VOTE LABOUR IF YOU WANT TO BE RULED BY LIES

Four years ago the Tories were badly defeated by New Labour Now,

for the first time, John Major speaks his mind about a government

spinning machine that is running out of control

IT SHOULD surprise no one that the government has spun itself into embarrassment over the election date. Whenever faced with a challenge or an opportunity, spin is its weapon of choice. For the past four years anyone who would listen has been told that the election would be on 3 May. When foot-and-mouth erupted, true leadership would have been to announce immediately that the local elections would be delayed, and that there would be no premature general election until the epidemic was under control.

This did not happen; instead we were told that a delay would be catastrophic — 3 May must be held to or Britain would be deemed 'closed for business'. When the Prime Minister realised, rather belatedly, the public distaste for a May election, he told the Sun newspaper first and, after that, his Cabinet and Parliament. A new 'spin' was needed. It soon emerged. A delay was no longer unthinkable, but was in the national interest. Yesterday's 'truth' was turned on its head.

This is a familiar tactic for Labour. Some years ago, at a Conservative party conference, I delivered a speech which became known as 'Back to Basics'. It was to become one of the most misrepresented speeches in recent political history. Let me quote from the text: 'The old values — neighbourliness, decency, courtesy — they're still alive . . it's time to return to those old core values, time to get back to basics, to self-discipline and respect for the law, to consideration for others, to accepting responsibility for yourself and your family..

Back to Basics, as I presented it, was never about sex or marriage, and a thousand false assertions will never make it so. Nor was it about moral conduct, where advice, in my view, is best left to bishops. Even less was it a lecture about 'family values'. As my father's extended family was famously unconventional, and both my widowed sister and my mother-in-law had raised their children alone, I was not one to philosophise fondly about the unique merits of the traditional family. Even so, whenever some tawdry scandal erupted, Labour sprang into action and Back to Basics was spun as 'Tory hypocrisy'. Sleaze was born as our opponents began to wrap the follies of a very few individuals around the neck of the Conservative party as an institution. The hunt was on and no Tory, high or low, was safe.

Sleaze was a devastating weapon for Labour to spin in the last Parliament. Even though the most prominent charges — cash for questions, arms to Iraq — arose from events in the 1980s, that did not stop them being attributed to the government of the 1990s.

This was — and is — a travesty: a less sleazy Cabinet than one whose senior members included the likes of Hurd, Clarke, Heseltine, Mayhew, Lang is hard to imagine; many other names of equally unimpeachable reputation could be added. But no matter; it was a smear that worked, and Labour, desperate as the years of opposition lengthened, used it without scruple.

But the smear that worked is now a boomerang that is rebounding spectacularly upon its founders. Labour was lucky at the restrained response to early incidents. A Cabinet minister's 'mad moment' on Clapham Common was — rightly — seen simply as a personal tragedy and there was genuine cross-party sympathy for him. The abrupt ending of the Foreign Secretary's marriage in a VIP suite at Heathrow, although brutal to the first Mrs Cook, was seen primarily as a matter for Mr Cook and his women. There were concerns that the Foreign Secretary's behaviour would leave Britain diminished by nudges, winks and sniggers in the embassies of the world, but generally such incidents were no more worthy of damaging Labour as an institution than were earlier Tory shortcomings. But, as the problems of Messrs Vaz, Robinson and Mandelson seep ever more into the public consciousness, Labour's moral superiority — 'We will be purer than pure', said the Prime Minister in straight-kind-ofguy mode — is crumbling on a daily basis.

Nor is the collapse of 'New' Labour's reputation solely based on individual failings by senior members of the government. Too often, Labour's behaviour has the stench of 18th-century Billingsgate about it: it can be smellier than smelly, not purer than pure.

Can this be the Labour party that complained of quangos, when it has crammed its supporters into them like sardines? Can this be the Labour party that attacked Tory fundraising but has pocketed money from every rich man it can find, and packed off donors to the Lords? Can this be the Labour party that demanded openness yet hides behind 'blind trusts'? Can this be the Labour party that attacked the cash-forquestions follies of individual Tory backbenchers but now as a government offers policy favours for cash?

Yes, it is. After four years in government the 'New' Labour strain is tainted in a way that 'Old' Labour, with its quirky views and old-fashioned values, never was. 'Old' Labour had scruples whereas 'New' Labour has none.

The epicentre of Labour's fall from grace is its style of politics: it is spin. It causes the most straightforward of politicians to be devious to the point of deceit. Everyone must be 'on message'. Every trick to condemn an opponent must be used. Spin as perfected by Labour is tantamount to falsehood. 'Lie' is a tough word, perhaps too Cion(44 tough, but I know no better one to use; the concept of spin, now out of control, has led New Labour to lie as no government has lied before. Their spin — about Tory politicians. Tory motives and Tory policies — is often distorted to the point of a lie; though perhaps this is the very essence of the spin machine, for they lie about Labour policies too. Never mind the facts, heed the spin.

Robin Cook was an early bearer of this new low standard. He lurked outside the Scott inquiry daily to distort evidence and discredit Conservative ministers; perhaps it was his fear that others might behave similarly that discouraged him from holding a Scott-type inquiry into government activity over Sierra Leone.

