AND ANOTHER THING
How know-nothing Major made the Tories the Stupid Party again
PAUL JOHNSON
Such a battle is inevitable, sooner rather than later. Major cannot continue to lead the party for long. The evidence accumu- lates that he is the least competent prime minister since Viscount Goderich, :he lachrymose ditherer whom Disraeli dis- missed as 'a transient and embarrassed phantom'. Major knows nothing and learns nothing. Almost uneducated, he is in Dr Johnson's words 'a mighty ignorant fellow' who seems unteachable. He does not improve with time, he gets worse. After all the errors of the past parliamentary year, he marked the recess by the disastrous Operation Irma, as he called it, a blunder- ing exercise to boost his personal ratings by publicising the sufferings of Bosnian chil- dren. Whoever advised him on that — David Mellor? Naturally it blew up in his face, and thus robbed him of whatever was left of his reputation for decency. As some- one put it to me, sadly, 'I now realise he is not a nice man.'
Of course men who are not nice can make formidable prime ministers. The trouble with Major is that he has no com- pensating qualities. He started out as a 'Thatcherite, because that was the road to office, but it is now clear he has no strong convictions. He is a weak and indecisive man who covers his irresolution by a foolish obstinacy on small points. Being weak, he takes the easy way out and follows the guid- ance of officials close to him. He and the Government have thus slipped into the incoherent set of liberal postures which marked the Tory party until Margaret Thatcher gave it a philosophy and a back- bone. Equally important, Major has lost the respect of his Cabinet colleagues, who treat him with the amused condescension he
invites. So a series of internecine wars is building up and will explode in the autumn, when the key decisions about spending are supposed to be taken. In fact they will be evaded. Mr Fudge and Mr Mudge have left Labour and joined the Conservatives, at the very point when Major has restored their old title, 'the Stupid Party'.
Many Tories qualify their despair by arguing that the economy is improving and may save the party despite itself. That parts of the economy are picking up is indis- putable, though thousands of people are still losing their jobs, and in many sectors of the service industries — building societies for instance — the massacres are just beginning. More serious, however, are the budget and trading deficits, especially the latter, which has shown no sign of improv- ing and may get worse when people feel they can spend more. Major has been shown schemes for improving the payments balance but all raise difficulties, so he has deferred a decision — a characteristic per- formance. There is also a case for tax increaSes which would reduce the budget deficit and (it is hoped) stop the economy sucking in imported goodies. But that would make the Tories the high-tax party just at the moment when Labour is renouncing the label.
In any case, the economy can not save the Tories this time. What is going to doom them is crime. They have been in power a decade and a half, and during this time Britain has changed from a relatively law- abiding country to one where everyone is afraid for their property and a growing number for their lives too. I heard an elderly woman the other day say, 'Major and Co and their families and homes are well pro- tected, and they do not care tuppence what happens to the rest of us.' Vox pop com- ments on the takeover of Britain by the criminal classes recall the famous passage in the Peterborough Chronicle about the anarchy of King Stephen's reign in the 12th century, 'when men said openly that Christ and his saints slept'.
Public anger is echoed by many in authority, such as the Chief Constable of Gloucester last week, who indicated that the courts and the 'law' have enabled the thieves to win the battle and make crime pay. The recession means that large num- bers of an entire generation have become criminal tradesmen, and they are not going to leave a lucrative industry when better times return.
The Government must take full responsi- bility for these developments. The appalling 1991 Criminal Justice Act took shape at a time when the Home Secretary was Douglas Hurd, now Major's closest adviser. In some ways the 1989 Children's Act, which protects the interests of the juvenile criminal, is even worse. There are now said to be plans to make life 'tough' for young thugs and prisons 'less comfort- able'. But this is typical Home Office pow- der-and-lipstick. We have heard it before, all the way back to Willie Whitelaw's 'short, sharp shock'. We will know there has been a real change of policy only when the officials who have masterminded the pro-malefactor philosophy are sacked and publicly humiliated.
In the meantime, it is possible to corre- late the forensic map showing the spread of crime in the shires and country towns with the electoral map showing the collapse of the Tory vote. One day perhaps the penny is going to drop into the heads of the Labour leaders, and even Paddy's stage- army, and they are going to realise that the key to power is to put the victims before the criminals. For we are all victims these days, we all have votes, and we are all look- ing for a party which supports our interests.
Previous page
