19.10.1995

Tory tricks fall flat

Not waving but drowning

THE TORY Party conference in Blackpool was a shallow and unconvincing affair, revealing that its ‘project’ is rapidly running out of steam. The quest for ‘big ideas’, or even ‘not quite so big ideas’, fell flat on its face.

John Major’s re-election as party leader in July ensured that there was a degree of unity. This time there were no dark rumours of palace coups or conspiracies. However, the spectre of ‘new’ Labour haunted the proceedings, with speaker after speaker desperate to out-Blair Tony Blair.

Naturally, the Tories were keen to prove that they were more patriotic than the Labour Party. This is not as easy as it used to be, given Tony Blair’s ultra-patriotic appeal to conference at Brighton, where he declared: “We are patriots; this is the patriotic party.” Michael Portillo did the job though. Flaring his nationalist nostrils, he played shamelessly to the Tory rank and file gallery.

Tony Blair’s hijacking of the traditional Tory agenda is clearly rattling the Tories. Their only response is to raise the stakes, hoping to call Labour’s bluff. In his speech to conference Major promised another 5,000 bobbies on the beat, much better than the ‘wimpy’ 3,000 promised by Blair at Brighton.

Michael Howard took exactly the same approach. His populist pledge to double the number of people in prison was a cynical attempt to lure Labour into outright opposition to his proposals, thus enabling him to roundly denounce the Blairites for being ‘soft on crime’.

Some things never change. Peter Lilley resorted to pure mean-minded nastiness. To show that Blair has not got all the rightist tricks. Lilley won loud applause when he announced cuts in social security benefits for asylum seekers, aimed at saving £200million and reducing the number of would-be immigrants applying.

John Redwood’s comments at a fringe meeting organised by The Guardian just about summed it up: “If any party is moving to the right, it is self-evidently the Labour Party.”

The up-beat and fresh Tony Blair looks a lot more promising for both the middle class and the bosses. John Major’s near surreal eulogy to his father’s garden gnome business says it all. The ruling class wants a new figurehead and a new direction. Enter Blair’s Labour Party stage left - or should I say centre-right?

Danny Hammill