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Tories Set For Defeat
Return to your constituencies and prepare for oblivion
With a General Election possibly weeks away, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has outmanoeuvred the opposition Conservative Party on every front. On crime, immigration and the economy - areas one would imagine the Tories would be able to seize the initiative - the new PM has left his opponents floundering.
It's not all down to Brown's strategic brilliance, however. The Tories themselves are as much to blame.
The Labour conference has seen several days of populist measures punching from the left and the right. Earlier this week, in a conference interview with television presenter Mariella Frostrup, Brown announced he would close the "loophole" which allows company bosses to "pay less tax than cleaning ladies".
The left has been baying for Brown to introduce tax measures against the rich since Blair announced his retirement date. Since the new PM took over at Number 10, the calls have strengthened in volume. This is a small morsel of red meat to toss to the left, but it should keep them sated for the time between now and the election. It's also likely to be a popular measure with those on the right: As EURSOC reported in June, even the conservative Daily Mail has complained about the low taxes reputedly paid by the heads of private equity firms.
Of course, it is natural that a Labour leader should want to energise his base in the build-up to an election. But Brown's government has also hit the opposition with a couple of right hooks. Earlier this month, Brown called for tougher tests for immigrants. He also pledged to create "British jobs for British people", pushing for Britain's unemployed to get back to work.
And now, Justice Minister Jack Straw has weighed in with tough new measures on crime. "Zero Tolerance" is touted as the government's new approach on Britain's crime rate (so much for Blair's "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime!"). Rather than hugging hoodies, the new government plans more money for the quintessentially Tory Neighbourhood Watch scheme and local police beats, with published crime figures, for every community. Straw even announced an urgent review of laws to protect "have a go heroes" - people who step in to apprehend criminals or prevent crime, who might previously have had second thoughts for fear of prosecution.
"The justice system must not only work on the side of people who do the right thing as good citizens but also be seen to work on their side", said Straw, who today claims a bit of a record as a "have a go hero" himself, pursuing and catching four villains during the 1980s and 1990s.
Funny that he didn't see fit to mention this crime-fighting career earlier.
A harder line on immigration. A severe ass-kicking for British layabouts who don't look for work. "British jobs for British people." Neighbourhood Watch. Local bobbies on the beat. "Zero Tolerance." A guarantee that if you use reasonable force to protect life and property the state isn't going to punish you.
These are all solid Tory ideas. It's probably fair to say that a good three-quarters of Britons back most, if not all of the proposals. So, where are the Conservatives and what is their line on immigration and crime?
As EURSOC said in early September,
"If (Tory leader David) Cameron even mentions immigration, never mind a policy of ass-kicking to get Britain's unemployables stacking shelves, he is roundly condemned from both within and without his party for stirring up right-wing populism. Cameron has allowed himself to be manoeuvred onto a centre ground which has made traditional right-wing issues out of bounds for debate. Brown, who can easily play to the left, is also having fun making forays into the traditional territory of the right. Meanwhile Cameron flounders in the centre. It's political genius, of a sort."
David Cameron gave himself the role of modernising the Conservative Party. Certainly, the party needed a shake-up. It is important that Conservatives welcome ethnically diverse Britons, that they drop the bizarre homophobia of previous governments, that they find ways to rejuvenate their membership as the blue-rinse brigade dies off. As for Cameron's big idea - the environment - yes, it's true that green issues are too important to be left to cranks and globophobes on the left. Besides, conservatives are by their nature keen to preserve the green and pleasant land.
Egged on by columnists in the Guardian and cheered by positive treatment from the BBC, the Conservative leader has pushed a largely reluctant party towards the centre, ditching on the way traditional Tory values like support for Grammar schools, Euroscepticism and pledges to cut taxes.
Any suggestion from the party faithful (or rather, the Tory "fringes") that the Government should be tackled on its appalling record of mismanagement of immigration (for example) has been shouted down as the Siren Song of the conservative right, a "spent force" obsessed with immigration, layabouts and crime that cannot win an election. "Elections can only be won from the centre", runs the warning in the Economist - never mind that in France, a country well to the left of Britain, an unapologetic right-winger has swept to Presidential victory on a raft of blatantly right-wing campaign pledges.
And try telling it to Brown! Yes, he's proposing to govern from the centre. But never mind Cameron's policies. This is more important: How did the Tories allow themselves to be backed into the position whereby their opponent can treat himself to populist policies from the left and the tough end of the right - while ensuring that every time the Conservatives try the same trick they are jeered and dismissed as cranks?
And why, if the country is no longer receptive to old-fashioned right-wing thinking on immigration and crime, is Gordon Brown racing ahead in the opinion polls after promising policy on those very lines?
We cautiously welcomed Cameron's election as party leader, but warned that the Conservatives should never make the fatal mistake of allowing their enemies to choose their leaders or their policy for them. The New Conservatives flirted with the media wing of the New Establishment. No doubt it was flattering to be treated as a human being by interviewers on the Today show for a change, and surely it is agreeable to exchange ideas on policy with prominent thinkers at Notting Hill dinner parties. But all along Her Majesty's Opposition were being undermined and having their options narrowed.
If Brown puts as much effort into running the country as he did screwing the Conservatives, he will deserve the ten more years his cronies have been cheering for. As for the Tories, they should return to their constituencies and prepare for oblivion.
