The election

Any old iron?

Jo Grimond `flood evening. As you know, I have V.J long been determined to hold the general election as soon as was decent and

before the glow of that amazing stroke of good luck in the Falkland Islands had evaporated or Mr Foot had been removed from the leadership of the Labour Party.

'The British require a garnish of hypo- crisy with their politics. I am compelled therefore to talk of the national interest, though common sense will tell you that enlightened self-interest in which I so strongly believe was reason enough. I am going while the going looks good.'

Extract from• the Prime Minister's undelivered broadcast.

Most general elections are bred by fear out of self-interest and justified by cynicism. But seldom has their parentage been so blatantly clear as in the present one. It is difficult to know whether to praise Mrs Thatcher's effrontery or gape at her con- tempt for the Victorian virtues.

She has on her own showing plenty more to do. The rating system is to be abolished. Does she need a new mandate for that? Cer- tainly not, it has been a Tory war-cry for many years. Was she not going to reduce taxation? It has risen. Were the Tories not horrified at the amount of our wealth taken by the state? Under her rule it has taken more than ever. Regulations flourish. As for law and order, those standards of the Tory faith, the Police and Criminal Evidence Bill lies abandoned on the bat- tlefield from which the Government have fled. A year to go and the main promises of the blessed manifesto are unfulfilled.

We are assured that prosperity is return- ing. What a chance then in one last brilliant year to obliterate all the follies of the past! What a chance to redeem the unkept pro- mises! In one grand final session she could crown the determination, the honesty, the sound administration which, if we are to believe her propaganda, are to spur Britain, lean but fit, on a glorious run-up to the end of the century.

Seldom has a prime minister so openly embraced expediency as when she announc- ed that she would await the result of the local elections. Never has a general sound- ed the charge on a less inspiring trumpet. Nor indeed could there be more irrelevant omens from which to read the future than the results of the local elections. Everybody won — perhaps in the general election everybody will have prizes.

Even in the most loyal Tory bosom the timing of the election must release a horrid little suspicion that the lady is not made of the finest iron. Another horrid little suspi- cion is that she cannot be wholly confident that inflation is conquered and the economic weather set fair. Nor can the faithful troops of the Right be assured that they are on a campaign whose strategy has been carefully foreseen. If three parliaments are needed to complete the vic- tory why curtail the first? Perhaps the se- cond will only last three years. And the third?

If Parliament lays down five years as the natural span of its life, then, saving wholly unforeseen events, such as a collapse of con- fidence in the majority party, or defeat on a major issue, for five years it should run. But we are assured that the Government is on course and the Tory Party united — well, almost. I don't suggest that the Queen could have refused a dissolution, but it must make people wonder if a fixed term for Parliament with some exceptions for unexpected developments should not be considered.

It is the state of the Labour Party rather than of the country that occupies the mind of the government. No doubt Australia gave them a shock. A new leader, some sen- sible policies, and at the last minute Australian Labour romped home.

I am not a psephologist. I do not pretend to have worked over the marginal seats one by one. No sweep of the swingometer is go- ing to decide this election with three major contestants and an electorate going the way of Northern Ireland in geographic polarisa- tion. I do not pretend to be able to assess the effects of the anti-nuclear campaign, the ecologists, Women's Lib or the Scottish and Welsh nationalists. I cannot read the minds of the tactical voters. But I am not convinced that the Tories will win — at least not with an overall majority. The elec- tion looks wide open to me. But then I am always wrong in these matters (though not always alone in being wrong).

I believe that her handling of the election issue will do Mrs Thatcher's reputation some harm. First, we had lofty disdain of any suggestion that she was considering such soiled and soiling questions as election dates, then the tease, now cut and run after the local elections. She has displayed an unexpected lack of generosity over the Argentinian visit to the Falklands. It will be interesting to see whether she goes to the summit in the US contrary to the advice of the Daily Telegraph. It is exactly the sort of behaviour from which she seemed free. Mr Foot, who felt no contradiction in being Lord Beaverbrook's editor while claiming

to be anti-appeasement, who is horrified by fox-hunting but ready to subsidise fishing, has never found political acrobatics par- ticularly exacting. Mrs Thatcher was not for turning, much less for cutting and running. One result may be greatly to strengthen the appeal of David Steel and the Gang of Four.

Much of the campaign will be negative. The papers and television screens will be festooned with knocking copy. But the par- ty will win which wins the argument quietlY pursued in the minds of the electorate. The electorate has liked much of this govern- ment. It has been unimpressed by much of the mud thrown at it. The electors have seen local Labour parties in action and the sight has not always cheered them. But they will now ask, what happens next? No second Falklands can be expected to set the patriotic adrenalin running — or perhaps an invasion of Belize?

If prosperity returns, will unjustified wage claims once again return with it? If the privileges of the trades unions are abolish- ed, how will industry be run? What is to be the new role for the workers, what new benefits can they expect? Even if unemploY• ment.were to be halved (optimistic), what are the unemployed to do? If the Health Ser- vice is under-financed and over.- administered, what is the way ahead for it and the rest of the social services? Can the North of England and Scotland and Wales really be assured that the days of London hegemony are over? There are small but ominous signs that they are not. The Government stepped in to overrule tbe

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recommendation to forbid the take-over ot Glasgow-based Anderson Strathclyde, bn.1 an auctioneer for the rich in Bond Street is treated very differently. I doubt if the Tories expect to win a single new seat Scotland and probably feel two or three to be in danger, small as their Pres°, representation may be. The rot may spreau, south, pulled not so much by unemPlnYt ment as by a feeling of general neglec • Small farmers, fishermen, small shopes small businesses will scan the horizon to ss where their future lies. I do not suPP? they will welcome a trade-uniond-etniec; Labour Party with the militant ten high round the corner, but they may well w.el_gs. up the Alliance against the Conser.varcta Tactical voting may not he confin troyi;.u._ keeping Tory or Labour out, but.may ensure a new parliament which is not uesi.Y populist but more sensitive to local issi ca_ There are no new rising stars that the detect in the van of politics. But behindn_e: familiar war-cries there are, as alwaYs, stirrings. On the whole the young se:i somewhat disinterested and the ._ne somewhat uncertain. That makes for a large 510 and amorphous floating vote. Jubnother should be interesting. Do not . the reading the opinion polls before 6 Junen, last ewceideekd. will make up their minds I °I