04.05.2005

Split the difference

"This is obviously going to be a great night and a great week." No, not a crowing Tony Blair, but Michael Howard's rather optimistic prediction of the Tories' general election performance. As I write, however, I am pretty confident Howard will be sorely disappointed, with Labour securing a historically unprecedented third term

There has been much speculation about Blair's intention to abdicate in favour of Gordon Brown at some stage - maybe very early on in the parliament, maybe much later. Clearly though, the Blairite, or New Labour, project of deLabourising Labour will continue with or without Tony Blair at the helm, even if Gordon Brown happens to be safely ensconced in No10. Indeed, Brown, for all his occasional - and often demagogic - recourse to old Labour phraseology, has been one of the prime architects of New Labourism. Therefore we communists were not exactly enamoured by the 'Vote Blair - get Brown' school of desperado politics, which adopted the 'lesser of two evils' approach at its most degenerate. No, communists fight for independent working class politics, both inside and outside the Labour Party - just as we do in parliament, the trade unions, etc. Now, if by some freak occurrence, Howard had somehow managed to clamber his way into No10, we could have expected some speedy action. By May 9, he would have ended the requirement for the police to fill out a form when they stop or question someone - and by June 6, matrons would once again have been responsible for the cleaning of hospitals, thank heavens. If that was not enough for you, after December 1 school headteachers would have had the final say on pupil expulsions, and come April 2006 we would have seen a discount of £500 for pensioners off their council tax bills, 24-hour border surveillance covering 35 ports of entry, and stamp duty abolished on houses up to £250,000. The Tories crowning achievement, presumably, would have occurred on December 31 of that year, with the introduction of a new "border control police force" to tackle illegal immigration. Then again, perhaps the "priority" list detailed above at least partly helps to explain why Michael Howard will not be the next prime minister. In fact, the remarkable thing about this general election was the degree of political commonality between the mainstream parties. In terms of essential political-social policy and programme it was nigh on impossible to put an ID card between Labour and the Tories. Or, as one commentator put it - approvingly, it should be noted - we have "synergy" between the main parties. Take the 'water cooler' issue of the Iraq war. Michael Howard's position is that he would have invaded Iraq regardless of the legal niceties - it's just that, unlike Tony Blair, he would not have lied to his cabinet colleagues or parliament, and the British public, about his real intentions (ie, regime change). What about the Liberal Democrats? The Guardian may tell us that "the Liberal Democrats opposed the Iraq war, as this newspaper also did" (May 3), but in reality they supported the war - "our brave boys and girls" - once it actually started. If anything, the Lib Dems' take on this issue is even more distasteful than the line peddled by either Labour or the Tories, as it stinks of self-righteous hypocrisy. To state the obvious once more, the Liberal Democrats were and are a pro-war party. Inevitably, the very lack of real difference between the main parties generated a highly personalised, and bitter, campaign - in a frantic Dutch auction to sell their political wares. In the 1997 general election the Tories put out their ludicrous - and spectacularly misjudged - 'demon eyes' poster, which had the immortal tag-line, "New Labour, new danger". Naturally, Labour responded in 2005 with its own version of the deadly threat - with the demonic entity this time being, of course, Michael Howard. Under the central slogan, "Forward, not back", Labour attempted to ratchet up the anxiety levels, with lurid scare stories about the Tories' supposed plan to savage public spending by £35 billion or more. In reality, this claim by Labour was just disingenuous hogwash - and they knew it, of course. The Tories, like Labour, were for increased public spending - but they happened to have proposed a smaller rise. Not that either party would be likely to stick very closely to their projections in any case. But Labour played the 'politics of fear' card for all its worth in the hope that that enough people would fall for its sound and fury. Labour's tactics were conveniently replicated by Unison, which spent £540,000 from its general political fund on posters which asked, "How will spending £35 billion less on public services improve them?" These barely subliminal 'vote Labour' posters were displayed in all the marginal seats, but of course will not feature in Labour's official election spending accounts, since they will be deemed as an intervention by a 'third party'. Unison general secretary Dave Prentis claimed that it was not a question of backing one political party as opposed to another: the Tories were threatening to abolish the 'best value' system, the governmental criteria for deciding contracts inside local government departments - hence it was a matter that affected all union members and could therefore be classified as a general union campaign issue, not a partisan, party political one. Not that any of this prevented Prentis from evoking the catastrophic consequences that would follow if Tony Blair failed to become prime minister again: "If the Tories had their way, we would be back to the dark old days where cost was the only criteria and cheapest was always best. We ended up with MRSA in our hospitals, school kids eating unhealthy dinners simply because they were cheap and rubbish left on our streets because private companies didn't employ enough people to do the job. Just when we are turning the corner on MRSA, the Tories want to unleash it back into our hospitals." So, according to Unison propaganda, 'If you want MRSA, vote Tory'. Another significant - and extremely ugly - feature of the general election campaign, and the build-up to it, was the prominence of the debate around immigration and asylum-seekers. For months the rightwing and tabloid press whipped up vile populist prejudices against 'bogus' asylum-seekers, illegal immigrants, and so on. Michael Howard, of course, was particularly shameless in shaping and following popular opinion, Churchillian-like to "bring our borders back under control" and get tough with the 'illegals' and 'chancers' who are 'abusing' the system. Here is the real message of that other, unpleasant, Tory election catch-phrase, "Are you thinking what we're thinking?" This is precisely the point where the left should directly challenge this disturbing growth in xenophobic immigrant/asylum-seeker-bashing and unequivocally call for open borders. Tragically, and disastrously, we have seen virtually the opposite of what is needed - while the Socialist Workers Party kept quiet, George Galloway argued in an article in the Morning Star for a 'points system' that most members of the United Kingdom Independence Party or Veritas could heartily concur with. The SWP-Respect 'party' scabbed on what should be basic, non-negotiable, internationalist principle. What general conclusions can communists come to regarding the 2005 general election? Firstly, that Tony Blair has continued to enjoy good fortune as far as the economy is concerned. Unemployment has dropped steadily, income from taxation has risen along with growth, and Gordon Brown has been able to increase spending on health and education. Secondly, the Tories remain in disarray - Michael Howard has fared no better than the hapless Iain Duncan-Smith or the buffoonish William Hague. Since the demise of Thatcher not only have they lacked anything even remotely approaching a 'big idea', but they are riven - no matter how hard Tory HQ might try to conceal it - with deep and fundamental divisions, which, it seems, can only be resolved, barring a miracle, at the expense of the Tories' electability. Howard's 'Liar, liar - Tony's pants are on fire' strategy - if you can grace it with such a description - was self-evidently no substitute. So, the Tories cannot, in their present state, fulfil their traditional role as the natural party of the ruling class. Equally as true, Labour may not be trusted by the majority of the electorate, but, when it comes to a choice between Blair's party and the Tories, there is no contest. Sufficient voters, while disappointed and more than a little disillusioned and even embittered with Labour's record - especially over Iraq, of course - continue to prefer Labour. The memory of Tory cuts and corruption, even after all these years, is still too fresh. Of course very, very few still believe that Labour will serve the interests of the working class. That was already the case way back in 1997, when the most workers hoped for was that Labour would be (a bit) better than the Tories. There was certainly no "fructification of hope", as some on the far left foolishly said - nor were there great expectations and a subsequent "crisis of expectations" as a result of Blair 'failing to deliver'. Then, as now, he deliberately declined to make socialistic promises or pledges. No "liar" when it comes to that, if nothing else. Eddie Ford