POLITICS

If the Tories do not stop approaching every problem with an open mouth, they're a' doomed

BRUCE ANDERSON

few years ago, David Steel tried to call his fellow Liberals to order. He told them that it was not a good idea to approach every problem with an open mouth. At that time, it would have seemed absurd to suggest that the Tory Party might ever need behaviour therapy from the Lib- erals. No longer. Things have become so desperate that the Tories' only hope lies in following Sir David's advice, which they will probably fail to do.

Previous Tory panics have never quite lived up to the newspapers' expectations. There is a bad week, and lots of Tory MPs tell journalists what an awful state the Party is in. They then read their comments in the press and conclude that the situation is even worse than they had thought. So gloom gains momentum and turns into full- blown despair. By the middle of the second week, it seems as if half the Parliamentary Conservative Party is ready to shout `fire' in a crowded cinema. The press is now agog with headlines such as `Tories in Terminal Crisis?' As the weekend approaches, they drop the question mark.

Then the Whips get to work with the help of the '22 Committee and other old hands. Senior ministers invite small groups round for pep talks. The PM himself squeezes des- perately needed time out of a horribly over- burdened diary and calls in a few pompous clowns who remain impervious to the Party's best interests, but who are suscepti- ble to flattery. Constituency chairmen are telephoned and asked to slip a sedative in the member's scotch. Suddenly, the Party comes to its senses. The press grudgingly recognises that the Government is not actu- ally going to disintegrate this week. The Chief Whip can relax and pour his boys a large and well-earned drink. 'Christ, that was close,' the Whips tell one another: `What are we going to do with those — s?'

What indeed? Before all the blame for the Tories' current problems is attributed to Europe, it is worth remembering that the Party started to become ungovernable in 1989. I recall Tristan Garel-Jones saying around then that the old disciplines appeared to have broken down, so that the Whips' Office was like a signal-box during a power failure; you pulled the levers, but nothing happened.

The irony is that in those days, some commentators argued that Mrs T was in trouble because she was too hostile to Europe. That was not true. Europe did play a part, in that it made big-beast manage- ment impossible, and precipitated the resig- nations of Nigel Lawson and Geoffrey Howe. But the real problem was inflation/recession, exacerbated by the poll tax. Many Tory MPs could not see the econ- omy reviving in time for an election. They found that Mrs Thatcher had become a lia- bility on the doorstep, and they decided that she would be unable to persuade the voters to forgive her for leading them back to stagflation, after 13 years in government. Hence the change of leadership.

The Party was slightly less Eurosceptic then than now, but, then as now, only a minority of Tory MPs was firmly committed to either the Europhobe or Europhile wing. Most have always belonged to the College Green tendency. This is named after a strip of grass opposite the Palace of Westmin- ster, now closed to interviews for security reasons, but where for six years the elec- tronic media were in almost permanent ses- sion, offering a camera to any Tory MP willing to criticise the Government. The College Greens have few fixed views, and are always in the grip of the anxiety of the day. On Europe, they are less interested in a particular position than in a viable posi- tion. They want the Government to work out a clear line which everyone in the Party can follow, putting a moderate Eurosceptic gloss on continued British membership. This is good counsel, which the PM ought to have taken long ago.

The College Greens have a further piece of advice for Mr Major, which is also sound. But they do not seem to realise that they themselves are making it impossible for him to act on it. They want him to show leadership. Fair enough, but almost all forms of leadership depend on the consent of the led. By the end, even Margaret Thatcher could not secure that — and it is as if the Party, having assassinated one leader with a dagger-thrust, then decided that it would be more fun to condemn her successor to a lingering death.

Mr Major has faults and has made mis- takes, which brings us to a further irony. These faults and mistakes all relate to poli- tics, not to policies. When the post- Thatcher leadership campaign began, many of those involved were still in shock. There- after, they were far too busy to ask basic questions until it was all over. But in some sections of the Major camp, there was an unspoken doubt. He was going to have to deal with the Gulf War, the recession, Europe, all grave and complex issues: did he have enough experience?

In another area, there were absolutely no doubts. He was about to become the youngest PM since Rosebery, after less time in the Commons than any premier who had served there since the younger Pitt. So he must be a politician of genius.

In both respects, he has contradicted the doubters. The big questions have been han- dled with subtlety, strategy and — judged in terms of what was possible — success. This also applies to Ulster, another part of his legacy of insolubility, which no one expected him to tackle. He has never based his performance on others' expectations.

In politics, however, he has been a disap- pointment; the flair that carried him to the summit deserted him when he got there except, of course, during the last general election, which should give pause to anyone tempted to write him off. That man will not be defeated until he has had the political equivalent of the poisoned cake, the icy Neva, the silver bullet and the stake through his heart at the crossroads. More- over, if there is a television debate between him and Mr Blair during the next election, the outcome will have a considerable impact on the voters: a television encounter between party leaders introduces a new dimension of electoral volatility.

Mr Major will lead his Party into the next election. The only remaining question is whether it will be worth leading. The way that Tory MPs respond to the inevitable losses in this week's council elections may give some clue to the answer. They could decide to impose a self-denying ordinance: to resolve that between now and the elec- tion they will not slag off the Government in front of journalists. They could even take King Alfred's prayer as their rallying cry:

If you have a trouble, Tell it not to the weakling.

Tell it to your saddle-bow,

And ride forth singing.

Or they could decide to behave like Cap- tain Mainwaring's men when they encoun- tered one of life's reverses: piteous cries 'don't panic!' — interspersed with muti- nous growls: 'we're a' doomed'. So how will they react? We are, alas, dealing with crea- tures of the television age.