ANOTHER VOICE
I believe I have discovered how Mr Major might win
MATTHEW PARRIS
The weather in Honolulu is charming at present. I mention the fact because there is really only one way now for the Tories to avoid defeat. This is for the entire Conser- vative party, including its administrative and media staff, to charter a cruise liner, paid for by kindly Mr Ma-Ching-kwan in Hong Kong, and sail forthwith for Hawaii, abandoning the Prime Minister to conduct the campaign alone. They should return only after the general election is over. They might then find they had won.
Hiding from view for the next six weeks, emitting not a peep and keeping very, very still, the Tories should leave journalists and the Labour party locked in the same room together, Labour staring down the barrel of Fleet Street's gun. Only thus might the coming bust-up between the press and Wal- worth Road — a fight as inevitable as it promises to be bitter and long — begin before 1 May, rather than after it.
British journalism's finger is itching at the trigger. We are familiar with every fis- sure in the façade of New Labour unity, schooled in every sum which does not add up, achingly conscious of every hollow and void in what passes for Mr Blair's political philosophy.
But somewhere in the back of the news- papermen's collective unconscious lies the unarticulated thought that it would some- how be unfair to go for them yet. For heav- en's sake, the Conservative party has had it all its own way for 18 years, whereas these guys haven't even been given a chance. Let them win first; let them at least try. Let them take a crack at real government. Then we'll take a crack at them.
We observe them in opposition, our trig- ger-fingers fidgeting. When Labour outline a new policy or unveil a new pledge, the weaknesses and deceits are obvious to the meanest intelligence in Fleet Street — glar- ingly so to the clever, cynical and on the whole fair-minded men and women who serve as lobby correspondents. Generally they spot the blanks faster than the Tories do. As the transparent evasions and sneaky little acts of populism trickle through onto our fax machines or are trotted in by Alas- tair Campbell's lackeys, journalists get quite exercised about the breathtaking cyn- icism and weaselly vacuity of the Millbank Tower operation.
But then . . . in pad the Tory spin doc- tors; in rustle the Central Office press releases, all in dreadful, stale, tin-legged prose. Every minor opposition deception becomes a dastardly fraud; every omission, a cover-up; every sum which doesn't add up, a threat to the future of Britain and a promise of crippling taxation within weeks. Were Mr Blair to be elected, our wives would be raped, our daughters abducted and our economy laid waste. And we think, `I'm not printing this rubbish. I'm not doing Dr Mawhinney's dirty work for him.' And we lay off.
No doubt this reflects a regrettable arro- gance on the media's part, but it's a fact. Party politicians who try to expose the shortcomings in rival programmes should understand that the effect may be to rele- gate a story which, if the press had been given a clear run with it, might have achieved greater prominence.
When the Tories lay into the opposition, the press backs off. This is unfortunate for the government because the electorate are, even now, willing to turn against New Labour. Already we distrust it. We are ner- vous about it. When the media prod and poke at it, we become more nervous still. Several times in the night we have woken in a cold sweat and determined not to vote for it after all; then next day we've seen yet another fat Tory telling lies and half-truths on television, bad-mouthing his own col- leagues and stabbing his leader in the back — and turned again, like Dick Whittington and his cat, back towards the possibility of a Er . . . when we invited you to appear on the box . . fresh start with New Labour.
For if there's one thing which above all others inclines us to disregard the warnings, it is when the Tories start parroting them. When you have doubts about a new friend, it can help steady your nerve to hear him attacked by unpleasant people whose judg- ment you do not respect. Every Tory mega' phone in every street barking 'New Labour, new danger' in the weeks ahead will be a recruiting sergeant for Tony Blair. In short, the Conservative party are not the best people to lead the attack on New Labour; they actually hamper it. And they are wasting their time defend- ing themselves, too. There is no point telling Britain to love the Conservative party, because Britain is absolutely sick of the Conservative party and not disposed to change its mind. We have had to live with It for 18 years now, we know it intimately, it is not a nice animal, it is not at all well, and the more we see of it the less we care for it. It cannot fool us and it ought not to try. It would do much better to hide.
Imagine it had hidden. Imagine we had not faced all those stupid Tory slogans over the last few months. Imagine we had missed the 'Liberal Democrat half-baked beans' stunt. Imagine the string of public relations ploys masquerading as 'policy ini- tiatives' over recent weeks had never been advanced. Suppose Britain had been spared the undignified posturing over the royal yacht; the fawning over Frances Lawrence; the promise of a privatised London Under- ground and Post Office; the suddenly sprung plans for revolutionising our pen- sions policy; and all those ruddy posters . • would the Tories be less popular than they now are? In the words of Swampy, 'I don't think so.'
So off you go, Tories, take a spring break. John Major may stay. We do need a prime minister and, happily, Mr Major is not much associated in the public mind with the Tory party. He and his soapbox remain an asset. I suppose you think I'm joking, but I mean this. If the whole Tory party were now to lie doggo, leaving only John Major and his makeshift podium to travel the country, taking his stand alone against the massed and manicured forces of New Labour, I believe he might win.
Matthew Parris is parliamentary sketchwriter of the Times.
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