POLITICS
Mr Major finds he already has another election to worry about
SIMON HEFFER
The Tories have had some spectacular panics since Mr Major won the General Election. However, that following the elec- toral humiliations at Newbury and in the county council polls was worse than any- thing seen last autumn. The shock shows how the party had deluded itself about its performance. That delusion is now, though, fast ending. Acrimony is rampant. 'The good news,' a long-serving minister who voted for Michael Heseltine in 1990 told me on Tuesday, 'is that we can always rely on Major to do the wrong thing.'
As the Tories returned to Westminster after a dire weekend in their constituencies, the panic centred not on the economy, as had been expected, but on education poli- cy. The Government insists that the culture of our schools must change. An important part of this change is to test children. Many in the teachers' unions oppose testing in principle. The point has not been whether Mr Patten, the Secretary of State, should force testing on unwilling teachers. It has been whether the elected Government or the trades unions control the formulation of public policy. The importance of not giv- ing way was, therefore, great.
The post-debacle rhetoric from Mr Major's circle about 'business as usual' was, though, a fantasy. If the Government had not been so loathed by the electorate Mr Patten could have been as hard on the teaching unions as he liked. However, some wobblers in the upper echelons of the party decided on Monday that Mr Patten would have to bend. Rather than change some of the unpopular policies that are wrong, they sought to change one that was right. Promi- nent Tories had bombarded the party chairman, Sir Norman Fowler, with their strategic fears about the education policy. MPs present on Monday at a meeting of a dining club for members in marginal seats reported worries being extensively voiced by Lord Wakeham, the leader of the House of Lords and very close to Mr Major. Reports of a retreat on tests were in the following morning's papers.
The leak was countermanded immediate- ly. Mr Patten made a statement confirming tests this year and the principle of testing for future years. That conflicting briefings happened in the first place indicates the decapitated nature of the Conservative party. Mr Patten was barked at by back- bench critics for failures of 'presentation'. This may be so, but he had little help from anyone else until the Prime Minister came to his aid once Downing Street realised another disaster was brewing. Mr Major may have read the support for Mr Patten in Tuesday's Daily Mail and Sun, the two newspapers responsible for Mr David Mel- lor's blossoming career as a music critic.
The education mess illustrated the prob- lem of ministers being insufficiently politi- cal. They are not just responsible for administering their own departments. They also have a political duty to further the pol- icy of the whole Government, on which their jobs and their party's continuation in office depend. Fourteen years of Tory rule have left many ministers either too tired, too complacent, or too incompetent to play that role. That, rather than the failings of any individual, is the cae for a reshuffle.
`Well,' a minister said to me, 'you can forget the radical agenda now.' So, with four years to go until an election must be called, caution is already setting in. 'I shouldn't bank on rail privatisation, not next year,' another minister said. 'Nor the Post Office sale. Just think what our people in rural areas will do to us. You trying telling them, the mood they're in, that they'll still have their branch line and their pillar box. They won't believe you.' The sig- nals coming from Downing Street and Con- servative Central Office suggest that Mr Major will now be governing as if there were only 18 months of this parliament left. He may be right.
Many horrors could confront him in the weeks ahead; three look specifically mina- tory. Mr Robert Adley, Tory MP for Christchurch, is so ill that his colleagues regard his seat as the next by-election. Even his majority of 23,015 would melt like snow in June. The Government's majority is only 19. Each 'bloody nose' takes it down by two. The vote on the Finance Bill to levy VAT on domestic power was passed by only 10. There is an organised core of rebels whose size already far exceeds the notional majority of the Government. Then there is the legal judgment on Maastricht. If the courts tell Mr Major that a ratified treaty must include the social chapter, he must either not ratify or accept it. To do the latter would, as MPs from all wings of the party have said, end his leadership. A judgment in his favour would lead to a challenge in the European Court, which (as a rebel put it) 'is not staffed exclusively by people who went to school with Douglas Hurd'. Finally, there will be a reshuffle this summer. Mr Major's track record suggest it might well be botched. Mr Lamont may survive in the cabinet; or Mr Major might make promotions that do not reflect the right-leaning nature of the party, and which therefore increase resentment of him.
Even those close to the Prime Minister feel he has learned little from last week's debacle. His friends say he still does not see there is uncertainty about the Govern- ment's direction — and they won't tell him.
`He has the perennial problem of prime ministers,' a colleague of his said. 'No one near him will say what he might not want to hear.' He is not just out of touch with his electorate, he is losing touch with his par- liamentary party, and even with many in his Government. The attacks on Mr Lamont are often coded assaults on the Prime Min- ister. But some backbenchers say openly that Mr Major needs the shake-up of a challenge. Uppermost in the minds of near- ly all MPs, after the county council results, was the question of their personal survival. They are wondering whether they would be better assured of membership of the House of Commons after the next election with or without Mr Major in charge.
There is widespread confusion about how a challenge can be mounted. Thirty- four MPs (10 per cent of the parliamentary party) do not, as has been erroneously reported elsewhere, have to risk career death by publicly supporting a rival candi- date. All those 10 per cent have to do is to write in confidence, at the appropriate time (after the Queen's Speech), to Sir Marcus Fox, the Chairman of the 1922 Committee, and tell him that in their view there ought to be such an election. Once 34 want a poll, the only people whose heads need to go above the parapet are the rival candidate's, his (or her) proposer and seconder. Three people ready to take this risk will be far easier to find than 35. Indeed, given the disrespect at the grass roots for the leadership, some associations may by the autumn be encouraging their members to support a challenge. Mr Major has said he will concentrate on improving policy and presentation. However, the internal democ- racy of his own party threatens to give him something even less appealing, and of a more personal nature, to think about.
Previous page
