The Hindu : Opinion / News Analysis : Yes, Blair will win the election

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Friday, Apr 22, 2005

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Opinion - News Analysis

Yes, Blair will win the election

Jackie Ashley

The Conservatives' vicious personal campaign has ensured that a third victory will leave Prime Minister Tony Blair empowered as never before.

Tony Blair ... being helped by Tory campaign.

THE WORST fears of the British Conservative Party (the Tories) are close to being realised. Britain seems to be sleep-walking towards a third Labour landslide. Oh, I know, it does not help Labour to say so — we must all mumble about how the pollsters are probably wrong, and every vote must be fought for. But columnists have freedoms that politicians do not; including the freedom to state the obvious.

Which is this: short of Tony Blair going on live television and telling the nation that he intends to bring in compulsory euthanasia for the widows of war veterans to make more space for Algerian asylum seekers, Labour cannot be beaten. Unless every pollster, pundit, campaigning doorstep politician I have spoken to; every shrewd spread-better, every political reporter and every contemporary historian is utterly wrong, then the Tories do not have enough gas in the tank to come anywhere near winning.

Ambush-heavy campaign

This has only become finally clear in the past week. Until then, we had had a fast-moving, ambush-heavy, policy-light campaign from the Tories ahead of the formal election announcement. The polls had been all over the place, giving out no clear message, and so leaving us thinking that perhaps the country was genuinely ready to revolt against Mr. Blair.

All of that seems out of date now. We are almost halfway through the real campaign and the Conservatives have given it everything they can think of. They have fired two of their three tax-cut bombshells. They have promised bustling matrons, pupil passports and a crackdown on seamy foreigner types. They have called Mr. Blair a serial liar, and got hot under every well-pressed collar they possess. Result? Nothing. In polling terms, the toneless bleep-bleep-bleep which in any hospital TV drama means "dead."

The media have noticed. Everyone is going around saying the election is boring. If you are interested in policy, it is not, of course: there have been real and important arguments about the future of the National Health Service, the best way to fund local Government and much else. But what the media mean by "boring" is that they think they know the result ... and they are right.

But if the election result is becoming obvious, this does not necessarily mean that the next few years will be boring. The view seems to be that if Mr. Blair is confirmed as Prime Minister with a majority in three figures, then we return to life as normal. But this underestimates the huge injection of new authority that a third big victory would bring Labour, and how that authority might be used.

New plan up his sleeves?

The debate so far about the likely consequences of a third Labour victory has been crudely divided between those who expect a modest victory followed by a swift putsch by Mr. Blair's main rival for the top job, Gordon Brown, the current Finance Minister; and those who think a large victory will allow Mr. Blair to keep Mr. Brown waiting, while he promotes old chums such as Alan Milburn and Stephen Byers. But is it not possible that Mr. Blair, who has never lacked ambition, might have a more interesting plan?

He wants, as he reminded us during the launch of the manifesto, to secure the New Labour legacy. What he did not say is that in the immediate aftermath of a third victory he will possess a unique amount of power and freedom, because he is the first prime minister to go to the country promising never to come knocking again.

He will have a personal mandate. That might seem odd; after all, millions of voters will put their crosses against Labour despite feeling let down or angry about Mr. Blair. The polls all suggest that Mr. Brown's decision to throw himself into the campaign has had an immediate effect. Indeed, if he was the Labour leader now, the party's poll rating would be stratospheric.

But the personal mandate does not come from the voters or the Labour party but from the Tories.

They have run a relentlessly vicious personal campaign against Mr. Blair, harping on about his grin, his untrustworthiness, his alleged propensity to gloat, and making him so much the personal emblem of New Labour. If, after all that, he is returned to power with a strong majority, no one can say he was never the issue.

So, on the one side, the freedom of never standing again, and on the other, the authority of a personal mandate against the odds. The next question is: what would he do with this? He could try to introduce more "choice" in the public services, but that risks more rebellions and splits in the Labour party. Rather than trying spitefully to wreck life for Mr. Brown when he takes over, the clever "hand of history' thing would be for Mr. Blair to expend his capital and give his successor a golden legacy.

Pensions crisis

During the campaign Labour has hidden behind two studies: a report on the council (local) tax and another on pensions, without giving any commitments about what it will do. So Mr. Blair could finally grapple with the pensions crisis. That might mean legislating for compulsion, or means testing; but the report on pensions will not bring soft options.

He could bring in a privacy law, as some Ministers have been pushing for. It would be a final reckoning with the media who have tormented politicians for so long.

He could bring in road pricing; make the tough decisions to reduce carbon emissions; and announce a royal commission on PR for Britain's Parliament, and then try to enact it.

These are undoubtedly all "live' issues among senior members of the Government. If what seems to be happening in this election campaign really is happening then Mr. Blair is about to be empowered, for a limited period, as never before.

Reporters have noticed he has a nice tan. What was he planning as he lay in the sun?

- Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

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