There are few things more tiresome than endlessly cheerful folk who always manage to find a silver lining to every cloud, and I confess I am not usually among their number. But, as Labour strategists tear their hair with worry over the catastrophic bad luck that has sent an animal disease running riot through their meticulous election plans, I have one consoling thought: the foot-and-mouth outbreak could be the best thing that ever happened to the government.
No, I myself have not fallen victim to the disease. Look at it this way: delaying the election, or, as seems much more likely, going ahead despite a voter backlash over "the countryside", will cut Labour's majority - but isn't a smaller majority exactly what the government needs?
One veteran Labour MP calls himself a member of the "Pym tendency" - a reference to Lord Pym, the former Tory cabinet minister who, as Francis Pym, enraged Margaret Thatcher by suggesting, during the 1983 election, that she needed a smaller majority. Yet the "Pymite" view - this time round - is surprisingly widespread, and on all wings of the Labour Party.
The left of the party feels that a smaller majority for Blair would mean that more account would be taken of its views. At present, even a substantial rebellion among Labour backbenchers, such as we have witnessed in this parliament over cuts in benefits for lone parents and the sale of the air-traffic control system, registers as barely more than a flea bite for the government. Its majority is simply so big that the left can be safely ignored. A smaller advantage would give all backbench MPs - not just the left - more say in what the government does: that is (though it seems to have been forgotten) why we put them there in the first place.
But what if you turn the telescope around and ask how the majority looks from inside No 10? We will never, I suspect, get Tony Blair to stand up in public and say he wants fewer Labour MPs. But he must wonder. First, there is the well-documented shock he experienced on election night 1997, realising that the landslide pushed aside his plans for "the project" - a fundamental realignment of the centre left, including a Labour/Lib-Dem pact.
If Blair still wants to reshape British politics a smaller majority might mean that he could do with Charles Kennedy what he could not with Paddy Ashdown.
Next, there is the Labour Party itself. The Prime Minister is well aware that his modernisation project has rather stalled of late. Indeed, many observers think the party is swinging so decisively towards the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, that you might be forgiven for thinking that Blair has already hung up his boots. He has not, and is more than a little worried that a certain complacency has grown: we don't need to worry about Middle England any more; we have the majority and now we have the fiscal surplus, too. The re-emergence of "old Labour" during a 2001-05 government would not be welcomed by Blair; in that situation, a smaller majority might give him more personal grip over the party.
It would also mean fewer Labour MPs hanging around with nothing much to do - there is a limited number of jobs in government. As the whips know too well, idle hands make trouble. MPs returned to Westminster for a second time will have lost their wide-eyed, "new boy" obedience and be far less prepared to act as "pager fodder". If some of the potential malcontents lost their seats, Blair's position would be even stronger.
Finally, there is the Machiavellian view that another landslide would finish off the Labour Party's lethal if not-so-secret weapon, William Jefferson Hague. He has been dogged, tough, energetic, all the things that Neil Kinnock was, too. But, like Kinnock, Hague seems to have a real problem breaking through with the voters. Labour needs Hague for another parliament at least. Michael Portillo, endlessly reinventing himself, is a far more dangerous potential leader. About 60 or 70 fewer MPs might be a small price to pay for keeping Portillo out and Hague in.
And finally - the high ground. A smaller majority would be good for Britain because it would sharpen the government itself. The air of arrogance would lift. Governments that are a little frightened of parliament and political cross-examination are likely to be better and more accountable than governments that merely glance from time to time at the reflective mirror of a focus group.
In short, a smaller majority - 80 seats, say - would be welcomed by the Labour left and Labour dissidents in general, by supporters of parliament, by the PM, by the Liberal Democrats, the Tory benches, and by William Hague personally. Oh - and it would be dishonest not to mention journalists, for we all miss a good cliffhanging vote in the Commons. This is such a vast range of opinion that it is hard, at least initially, to think of anyone who might be against the idea. Inevitably, some MPs would lose their seats, and there are the Labour apparatchiks for whom the size of the party's majority is a virility symbol. Then there are the two would-be successors: Portillo, who clearly loses out if Hague dents Labour's big majority and stays on; and Gordon Brown, mindful of the third-term majority, who will not want the second-term numbers to fall too low.
For all this to happen, the voters have to accept that the better government of the country requires a smaller Labour majority. They show no signs at all, despite the grumbling about new Labour, of doing that just yet. Indeed, "the electorate" is at least as capable of giving Labour a bigger majority, or of wildly overshooting and letting in a bemused Hague.
Perhaps No 10's nervousness about those piles of smoking carcasses is quite rational after all.
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