The poll tax
Upping the Tory anti
Michael Trend
The greatest — perhaps the only - cloud on the Conservatives' horizon at the general election last June was the loss of 11 of their previous 21 seats in Scotland. This was part of a long-term decline: in 1955 they had half the total vote north of the border, in 1987 just less than a quarter. John MacKay, who failed to hold Argyll and Bute, was one of the casualties. He has bounced back, however, in a new role new both for him and for the Tories in Scotland — as his party's chief executive for Scotland and has completely over- hauled its organisation and greatly in- creased its staff in Edinburgh. When I met Mr MacKay in his regional offices in Glasgow he gave me the received wisdom of why the Conservatives had done so badly. It goes thus: it wasn't generally believed in Scotland that things were im- proving as they were in the South especially in terms of the economy and unemployment. This will soon put itself right as the Scots begin to see for them- selves that economic growth is real and unemployment is coming down. (These trends were confirmed by a recent CBI report that showed the Scottish economy in a buoyant state; manufacturing order books are good and export prospects en- couraging.) There is a 'delay factor'; but things will come right in the end. `But, what about the effect of the poll tax?' I asked. 'I think you mean the community charge,' Mr MacKay replied gently, but firmly. 'Well, you see, the people themselves were begging us to bring change to the rates system. . . .' And off he went on a long explanation of the various virtues and benefits of the new system. Even I — one of the few people I know who is beginning to learn to love the community charge — did not feel that Mr MacKay spoke with total conviction. It was not that he disapproved of the new system; but, unlike his colleagues down in London, he faced an immediate and seemingly intractable crisis over its introduction. Another senior Scottish Tory explained it in greater detail: 'It's all tied up with the general lack of sympathy with the Prime Minister up here; she seems to stand for the whole south-east conspiracy, even among many of our own supporters. Moreover they feel deeply suspicious that they are being used as guinea pigs for the poll tax ."Community charge', I smugly corrected him.
I went to look for myself. Down Argyle Street I met the first sign of dissent. Past the thumping new St Enoch development the 'Stop It' campaign was doing tre- mendous business. Surely the lady in the twin set and pearls, the very image of Our Leader — 'a Milngavie matron, natural Tory', said my Scottish companion wasn't going to add her name to the petition? Not only did she sign but she queued up to sign. I spoke to one or two in the queue: were they not impressed with a sense of growing prosperity in Scotland? What of the St Enoch Centre, the forth- coming Mayfest — second largest in the country — and the soon-to-open Garden Festival in Glasgow? It went down badly. Perhaps, I thought, Enoch is a mixed blessing for the Tories wherever he pops up.
At Labour's regional headquarters I heard more about the 'perceived alien philosophy that Mrs Thatcher is trying to impose on Scotland'. Over 100,000 people had bought their council houses but this had not had anything like the same effect as len England. Labour had been able to make much of the view that Conservatives are commonly thought to take on Scotland — that it has a 'begging-bowl mentality': this was believed to be both the Prime Minister and her Scottish Secretary's per- sonal view and was 'widely resented'. And the poll tax — it was safe to call it such here — had been a 'tremendous asset' at the general election and ever since. The Scot- tish Labour Party was advising people to exercise their right to question aspects of the form that was delivered to them and if necessary appeal. A few days later the SCOTTISH SPECIAL Lord Provost himself was pictured on the front page of the Glasgow Herald puzzling over his form. He had found that he had only been given three days to complete it: he would need more time to seek 'clarifica- tion'. Thus the wheels of the machine may well quickly clog up.
This seemed to be a clever tactic; so I went further and asked if Labour had actually tried to get people not to register for the tax. No, came back the considered reply; but a substantial number of people — more than one might expect — seemed to be missing from the latest electoral register. This had been drawn up last year at a time when it was widely recognised that the poll tax was only just over the horizon and that the first list would be useful in compiling the second. And yet there was also a certain reserve — a lack of punch -- on Labour's part. What did all this shadow boxing mean?
So I went back onto the streets and tried to track down one of the 'non-registered'. It was unrewarding work, although at last I found someone who admitted to taking himself off the voting register with the intent of avoiding the notice of those compiling the one for the new charge. Why was this, I asked? — hoping that he would favour me with a sophisticated political reply. Although he started promisingly, I was to be disappointed. 'It's a matter of principle,' he said. 'I don't pay any taxes as a matter of principle, and don't see why I should pay this one.' So when I arrived at the offices of Mr Jack Woods, the regional community charge registration officer (we were back in community charge territory here), I was much in need of enlightenment. Mr Woods is a kindly and patient man; he took one look at me and began at the beginning. You see there haven't been any experts on a poll tax' — he was, I understood, using the word in its historical context now `since the Peasants' Revolt.' But he and his colleagues, although their professional association had not been in favour of the new system, would do their very best to make it work as the law laid down. Lack of co-operation from the solid Labour local authorities was clearly not helping Mr Woods.
So to the Scottish Nationalists (currently 18 per cent in opinion polls) who have said that they will regard the results of the regional council elections in May as a referendum on the community charge. In recent months the Tories have been even lower in the opinion polls than their performance at the general election down to 18 per cent at the time of the health workers' demonstrations and stop- pages. They are recovering now — up to 23 per cent — perhaps in part due to the fiasco over the proposed Ford plant at Dundee, which some felt was a prime example of the 'auld mentality' and will help diminish the 'delay factor'. In May they will put out a record field (although it is surely very bad that in Dundee itself they will only contest about half the seats). But the 'things are looking up' school clearly still has a long way to go.
The May elections will also, however, show where Labour's present vulnerability lies. They are caught on a fork worthy of Cardinal Morton. For all their present crafty campaigning against the new tax it is not in Labour's longer-term interest to see the voting register shorn of voters — many of them their voters; and it is their local authorities which will lose money if the register is seriously 'light'. One cannot help feel that in the end the patient Mr Woods and his list will win through. Whether that resolution of the present situation will be in time for the Conservatives at the next general election will, however, be the big question for national politics.
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