[A-List] UK state: political realignment

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

One factor highlighted by Tom Nairn in his analysis of recent UK electoral
politics is that the politics of the spectacle has become ever more
important, ever since the Thatcher landslides of the 1980s. We don't have an
outsider party any more capable of rocking the state, however gently that
was done by the Labour Party previously. Whatever your opinions of Wilson,
Callaghan, et al., sufficient numbers of people inside the UK and US state
apparatus thought them sufficiently rocking of the status quo that went to
great lengths to straitjacket them, failing complete ejection. Thus
political victory now must be absolute or nothing -- marginality is too
deeply undermining to the structures of the British state. In order for the
status quo to prevail, sweeping "modernisations" resulting from whatever
landslide occurs are necessary. John Major's premiership was a disaster for
the state because its inherent corruption and anachronistic "function" was
laid bare as never before. The youthful Blair restored the appearance of
competence and newness, effectively enough to prolong its life just a little
more.

Now, of course, Blair is looking rather haggard, and for such a central
figure in the political drama as he, to have occupied the spotlight so
doggedly for 6 years means that people's tolerance of his indelible grin and
implacable sincerity has worn a lot thinner than it did with Thatcher, who
still remembered that a strength of cabinet government is that you can palm
off the unpleasant tasks to some unfortunate loyal toady who will take the
rap for you if things go wrong (e.g. Leon Brittan). But there is little
chance of the Conservatives doing to Labour what Labour did to them in 1997
and 2001. The prospect of a hung parliament, given the utter hopelessness of
the opposition together with the as yet unproven Liberal Democrats means
that the original political realignment envisaged by the Gladstonian Blair
together with Captain Pantsdown prior to the 1997 election looks more like a
realistic prospect, with or without Blair.

Do Liberals still talk to Peter Hain?

-----

Lib Dems can't displace the Tories

Their most likely route to power remains a coalition with Labour

David Clark
Thursday September 25, 2003
The Guardian

The Liberal Democrats have had a great week at the seaside. They basked in
the afterglow of a spectacular byelection victory, saw their opinion poll
ratings soar to their highest level for 14 years and behaved like a
disciplined and credible alternative. They could hardly have done better.

For all this there are good reasons for doubting that they are about to
break the mould of British politics by realising their ambition to displace
the Conservatives as the official opposition. After all, the Liberals surged
to 30% in the polls (two points higher than their current rating) following
the 1962 Orpington byelection. In the subsequent general election, their
share of the vote slumped to 11%.

History is bunk, the party managers tell us, for the big prize is nearer
than we think. Thanks to the distinctly illiberal-sounding strategy of
"decapitation", they will destroy the Conservatives from the top by
defeating their most credible leaders who, by lucky chance, also happen to
be most vulnerable to the Lib Dems. Broken and leaderless, the Conservatives
will disintegrate.

This seems all too hopeful. Name recognition and the incumbency factor will
be enough to ensure that at least some of their targets survive, even in the
face of a relatively large anti-Conservative swing. Besides, it is folly to
imagine that Oliver Letwin and Theresa May are all that stand between the
Conservatives and an overdue appointment with the dustbin of history.

The Conservative party survives, despite some of the worst political
leadership of this or any generation, because it speaks for a large and
irreducible section of English popular opinion.

Whether it pleases us or not, there will always be a third of the electorate
prepared to support a platform of public service cuts, draconian asylum laws
and hostility to Europe. Competing effectively for those votes would require
the Lib Dems to become what they are not - a party of the right.

Some dissident Conservatives have urged them to do precisely that by
reconnecting with the classical liberal tradition of John Stuart Mill and
positioning themselves as the party of minimal government and economic
individualism.

Tempting as it may seem in electoral terms, the path to the right would
prove to be a philosophical and political dead-end. Even Mill abandoned this
territory towards the end of his life. His insights into the inadequacies of
laissez-faire anticipated the New Liberalism of Asquith and Lloyd George and
the subsequent achievements of Beveridge and Keynes.

>From the beginning of the 20th century, British liberalism's greatest
achievements were based on a recognition that the condition of human liberty
required more than the removal of formal constraints. In particular, it
required the elimination of want and squalor, something that could only be
achieved through concerted public action. As the party's positions on tax
and public services clearly illustrate, its instincts still draw it towards
this essentially centre-left conclusion. Any attempt to deny it for
short-term advantage would lack authenticity.

There appears to be even less scope for the Lib Dems to make major inroads
into Labour's heartlands. Brent East was only the 11th Liberal gain from
Labour in the last 45 years, and even a 10% swing against Labour would yield
only a handful of seats.

Charles Kennedy dismisses the "lazy shorthand" of those who define his
options according to this linear, left-right spectrum. Shorthand it may be,
but it is one with a long pedigree stretching back to the French revolution
and it has survived the hostile attentions of forces stronger than the Lib
Dems. They cannot transcend it, however much they find themselves boxed in
by its electoral consequences.

For the Lib Dems the unpalatable truth is that their attempt to displace the
Conservatives is not only doomed to fail; it may perpetuate their
marginalisation at Westminster. It may be heresy to say this, but their most
likely route to power remains a version of Paddy Ashdown's much reviled
"project" - coalition with Labour followed by a change to the electoral
system.
That, of course, will remain off the agenda until Labour is faced with the
prospect of losing power. So, far from seeking to destroy the Tories, the
Lib Dems ought to be looking forward to the day when they are able to pose a
serious enough challenge for Labour to regain a sense of its own mortality
and come to the sort of arrangement Ashdown discussed with Blair before his
1997 landslide.

Waiting for a swing of the electoral pendulum to provide a fleeting moment
of opportunity may not be the stuff of heroic leadership, of Jo Grimond
marching his troops "towards the sound of gunfire", or David Steel telling
his party to prepare for power. But whatever he feels obliged to say in
public, Charles Kennedy should be planning with that thought in mind.

· David Clark is a former Labour government adviser