In government. Labour has continued to be tough on facts and the causes of facts. Too often Cabinet ministers are economical with the truth. The Prime Minister's answers can be dangerously misleading and show that he has, to a remarkable degree, the capacity to convince himself that anything he says must be so: yet, often, it is not. Take one single issue — fox-hunting. The Prime Minister did not vote against it in the Commons; nor did the Lords block the first anti-hunting ban, although time and again he stated unambiguously that they had. Nor did he spend last weekend at Chequers `agonising' whether it was in the national interest to have an election; he was `agonising' whether he could get away with having the election,

Of course, the Prime Minister may be an innocent dupe in the spin machine; perhaps the stress of the once-weekly FMC's causes him to conflate facts. Perhaps he was badly briefed on his own voting record. Or ill-informed by his whips on how the first hunting Bill fell.

Certainly, factual embroidery is the primary instinct of his spin doctors; when they are in action it is difficult to tell the mud from the dirt. Spin, in Labour's mind, is not lies even if it is not the truth. Labour corrupt information as a matter of routine if it is politically convenient to do so. They did this in opposition to damn the Tories. Now, as a government, they behave as they did in opposition.

This is symbolised by an appointment that should never have been made: it was profoundly wrong to appoint a Labour partisan to be the official spokesman for HM government. It rubs salt into the wound when the taxpayer is asked to pay his salary — at a far higher figure than his excellent civil service predecessors.

Let us not fool ourselves; Alastair Campbell is not and never will be an impartial quasi-civil servant. He is a loyal Blairite whose role is to promote the Prime Minister and the Labour party and disparage their political opponents; indeed, the Prime Minister is on record congratulating him on his 'effective way of attacking the Conservative party'. But, in so doing, he abuses his public position. This has earned him the occasional rebuke by the Cabinet Secretary as head of the home civil service. Much Mr Campbell cares; he is the Prime Minister's creature and that, of course, is the problem. The fault lies with the Prime Minister.

It seems that the Prime Minister simply can't see that this is wrong: he thinks the appointment of a political ally to such a position is entirely proper, which, no doubt, explains why the government information service is dotted with Labour placemen whose selective interpretation of the record of this government compared with its Tory predecessor has so enchanted us over the past four years. But Mr Blair must pay a price for removing civil-service impartiality; I, for one, no longer believe a single word that comes from the government unless it has independent corroboration. As the honeymoon ends, others may begin to feel the same. Yet more resent the tone of a government that insults teachers working in `bog-standard Comprehensives' and `dodgy farmers' facing ruin over foot-andmouth disease.

This government was elected with unprecedented goodwill, but has squandered it. Its own words — used to killer effect against the Conservatives — have come back to point up the hypocrisy of Labour. How would Labour have reacted if a Tory lord chancellor had solicited donations from lawyers whose careers he could influence? Their cries of outrage would be echoing still. Yet Mr Blair has the gall to defend such behaviour and dismisses calls for the Lord Chancellor to resign as 'beneath contempt'. As it happens, I suspect that Lord Irvine was merely foolish and thoughtless, and an apology, not dismissal, would have sufficed; but to dismiss such criticism so highhandedly tells us all we need to know about Labour's gut reaction to any view other than its own.

It is a tale of bent facts and worse ethics. I do not believe that those engaged in the demi-world of spin realise the growing distaste for it. The electorate should not be force-fed this diet of deception. At the last election the Prime Minister campaigned pleading 'Trust me': he could not do so now without ridicule. So, whoever wins, here is a challenge for the new Parliament: Cut back on spin and restore trust.

I am not at ease with the sort of politics which claims that virtue resides wholly with one philosophy. I do not disagree with every Labour policy — and nor should I, for many of them were mine long before — as indeed, thanks to unpopular and often widely attacked decisions, was the excellent economy they inherited. Even a cursory study shows that the economy began to improve in the spring of 1992 and the upward trend was set long before May 1997.

The Conservative party I led was well beaten at the last election. Everything bad was believed. Nothing good was acknowledged. Having lost so badly, I have kept my counsel about Labour's abuse of power; after all, they were the victors. In office they have had successes and failures, as do all governments, although it is extraordinary how little they have achieved with such a large majority. The comparison with Clement Attlee between 1945 and 1950 and Margaret Thatcher between 1983 and 1987 is striking. But what singles Labour out is the shameless way they have used their freak majority.

For too many ministers, the Commons is a pain in the neck. They have to be dragged reluctantly to the chamber; even the affable Nick Brown seemed to regard it as a waste of his valuable time to make a statement about the early stages of footand-mouth disease. Their diaries, however, are always open to a friendly media outlet.

This kind of behaviour merits electoral punishment. I am a Conservative and will continue to do all I can to defeat Labour at the election; I hope they lose. But even non-Conservatives should hope that, whichever party wins, the majority shrinks to ensure that the new government is subject once more to proper parliamentary accountability. Over-large majorities are unhealthy. And floating voters should note that a Liberal Democrat vote will not suffice: they are at the government's feet more often than at its throat.

I will soon be leaving the Commons and, although I am going voluntarily, I know I will miss the parliamentary life in this most aweinspiring of all legislative assemblies. But there are some aspects I will not miss. I do not admire the politics of smear and sneer to which the Labour government resorts so often. Nor their fantasy announcements and promises. Nor their tendency to browbeat or undermine any critic and ignore the criticism. Nor their intolerance of minority interests. I despair at their disregard of Parliament and have no doubt that their ill-considered plans for modernisation' are damaging. They inherited an excellent economy. The electorate gave them a huge majority. The opportunity was mouth-watering. I envied it. They have wasted it.

Labour's every action has been geared to secure their re-election. Truly, they do not deserve it.