ANOTHER VOICE
If you really want to punish the Tories, here is the way to do it
MATTHEW PARRIS Athe years of Conservative govern- ment roll by, a private urge grips me with growing intensity. I want to punch the Tory Party in the face. The old year dies and opportunity approaches: soon we shall have the chance to give the Tories a horrid shock. We should. We should return John Major to Downing Street. Oh, the pleasure of it! Picture the scene next year some time after midnight as, on broadcast commentaries, the penny drops. Major's winning, dammit. Again. Listen to the fogeys howl! Listen to the leader-writers on the Times and Telegraph grinding their teeth! Across the land is heard the startled yap of the string-'em-up Europhobe, persistent writer to the local freesheet and Maastricht bore, the type who joins his constituency association in order to resign. His yap meets the angry bark of the military officer with a minor gong, a regular on the Telegraph's letters page. And now comes the throatier growl of correspondents to the Times: unionists of the bloodthirsty sort writing from the drawing-rooms of Berkshire; Patten-baiters gnashing their teeth in the yacht clubs of Hong Kong.
The Europhobe wanted Major to get a bloody nose. The MBE has been incandes- cent about the abolition of the BEM. Our Hong Kong plutocrat cannot forgive Chris Patten for democracy. Our Berkshire squire sneers at Major's upgrading of the polytechnics Ca classless society! I ask you!'). For such people — Tories to a man — pleasure at the humiliation of John Major would exceed regret at the election of Tony Blair. How I long to see them dis- appointed! How sweet the sound of Tories cheering through gritted teeth! Can't you see the faces of Mr Major's broadsheet tormentors drop? Imagine the sorrow as they shred those first-edition 'clear blue water' editorials calling for a bold Tory post-mortem, an unashamed right-wing agenda, a renewed island nation- alism, an end to the welfarist consen- sus. . . .
Savour the embarrassed silence at elec- tion-night parties as the snooty mimickers of Mr Major's accent fall silent. In the homes of our papabili of political commen- tary, plump and prematurely balding young Tory columnists retrieve the elegant phras- es they had drafted to please the princelings of the Right on whom they meant to dance attendance. How foolishly these read now: 'point of departure', 'over- due reckoning', 'tunes we can whistle in the Blairite dark', 'an end to the muddle and fudge of the last six, wretched years'. . . .
Do they try to explain or would silence be more dignified? And picture the scene within a mile of Westminster where dwell those in the Tory high command well-placed and covertly disposed to strike: the scramble to get those extra telephone lines disconnected; the panicky trawl through campaign speech- es which cannot now be unmade for coded rallying calls to the incoming new boys and girls of the Opposition (they assumed) ... How to explain these now to — ugh — it sticks in their throats — the new Prime Min- ister, John Major?
Among a handful of the former Parlia- mentary Conservative Party there will be modest pleasure. Mr Major himself may feel mildly chuffed, if not entirely sure he cares for another five years skippering this shipful of shits. A minority of his outgoing Cabinet will be genuinely pleased. The Chief Whip at least, allowing this outcome to be the least bad of life's available pesti- lences, may permit to cross his lips that barely perceptible twitch which passes with Mr Goodlad for a smile.
But a larger Tory group will be furious: the crowd with no interest in victory. Add retiring Tories to those whose seats are secure and you have much the greater part of the present Parliamentary Party. Many have no interest in another government led by this man. Those who were never given office are bitter. Those who held office but lost it are bitter. Those in office but no longer rising are bitter. And those still ris- ing are impatient to displace their leader. The rest simply enjoy trouble.
To this crowd, power is a kind of log-jam. A term in opposition could prove amusing. This is the sour crew upon whose treacheries Mr Major has — incredibly — sustained a working administration for six punishing years. To see them returned to the galleys to sustain him for another five 'In my day, failing your A level really meant something.' would be delicious.
And there would be better reasons for pleasure. Confronted with Tory zealotry, try a simple test: ask which outcome would dis- appoint the zealots most, and work for it. There is no doubt that, this time, success for Mr Major is the zealots' greatest fear. Victo- ry for the Conservatives now would foil, at a critical moment, a bid for the Party's soul by the most poisonous sort of Tories.
Bruce Anderson has described them as men and women with all the characteristics of populism except popularity. A cheating and whining coalition of meanies, nasties, snobs, fossils, waistcoats, watch-chains, brogues, bigots, shysters, pointy-heads, yobs, suits, Poujadists, pedagogues, chau- vinists, dominies, reactionaries, crypto- fascists and out-and-out rats, they wait in the wings for the defeat of Major. Only thus can they propel their own absurd lead- ers to the fore. If the price is a spell in opposition, then that price, they mutter, is worth paying.
Perhaps this sounds offensive. Many on the Right are estimable, many are likable and some are my friends. Along with their columnist courtiers, academic running- dogs, Fleet Street boot-boys and mascot toffs, the Right make good company. Con- servatism would be the weaker without both libertines and ascetics from the Right. Thence come some of the Party's best ideas. And British nationhood does need sustaining; tradition matters; Europe does need watching; the Party must keep a pop- ulist strand, while even the bigots have their place.
But what unites this ragbag, besides immoderation? Their association owes more to opportunism than rationale. When snobs and yobs combine, a kind of right- wing nastiness with an authoritarian streak emerges as the glue, and little has been more disillusioning this year than to watch John Redwood, a quietly honest man who sniffed power, turn sly. Cynicism, a brutalis- ing appeal to greed, self-pity and hate, a barking voice, these are what characterise the pejorative use of the word 'Tory' by those ordinary citizens who do vote Con- servative but cannot stomach the Tories. The Party needs such citizens. Forces are at work which could make it uninhabitable for them. Smash the Tories. Vote for Major.
Matthew Parris is parliamentary sketchwriter of the Times.
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