How a coalition of the willing could save Blair — and Howard
mild terrorism turn the British political landscape on its head,
koi,..,..much as it has done in Spain? Government sources naturally
/ give this scenario short shrift. They argue that Tony Blair faces no comparable electoral test here any time soon. They add that the war in Iraq, though never popular, has never been quite as universally loathed as its detractors on both Left and Right have made out, Indeed, one famously robust Labour minister from a Midlands manufacturing constituency even claims that because of the war, support for the government has actually gone up among the much vaunted Cis and C2s — the cream of the upper-working classes and lower-middle classes whose support the Tories must regain if ever they are to return to power.
The government, however, may be too dismissive of the Spanish comparison. A terrorist might conclude that the soft underbelly of the British system is not so much public opinion as the Labour party, both inside and outside of Parliament. Hitherto, Mr Blair has kept them in line through a virtuoso display of nerve. If, however, there is a September 11 on British soil, everything will be up for grabs. There is then every chance that a large number of MPs and Cabinet ministers — larger than the 139 Labour MPs who voted against their own government on the war in March 2003 — will turn round and say to the Prime Minister after the fashion of Spanish voters: 'You got us into this because of your alliance with Bush. It's time to get out of Iraq and to bring our boys home.'
Mr Blair could not now do that without destroying himself — and he knows it. He believes that he is in a fight with evil. But the real reason why the Prime Minister is in a stronger position than his vanquished Spanish allies is that in the event of a destabilising. widespread Labour revolt, he has an escape route. He could declare a national emergency and then invite the pro-war loyal Conservative opposition to join a coalition. In that sense, his position would be reminiscent of the Liberal prime minister H.H. Asquith, who invited Andrew Bonar Law's Tories to enter the government in 1915 when the ruling party started to lose its authority following a series of military reversals and Whitehall quarrels, 'To seem to welcome into the intimacy of the political household strange, alien, hitherto hostile figures was a most intolerable
task,' lamented Asquith after the formation of that coalition. It would be little easier for Mr Blair, whose raison d'être has been the forging of a responsible party of the centre Left that is just as capable of running the nation's affairs as the Tories of yesteryear. But if an internal party explosion came on the heels of a real one, might not his project (and position) stand a better chance of survival under the protective umbrella of a national government? The key role here would be played by Gordon Brown. In 1915 the then Chancellor, Lloyd George, was a staunch advocate of coalition. What would Mr Brown do in such circumstances?
Certainly, unhappy memories are still conjured within the party by the name of Ramsay MacDonald — who split the Labour movement when he formed a National Government with Tories and Liberals to implement financial orthodoxy during a nm on the pound in 1931. But Mr Blair would be in a far better position in the event of a schism. He would carry rather more of the Cabinet and PLP than did MacDonald and his supporters, who thereafter constituted a rump. Indeed, in the event of the Prime Minister having to form a coalition with the Tories, history suggests that Blairites would probably do disproportionately well in the carve-up of positions. Both Asquith and MacDonald were easily able to use their residual patronage powers to good effect.
How would the Conservatives respond? Despite Michael Howard's spat with the government over the remit of the Butler inquiry, Tories close to Howard assert that he would look very seriously at the idea of joining a coalition in the event of a large-scale terrorist attack on the homeland. Mr Howard, like Bonar Law before him, has a core of principle. No less than Mr Blair, he is an ardent Atlanticist who fears the effects of the EU and America pulling apart. He too would not want to give al-Qa'eda and the Labour Left their head in so tragic a climate.
Nor would Mr Howard want to give his own anti-American wing — who wish to forge a kind of Molotov-Ribbentrop pact with the Labour Left on the issue of the war — much head room; as with Bonar Law, a coalition would enable him to keep his restive 'ultras' in check. Coalition would also end another awkward aspect of the Tory party's current position. Like the Conservatives before 1915, the opposition now has a degree of responsibility for getting the country into
war without any real say over us conduct. After all, the 140 Tories who trooped into the government lobby on the anti-war amendment in March 2003 supplied the Prime Minister with his margin of victory.
But other high-ranking Tories have a set of lower calculations for contemplating coalition. They regretfully acknowledge that for all of Mr Howard's successes inside the Westminster village since becoming the leader last October — which are considerable — he has not yet achieved great traction with the public at large. They cannot, therefore, see him winning the next election. They note that parties which have been out of office for a long time after electoral smash-ups (the Tories in 1915, Labour in 1940) tend to benefit greatly from rehabilitative spells as the junior partners in coalitions forged in times of great crisis. And for many senior Conservatives, this would probably be their last chance of working on their ministerial red boxes.
As ever, the precise terms of such a coalition would be hard to negotiate. But as both Labour and Conservative traditionalists regretfully agree, the ideological chasm between the leaderships of two parties is not massive — and certainly nothing like as big as that between New Labour and the antiwar Liberal Democrats. Would coalition with the Tories help or hinder the prospects of Mr Blair pushing through public-service reform? Are they so far apart on public spending or tax? And even on Europe, it could be argued that the two thorniest issues — the EU Constitution and the single currency — have already been long-fingered.
The most difficult issue would probably be the allocation of portfolios. Clement Attlee, who was probably the greatest beneficiary of wartime coalition politics ever (and whose Labour party held just one more seat in 1940 than the Tories do today) was once asked by a young man what the difference was between Democrats and Republicans in America. 'Jobs, that's what the difference is, jobs,. replied Mr Attlee with customary terseness. It could come down to that in this country, too.
Dean Godson is chief leader writer of the Daily Telegraph. His biography of the Ulster Unionist leader, Himself Alone: David Trimble and the Ordeal of Unionism, will be published later this year by HaiperCollins. Peter °borne is at Cheltenham.
Previous page
