What's new? Kennedy has better jokes
Published 20 September 1999
The conference season has a new party leader. The opening weekend will no longer include shots of Paddy Ashdown jogging energetically on the beach. Instead Charles Kennedy will be choosing less athletic settings in which to make his presence known. Indeed, the idea of Kennedy jogging on a beach would present all kinds of problems. The new leader, though decades younger, is not as trim as his predecessor. Even more awkward, the Liberal Democrats are meeting in Harrogate. The nearest beach is 60 miles away. Ashdown might have run to Scarborough and demanded a photocall there anyway. Kennedy will be more laid back.
He will be more laid back in lots of ways. Ashdown saw himself as a military commander leading his reluctant troops on to unexplored and potentially dangerous terrain. Kennedy plans to be more of a team player, consulting widely before making big decisions, encouraging a greater input into policy-making. So we will notice a difference of style in Harrogate. But what about changes in substance under the Kennedy leadership?
Kennedy has criticised the government for its economic policies, especially over its miserly approach to public spending. As for relations with Labour, the issue that usually dominates Liberal Democrat conferences, Kennedy has been clear. The Lab/Lib cabinet committee will continue and his party will press for further constitutional reforms. He has identified proportional representation for local elections as an area where the Liberal Democrats could apply fruitful pressure. On this issue, they are knocking at an open door, as long as John Prescott is not looking. The only problem is that Prescott will be looking.
But Kennedy's personal relationship with Tony Blair is good. Blair broke off his holiday to phone Kennedy from Tuscany when the latter became leader. The two struck up a good-humoured rapport. Blair asked Kennedy how he was feeling about it all. The new leader replied that he did not know and would wait until the newspapers told him how he should feel the following morning. This was not an exchange of two people planning to be at loggerheads with each other.
Does all this sound familiar? Compare the Kennedy approach with the one pursued relentlessly by Ashdown. He, too, identified social justice as the area where the government was failing. At Prime Minister's Question Time, he repeatedly and passionately criticised Blair for not spending enough on schools and hospitals. Ashdown stressed always that the cabinet committee would span areas only where there was common agreement. Constructive opposition gave the party the right to criticise as well as praise. But Ashdown had a rapport with Blair that transcended policy differences.
In other words, Kennedy is adopting precisely the same strategy as Ashdown, even though he didn't get on very well with the ex-leader and sometimes criticised him publicly. When his critics in the party realise this (the changes in presentation may fool some of them for a while), the knives will no doubt be sharpened.
Some are pretty sharp already. One senior figure told me the other day: "At least David Steel and Ashdown started their leaderships with strong principles. Kennedy begins his with no principles whatsoever. He is the most shallow leader the party has had."
Simon Hughes, who will almost certainly become Kennedy's deputy, made the same point in more diplomatic terms during the leadership contest. "It is difficult to discover what Charles has consistently stood for," he observed coyly in a BBC interview.
There is no doubt that consistency has not been Kennedy's strongest point. In an interview with me last year, he caused a stir by describing "constructive opposition" in the following terms: "I think it's very difficult to ride two horses and, at the end of the day, if you can't ride two horses you probably shouldn't be in the circus." Now that he is leader, he has every intention of staying in the circus.
Even so, I disagree with Kennedy's critics. Positioning and repositioning within a party is nothing new, as Michael Portillo would tell you. Whatever he has said in the past, Kennedy is absolutely right to continue along the path marked out by Ashdown.
There is really no alternative for the Lib Dems. Or rather there is one, which is that of impotent opposition. "No thanks, Prime Minister, we don't want a taste of power. In a landslide parliament, we would prefer to let you get on with it yourselves and we'll turn up and vote against you at ten o' clock each night and lose every time."
The crunch will come when Blair decides whether or not to back electoral reform for the Commons.
As Lord Jenkins (who still has some hope that his almost forgotten proposals will be put to the voters at some point) has observed, the cause is dead if both Blair and the Conservative leader (whoever he or she is by then) both campaign against it in a referendum. In my view, Blair's decision will be influenced by one factor above all others: the strength of support for the Liberal Democrats over the next two or three years. If the Lib Dems continue to be a formidable force, gaining by-elections and performing well in local elections, he will back reform. In Blair's radical century to come, there is no room for two successful centre-left parties fighting each other.
Kennedy is the best bet by far to ensure that his party remains a serious electoral force, thereby maintaining the pressure on Blair. Floating voters are more likely to pay attention to him than to Jackie Ballard. What they are getting is a younger, less energetic, less visionary version of Ashdown - only this time he has red hair and tells better jokes.
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