and a Labour policy document which Gerald Kaufman described as the longest suicide note in his- tory, Saatchi's efforts were almost superflu- ous. But there is no evidence that the cam- paign itself won the Tories a single vote.

By 1987, the Labour party had learned to campaign; for the first time since 1945, their party machine performed better than Tory Central Office did. Labour won that campaign. The only thing the Tories won was the election. Yet again, the election result would probably have been much the same if there had been no campaign.

Nineteen ninety-two may have been dif- ferent. The Tories had still not learned to match Labour's slickness, and made some basic mistakes; I had never known the Cen- tral Office press office perform so badly. The entire Tory campaign resembled a Tol- stoyan battlefield. Almost nothing went according to plan; most of the generals' orders either never reached the troops or were disobeyed, but isolated formations somehow fought their way to victory.

The Tories had intended to open hostili- ties by scragging Labour on tax. But there was a problem. The Treasury special advis- er responsible for the figures was a tax expert called Bill Robinson, an admirable fellow but given to over-caution. Twenty minutes before the press conference at which the scragging was due to take place, he decided that he did not have confidence in his calculations. The Prime Minister was astonishingly calm when he was told, mere- ly saying: 'Well then, what shall we talk about?' He could be forgiven for failing to recognise that as a result of the Robinson hesitation the Tories would stumble into a successful strategy.

Scrag turned into slog; instead of being an early victory in a war of movement, tax became a war of attrition, lasting for the whole campaign. This meant that it gradu- ally seeped into the voters' consciousness, greatly to the Tories' advantage.

The Tories' other success was also due to improvisation. When Mr Major got on his soapbox, some of his advisers were dis- mayed. They would have been wrong any- way, but they were not to know that Mr Kinnock was about to provide the perfect counterpoint with his Sheffield rally. At least for a British audience, Ealing comedy will always beat Leni Riefenstahl. The 1992 campaign did influence the election result, as did the tabloids, though not as much as they claim. This time, the Tories have more to do, and fewer tabloids.

There have been successes, especially in Central Office. Dr Mawhinney has never graduated from charm school, but he knows how to rim a campaign, and he has first-class adjutants. At the level of issues, they are scoring points, but do the issues count? For every voter who has noticed Labour's confused retreats on privatisation, there are a dozen who can name the Tory candidate for Tatton.

Those working at election headquarters are at one inevitable disadvantage. They have too much information, of the wrong sort. They work 16-hour days in the company of others like them and of com- puter screens. They read every newspaper; they watch every broadcast. Their mood swings accordingly; a bad 5.45 news and everyone is downcast: the six o'clock news goes better, and the building is swept by elation. But how much of this matters?

There is no way of knowing. Those at the centre are like artillerymen, firing long- range at an unseen target. They just have to hope that the co-ordinates are right, and that they are not inflicting friendly fire. To paraphrase Lord Leverhulme on his adver- tising budget, 90 per cent of the shells will no doubt be wasted, but there is no way of telling which 90 per cent. The gunners' job is not to write dissertations on the value of artillery warfare. Their task is to ensure that by 1 May they are fainting with exhaus- tion, their guns are red-hot, and their shells have all been fired. Let the historians work out whether any of them hit their target.

Wednesday morning's Guardian had a useful poll, giving the current position as Labour 46, Tories 34. I find that credible, but as Sarah Whitebloom points out on page 10 of this week's Spectator, there are a vast number of undecideds. The data is much softer than at comparable stages of previous campaigns, some of which only lasted for three weeks; there are still three weeks to go this time. The campaign has not reached maximum intensity, yet many voters are already bored.

We may have a better picture in a week's time. By then, and despite Mr Blair's efforts, the sleaze issue may have left the headlines, except, no doubt, in the Guardian. By then, also, it may be clearer that Mr Blair has nothing else to talk about. In another spring election, an earlier Labour leader thought he had such a healthy lead in the polls that there was no need to raise his game; he could just saunter back to power. It is unfair to com- pare Harold Wilson to Tony Blair — unfair, that is, to Harold Wilson. Whatever the late Lord Wilson's faults, lack of intel- lectual self-confidence was not among them. He did understand policies, and although he was complacent in 1970, he was not guilty of vapid sloganising.

Mr Blair may find that three more weeks places a great strain on his insipidity. Some voters may find that three weeks' insipidity places an intolerable strain on their patience.