Another voice
Myth of the middle ground
Auberon Waugh
Lo months ago, when the prospect of a une election was little more than a gleam in Saatchi and Saatchi's eye, the Daily Telegraph published a version of the Conservative Party's unpublished accounts which showed a deficit of £102,750 despite drastic cuts in staff, property sales and a tax windfall of £168,064. Part of the trouble was that disposal of assets in order to meet the deficit of the year before had reduced income from investments — from £103,641 to £61,940. These investments make up the party's reserve fund which is used to fight elections. The figures raised the question of whether the Tories would be able to fight this election with anything like the intensity of the 1979 campaign.
My purpose in drawing attention to this gloomy piece of information is not to urge Spectator readers to reach for their little string purses. Far from it. Any spare money they have would almost certainly be better spent on the Spectator's next wine offer.
Various explanations have been advanc- ed for the fact that the Conservative Party is in queer street, while the Spectator Wine Club is doing rather well. Contributions from manufacturing companies fell by 19 per cent, but that can easily be explained by the shrinkage or 'slimming down' of manufacturing industry. Contributions from banking and insurance have actually increased — whenever faceless, unaccoun- table men handle large sums of other peo- ple's money. The true reason why there is so little enthusiasm for the thin line of war- riors standing between us and disposses- sion, chaos, despair, civil war etc is known well enough to readers of the Spectator. It started with puzzlement among intelligent Conservatives over Mrs Thatcher's treat- ment of Mr Peregrine Worsthorne, but it soon changed to anger and nausea when we saw that she had no intention of granting him the knighthood he richly deserves. She insults and diminishes us all by honouring 'Sir' Larry Lamb and 'Lord' Maffews while ignoring this good and wise man. How can we possibly give her our loyalty or affection under these circumstances, let alone our money?
Money, of course, is only the crudest measurement of what might be called the Worsthorne Gap, separating the Conser- vative Party from its natural supporters. Run-ups to general elections would appear to be a time of intense intellectual activity among Conservative politicians. Last week we heard Lord Hailsham — just retiring, at 75, from his second spell as Lord Chancellor — query the justice of jury trials, suggesting that a 'more reasoned judgment' and 'less haphazard results' might come from some other system. For about nine years — ever since the Juries Act of 1974 — we have been pointing out that the jury system had collapsed. Most suitable jurors get themselves excused on grounds that they have work to do. What is left, even when it is not bribed or otherwise suborned or unbudgeably sympathetic to any wrongdoer, generally lacks the in- telligence to offer a better chance of justice than might be available from tossing a coin. In all his years as chief law officer in the land, Lord Hailsham turned a blind eye to consequences of the 1974 Act which were apparent to everyone else. Now — on the point of retirement, and on the eve of an election, he seems to see the light. Thirteen years ago, as I remember, on the eve of another election, he stomped the country announcing his conversion to the idea of a Constitutional Bill of Rights, to protect the individual against further encroachments by the State. I wonder what happened to that.
Last week, also, we learned for the first time that the Conservatives intend to tackle the unions next time round. They will make strike ballots compulsory. I wonder how many Conservatives have forgotten that they were elected in 1979 on a promise to bring the unions to heel.
Other evidence of intellectual activity is worth remembering. The brave scheme for education vouchers seems to have been more or less forgotten, but not before it had been watered down by the addition of a qualifying means test so that, far from offering a sop to Conservative supporters crippled by private school fees, it became a further instrument for their oppression. Not only would they have to pay for everybody else's public sector education out of their taxes, and their own children's education in the private sector out of their taxed income; they would also be asked to pay for everybody else's education in the private sector out of their taxes, too.
It is only when it has to face the electors at election time that the Conservative Party makes anything remotely recognisable as a conservative noise. At all other times, whether in opposition or government, we hear nothing but the racket of Tweedledum and Tweedledee consensus. Perhaps it is impudent and exorbitant to demand truth from the politicians at election time, yet it is the only time, I would suggest, when they themselves confront the real truths of democratic politics. At all other times — even during party conferences — they are haunted by the myth of the floating voter as someone who occupies the middle ground of politics likely to be swayed either way by a devotion to the middle course.
My butcher, for what it is worth, says there are only two people in British politics for whom he has time at all. They are Tony Benn and Enoch Powell. He will be voting Conservative on this occasion, although neither of his heroes belongs to that party. Obviously, one cannot construct a great psephological model from the example of one butcher. The fundamental error in this idea of a middle ground is to be found in the politicians' conception of voters as political animals. They do not sit along a political spectrum from left to right. If that were so, there would indeed be some sense in wooing the middle ground. The plain truth, as I discovered in five years as a political correspondent, first for the Spec- tator, then for Private Eye, is that practical- ly nobody in Britain is interested in politics. At election time, as at the Grand National, those of us who could never normally be described as punters go out to back our choice. That is all there is to it. Perhaps three useful generalisations can be made about floating voters. The first is that they are nowadays highly volatile, and can hap- pily swing from Labour to Conservative and back again without a glance at the mid- dle ground. The second is that they tend to be timid to the extent of wishing to avoid bust-ups. The third is that they will vote ac- cording to their perception of their own in- terests and not according to any philosophical or cultural formula — still less according to their perception of other people's interests, the rhetorical pulls of compassion, or freedom, or 'one nation'.
Logically, the Labour Party's pro- gramme should appeal only to the unemployed, those in couch! housing, on welfare or earning less than £90 per week, those with threatened jobs in steel or ship- building, union and local government power freaks, black and female activists. This is quite a big constituency, but it is not big enough to return a government. More important, Labour's programme should logically repel all who do not belong to anY of these categories. The more Labour bangs on about the miseries of the unemployed, the happier the rest of us feel.
The moral of all this is surely that the on- ly thing which could prevent the Conser-. vative Party from being re-elected would be" if people did not understand what it was saying. If I am right, Conservatives should not only say what they think, but act on it, too. Those who have no thoughts in their heads beyond a desire to be re-elected, should listen to and repeat the wise words of good Sir Peregrine whose advice on this matter is exactly the opposite of my own. He thinks the Conservatives must appeal to the ideal of 'One Nation' on moral as well as on electoral grounds. But it really does not matter what they say, so long as they say something.
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