Baseball caps in the air! We're all excited again
Published 21 June 1999
Westminster has suddenly come to life. It is not just Tory MPs who have a new spring in their step. Political journalists who have been covering a one-sided contest since May 1997 sense that there might be a battle to report, after all. It is remarkable what an election can do, especially one that most people did not seem to know was taking place. But how much has really changed following Labour's unexpected catastrophe in the European ballot, which gave the party only 29 seats against the Tories' 36?
On one level, the political situation has been transformed. For the first time, William Hague and his party are being taken seriously. Since his election as leader, Hague has been viewed, sometimes unfairly, through a distorting lens marked "failure". Neil Kinnock was seen through the same prism. Whatever he did to make his party more elect-able, he was always the Welsh windbag. Hague's image has been so poor that, if anybody had called him a windbag, he would probably have thought it cause for a champagne celebration, on the grounds that someone had detected a personality.
Yet it is worth remembering that, after his long and arduous leadership, Kinnock could point to two achievements with pride: his reforms of the Labour Party and his performance in the 1989 European election, when he got the biggest share of the vote. Hague has managed both in just two years. In the nick of time - just before the distorting lens became a permanent fixture - he has given himself an opportunity for reinvention.
We can already see the effects of a more flattering perspective. His shadow cabinet reshuffle was the lead item on the World at One and in some newspapers, whereas past changes to his front bench were reported dutifully, if at all. It will not be long before profiles of Hague start to stress that he was the youngest cabinet minister since Harold Wilson, rather than that he sported a baseball cap at the Notting Hill carnival. (Actually, I always thought the baseball cap looked pretty cool; and if Hague were to put it on tomorrow, in the changed climate, the headlines would screech: "Blair watch out - there's a trendy young leader about.")
What is more, the prospects of a dramatic schism in the Tory party - along the lines of the Labour schism that led to the formation of the SDP in the 1980s - have receded, though I never thought such an event very likely. Foot and Kinnock had to cope with the departure of heavyweight politicians, popular in the country, if not in the Labour Party. Hague faces the pro-European Conservative Party, which lacks the glitter of a single household name.
How should Labour respond to this new political terrain? Apparently the familiar "send for Peter" cry has gone out. But I am told that reports of Mandelson's return have been exaggerated; the general consensus is that to blame it all on poor Margaret Beckett, her caravan and his absence, would be a little superficial.
The verdict from a senior party insider is as follows. Gordon Brown was commendably helpful in the campaign, contrary to some press reports. Tony Blair and Robin Cook were not available because of the war. Several other senior ministers were immersed in government business and Millbank was left with a "B" team that could not attract any press coverage. The chances of Mandelson returning to a campaigning role are high, if he is willing, but not as party chairman. And Beckett? "Well no one is saying it's her fault, but she won't be put in charge of the general election campaign, will she?"
One advantage of a Mandelson return would be that he is a genuine pro- European. Labour's difficulty with the single currency is, in some ways, even greater than it seems in the light of these results. Blair not only has to convince the country about the merits of the single currency; he also has to convince most of his cabinet and the wider party. After all, since he became leader in July 1994, the issue has hardly been debated at any level of the party except the very highest (in other words, Blair and Brown agreeing a line, sometimes amicably, sometimes not).
The current policy was announced by Blair in a forgotten Commons debate on Europe in March 1995. Blair stated that he saw no constitutional barrier to Britain's joining a single currency. His only condition was that entry should be in Britain's economic interests. I can recall no big debates preceding that profound announcement. Brown's supposedly "historic" Commons statement in November 1997 did no more than expand on what the economic conditions would be.
This policy has been vague enough to avoid serious disruption in the Labour Party, but too incomplete to tackle the certainties of the Tory party. If ministers are to become more powerful advocates of the pro-European cause, there must be far more discussion within the cabinet and beyond. More importantly, Blair must start to articulate what he means by a "successful" single currency and the benefits that would arise from joining it.
I do not believe he should be panicked into a wholehearted commitment to a single currency now. But instead of speaking about the euro as if the coin was suffering from an ugly disease, he needs at least to cast it in a more positive light. The case is a more subtle one than the populist slogans available to the Tories, yet a range of heavyweight politicians are capable of putting it. Or at least that is theoretically the case. As I wrote a fortnight ago, the Euro election campaign reduced the lot of them to silence. I spent two days trying to persuade a leading light to put the case for the euro to counter a widely publicised NS interview with David Owen. Nobody with an ounce of charisma and political credibility was willing to do so. Perversely, they said they would make themselves available once the votes had been cast. No wonder the pro-European case did not exactly rouse the voters.
Labour's poor showing, though, was not just about Europe. That issue explains why the Tories got a fair amount of their support to turn out. It does not adequately explain why Labour failed to do so. The Welsh minister, Peter Hain, warned in an interview with me two weeks ago that the government was failing to pay enough attention to its core vote. He argued that, in its pursuit of the Daily Mail reader, it was being "gratuitously offensive" to its natural supporters. Since then, ministers and others have questioned me about Hain's motives; he is, after all, an ambitious man. The main answer is a rather tedious one. From his experience in Wales, he happens to believe what he said. The Euro elections have provided further evidence that the government and its famed communicators are not communicating very well with their own supporters.
The Hain thesis, however, is flawed. He wants bolder proclamations that the government is pursuing "radical socialist" policies, but doesn't explain how such a message could win over enough voters to ensure victory at elections. But Hain is right to imply that reform by stealth has outlived its usefulness. Introducing one policy and spinning something else to the Daily Mail neither convinces Middle England nor enthuses traditional Labour supporters. More fundamentally, Hain is indisputably right that Labour's support is staying at home.
The establishment of a party chairman in the cabinet would help. The trouble is that the cabinet already has too many ministers reflecting on the "big picture" rather than implementing policies. Beckett and Jack Cunningham both have "big picture" briefs. John Prescott retains some responsibility for party matters, as well as running Whitehall's biggest department. Gordon Brown, the sharpest strategist in the cabinet, reflects on tactics as much as policy. If the cabinet had a party chairman in attendance as well, it would probably spend all its time discussing who should appear at 8.10am on the Today programme. There is no point in creating a party chairman who would compete with the others to become Secretary of State for the Big Picture. Blair would need to persuade other ministers to stick to their departmental briefs.
So you can see why we journalists are smiling. Suddenly there is so much to write about. I have not even mentioned PR and the Liberal Democrats. Yet how much has really changed? Take a step back and look objectively at the Labour and Tory policies on Europe. I still believe that Labour's position, if put confidently and clearly, has much the broader appeal.
Indeed, Hague may yet live to regret his present success. The Euro result has caused him to move more confidently to a narrow section on the political stage. His acclaimed triumph is another scene that may yet lead to the young performer being forced to make a premature bow.
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