POLITICS

An exposition of the unlikely benefits of taking the painful decision to tell the truth

MATTHEW PARRIS

If the lie you tell is big enough, said the Shadow Chancellor, John Smith, last week. some people will believe it. He was answer- ing the Chancellor's allegations about Labour's tax plans. If you repeat a lie often enough, said the Health Secretary, William Waldegrave, last year, it will be believed. He was responding to Robin Cook's charge that hospitals were opting out of the NHS. If you throw enough mud, advises last Sun- day's Sunday Times, then, 'however wildly thrown, it usually sticks'. The comment, in a feature about the election campaign (`Yes, It's On'), is applied to the new Tory poster about 'Labour's bombshell' on tax.

A lie, persisted in, will take hold: Walde- grave, Smith and the Sunday Times offer

versions of the same folk wisdom. Politi- cians love homily, and I daresay that if you throw a big enough homily around often enough, some of it may stick.

But not all do. The 'son of Thatcher', `Thatcher Mark II', 'Thatcher's puppet' family of metaphor, aimed at John Major, has not prospered, though promoted assid- uously. It never rang true. Nor will Labour's latest idea — that the Tories are the party of high taxation — catch on. An Opposition campaign to out-khaki the Government, portraying Tom King's

Options for Change as a disgraceful attack on the armed forces never really got off the

ground in the Commons last autumn: repeatedly relaunched, it kept subsiding in embarrassed giggles, like those which greet Labour's promise to fight harder in Brus- sels for British farmers.

You do not need the whole truth, but you need the ring of truth. Farmers and retired army officers have not flocked to Labour's cause.

Both sides try it on. Conservatives have been wont to tell farmers that Labour might nationalise land. This was hardly credited. Ministers blame homelessness on Labour boroughs with unoccupied proper- ties, but it has never stuck. For 13 years this Government has insisted that welfare bene- fits and services would actually he threat- ened by Labour, yet voters persist in think- ing that this is the one thing which would not. Tory bugles have yet to recruit a regi- ment of squaddies and social workers. The Tory flag has yet to fly in cardboard city.

Against the cynic's boast, then, that the bigger liar wins, I would pose a thought to MPs returning to the Commons this week: that you can waste a lot of time in politics telling lies. Going with the grain is so much more efficient.

That is practical advice, not moral. Can- vassing once with a friend in Wandsworth, we came upon a frail old lady who seized my friend's arm and, with trembling voice, said: 'Oh, I'm so relieved the Conservatives are here. I've heard that if Labour get back the borough council will bring in compulso- ry euthanasia for pensioners. Tell me, is it true?'

My friend paused. Looking her straight in the eye, he said: 'Madam, I must be frank. That's not in their manifesto at all.' Here he cupped her hand in both of his. `But it's just the kind of thing they'd do.' It's not always, you see, a matter of hon- esty, for my friend was not honest. It's a matter of stroking the way the fur lies. He knew how it lay, with her.

We know how it lies with the public. Everybody knows Labour must spend more. It's just the kind of thing they'd do. So the Conservatives' tax 'scare' is both an efficient tactic and a fundamentally honest one, even though the individual 'revela- tions' are completely made up. Everybody knows that Tories believe the market does things best, so Labour's NHS scares, though their elements be inventions, will always have the ring of truth. It's just the kind of thing the Tories would do.

Everybody knows Labour is squeamish about military force, so Douglas Hurd's weekend jibe about possible humiliation from the Third World, though fanciful, will strike a chord with the voter. But never say anything your listener is not disposed to believe. It's no good, for instance, denying that crime is rising, even when it is falling. That's not the kind of thing crime does.

But nor is it any good to say (as Chris Patten said, marring what was still the best speech at the Tory conference last year) that if Labour get back, Tony Benn may

'It's another bogus document from BR.'

stage a socialist coup. The public do notice that this has become unlikely. They do notice that moderates now control the Labour Party.

It has taken time for Labour to convince us, for enormous Tory and press effort over decades, mostly against the evidence, has fostered the illusion that when Labour were in government we had socialism. In fact we had social democracy and social democracy was our downfall. The socialist ogre, assiduously constructed by post-war Conservatism, now returns to haunt the party, for if socialism was the menace, where's the menace now? Mr Patten's attempts to revive the Marxist threat at Blackpool betray his fear (like that of all Tory moderates) of facing moderates as rivals.

Yet face it he will, before the century is out. If we must now endure a Tory election campaign on the theme of 'Labour's mask', then the party is not only involving itself (in Mr Patten's own terminology) in a bit of a porky, but getting styed-up with porkies which begin to run, and will increasingly run, if porkies can run, quite against the grain of popular belief.

Ever since that conference, since Mr Lamont's sums with Labour tax bills and since Mr Hurd's remarks about defence,

perfectly sensible people (like Peter Rid- dell of the Times) have been showing that

Labour's plans will not, on any objective reading, contrast starkly with the Tories' in any important respect. Manifestoes are converging. The challenge to the better minds and braver spirits in the Conserva- tive Party, of whom Mr Patten is the emi- nent example, will be to show how — if not by socialist coup — they could diverge again after a Labour victory.

They would diverge not by naked evil, but by well-intentioned drift. Drift will be Labour's problem. Drift is the kind of thing they do. Drift is an ultimately, but not immediately, spectacular political vice. To dramatise the peril is Mr Patten's chal- lenge. That the electorate will be disposed to believe him will not, he will find, be to his disadvantage. Truths, even quite subtle ones, are refreshingly easy to purvey.

Matthew Parris is parliamentary sketchwriter of the Times.

Simon Helfer will resume his column next month.