POLITICS
Meanwhile, Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition has its own grief to bear
SIMON HEFFER
Searching the language for the most appropriate adjective to describe the condi- tion of Mr Neil Kinnock, one settles reso- lutely on 'cocky'. The word evokes one's feeling that the Leader of the Opposition's self-confidence is the product of a run of luck (or, to be precise, the ill-luck of oth- ers), and is unlike the pride created by a real record of achievement. Such hubris means life for Mr Kinnock could go horri- bly wrong without warning, as, indeed, it appeared to during his dismal speech in last week's Commons debate on Europe.
He that diggeth a pit shall, of course, fall into it; and Mr Kinnock has dug, and fallen into, quite a few during his eight years as Labour leader. There was the debacle of his performance in the Westland debate; the stupidity of his collusion with Mr Mal- colm Turnbull during the Spycatelzer case; and the humiliation of his encounter with a Zimbabwean lance-corporal, where he ended up locked in a but singing 'Jerusalem'. Yet, thanks to clever men and women around and behind him, Mr Kin- nock has been helped to clamber out of his pits, albeit covered in mud, when the fuss has died down and nobody is looking.
The way things are at the moment the Conservative party's main — some would say only — chance of winning the election is for Labour to lose it. This is a more likely prospect than it might seem, not least because the polls suggest Mr Kinnock is unappealing to voters. Labour's biggest dif- ficulty is that demography favours the Tories. The party must win 97 seats to have an overall majority of one. Tory MPs fear substantial losses of seats in the North West, the West Midlands and (thanks to the white-collar recession) the South-east. Yet while one can easily see how the Tories might lose the 42 seats that would deprive them of their overall majority, it is harder to see Labour winning the next 55 needed to secure theirs.
Labour's recovery to the point where it looks electable is a tactical triumph for Mr Kinnock. It has, though, been bought at the cost of almost all the party's erstwhile prin- ciples. Labour seems unnervingly close to the Tory party in many of its views. Were it to be elected its impact would probably only be noticed, for the first year or two, by those who earn more than £25,000 a year. Its direction would be set by the New Europe, about which the party is so irra-
tionally, and cynically, enthusiastic. Thus the Tories' best way of persuading the peo- ple to prefer them to Labour must be to argue that, as Mr Kinnock has made so many mistakes and so many U-turns in opposition, that he simply would not be credible in government.
Despite the high calibre of several shad- ow spokesmen, Labour still gives the impression through its leader of being run by people unfit to govern. Whenever faced with a difficult issue of principle — such as on Hong Kong immigration — the party has proved incapable of rational or decisive thought. Whatever one thinks of the pre- sent Cabinet, it includes no incompetent minister. Some, notably the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, are so spectacu- larly competent that the business of govern- ment risks, frankly, becoming boring.
Mr Kinnock's speech in the Europe debate — which, as his most recent signifi- cant political utterance, is key evidence for students of his thought — showed he has learned little from his years on the front bench. Watching him last week was like watching him three or four years ago, when his advisers were becoming concerned at his rambling, petulant, loudmouthed and boorish tone. His prolixity, which seemed a couple of years ago to have been tamed and even, on occasion, replaced by sharp- ness (the jokes, it was alleged, written by Mr Stephen Fry), is returning. He shows lit- tle sign of being able to master a brief and, as a result, speaks without conviction on a range of subjects about which he knows lit- tle. It is unsurprising that he should know so little about them. Labour has so many new positions now to defend — on educa- tion, taxation, Europe, nationalisation, defence and the rest — that he would have to be a world-class memory man to be a convincing expert on them all. His speech in the European debate confirmed his pro- found ignorance of the position of the negotiations. A small example will suffice:
The problem of the Government demonstrat- ing a cynmitment to the continuing process in the EC is highlighted by the so-called opt- out clause. I understand that the Prime Min- ister wants to call it the opt-in clause. That is an interesting literary distinction, but I do not think that it is much more than that.
It would have been more accurate had Mr Kinnock ended his last sentence early, omitting the words 'that it is much more than that'. He does not think. Part of the basis of the Government's present negotiat- ing position is that Britain will not be in anything from which to opt out. One would have hoped Mr Kinnock would realise that in order to opt out you have to be in to start with. If you are outside, as the Gov- ernment hopes Britain will be, you can stay out or opt in. It is no wonder more Labour MPs than Tories defied the Whip on the Government's European motion, and that even Mr Michael Foot found an excuse to be elsewhere.
Nor is Mr Kinnock's lack of maturity con- fined to his intellectual grasp. It was not just puerile to refer in the European debate to a harmless Tory MP as a `jerk'; it also disrupted the speech so badly that it turned it into a presentational failure, and con- firmed Mr Kinnock's lack of dignity and judgment. His foreign affairs spokesman, Mr Gerald Kaufman, has followed this lead of name-calling. Corresponding with our docile Prime Minister about Labour's retreat from principle on nuclear disarma- ment, Mr Kaufman (embarrassed by this sell-out) has sought, like a minor-league bully, to use insult to divert attention from his failures. In one letter Mr Kaufman began by telling the Prime Minister: 'You really are pathetic', and in others he described Mr Major as 'ignorant', 'irre- sponsible', and 'too chicken' to debate the issue. Mr Kinnock has not distanced him- self from this language, so we must take it to be the officially endorsed tone of Labour statesmanship. The secret fear of Labour's many intelli- gent politicans is that the party has peaked too soon. The novelty of its new modera- tion was a vote-winner, providing that vote came quickly. Now, though, so much time has been allowed for analysis that hideous problems of policy, personality and style are being exposed. As Labour detects it is losing its grip, these problems will be aggra- vated by panic among the ageing and ambi- tious men of the party's High Command. It is possible that, one Friday some weeks ahead, a black Daimler will pull up in Downing Street and Mr Kinnock will get out as the new Prime Minister. If that does not happen Mr Kinnock might blame the electoral system, but he would more fairly blame himself — or rather the re-emerging unstatesmanlike, boorish and ill-informed self the electors cannot help but see.
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