17.10.1996

Party rallies leave members voiceless

Following Blair’s defining New Labour conference speech, John Major takes his shirt off to tell the Tories all they need to know

If you thought that the Labour Party conference had been short on policy and high on sound bites, then the Tories’ annual circus ought really to have opened your eyes.

While the Conservatives have never believed in genuine democratic decision making, preferring to mount glorified, stage-managed rallies, this year’s effort marked an even greater shift away from any resemblance to a conference. What we saw was the eclipse of any pretence of serious political discussion by the overriding Tory need to clean up their act and present an acceptable public image.

PR replaced politics, and the spectacle descended into third-rate farce. Cabinet ministers tried to amuse us by singing out of tune and delivering decidedly unwitty one-liners, typified by Michael Portillo’s pathetic ham-acting call: “In order to win we need three extra policies - unity, unity, unity.”

But that of course is the Tories’ biggest difficulty. Just as they were celebrating their relatively successful Bournemouth patch-up, they were brought back down to earth by another shattering blow - the defection to the Liberal Democrats of their MP for Bolton North-East, Peter Thurnham.

Ostensibly provoked by his ‘concern’ over Tory sleaze - an issue that has dogged Major and discredited his party since the last election - Thurnham’s move actually added to the chronicle of corruption. Disgruntled because he was not short-listed for a safe Tory seat near his home, he alleges that the party leadership hinted there was a knighthood in it for him, if only he would stop rocking the boat. The whole affair typifies the desperation of has-been careerists, scrambling for position in the knowledge that they are about to be thrown out on their ear.

In a surprisingly frank admission of the gutter-level nature of bourgeois politics, Thurnham said his new party had “their heart on the left and their pocket on the right - exactly how I have operated for 13 years in parliament”.

The Conservative Party’s greatest ‘achievement’ at Bournemouth was in papering over the European cracks within its ranks. The leadership has made a virtue of necessity in proudly proclaiming that it has in reality no policy on monetary union - the only way to paint a gloss over the deep divisions which separate the two warring wings.

John Major surprised many by his ability to rally his troops behind him and suppress much of the dissent. This led The Independent to comment: “The party could not ask for a better leader as it hurtles into this extended election campaign.” The editorial then went on to place this compliment in the present context of bourgeois consensus politics by adding: “In these unheroic times, his very lack of charisma is not unappealing.”

The absence of any fundamental division over policy between the two main parties was exemplified by comments about Major’s shirt-sleeved, fireside-chat performance. Labour hit back by claiming that Tony Blair often took his jacket off too.

In a remarkable display of inverted snobbery, the Tories tried to contrast the ‘humble’ class origins of their leader with the privately educated, upper middle class Tony Blair. Labour leaders retaliated by stressing their own meagre backgrounds.

Despite the limited success of their conference PR exercise, the Tories remain in deep trouble. The Institute of Managers revealed in a survey last weekend that 45% of top managers no longer regard the Conservatives as the natural party of business, and 56% wanted a change of government. The managers considered the Tories’ unenthusiastic approach to Europe to be the single most damaging aspect of their policies.

As British politics continues to carry all its parties to the right around a bitterly anti-working class, anti-welfare agenda, within that shift the bourgeoisie is turning to its left wing. The Labour Party second eleven is being lined up for the top league.

We must start to organise now to fight Blair’s inevitable attacks.

Alan Fox