Britannia Radio

TELEGRAPH                       24.4.09
The country is exhausted with Labour, but help is on the way
This government has passed the point beyond which it has anything  
much to offer, argues Iain Martin.

The latest Budget has done something astonishing, something hitherto  
considered by many to be totally impossible. It has vindicated Tony  
Blair – and even Peter Mandelson.

In May 1994, shortly after the death of John Smith, Blair decided  
that he needed to become Labour leader instead of Gordon Brown. He  
did so partly because he feared the consequences for his party of a  
day such as this Wednesday. And he was absolutely right. There it all  
was, the stuff of Blairite nightmares: the punitive taxes on wealth  
creation and aspiration, the Fabian, socialist micro-management and  
dreary collectivist rhetoric, even the Scottish accent.

Blair knew Brown had no connection with, or particular feel for,  
England, particularly its southern parts. Mandelson knew it, too.  
Although initially torn, having been so close to Brown and fearing  
his wrath if he defected, the Prince of Darkness jumped ship to  
Blair. The eventual result was a pledge to keep headline tax rates  
down and a Labour Party comeback in England that led to three general  
election victories.

Yet the Blairites needed Brown, for none of them knew very much, or  
cared very much, about economics. Neither, as it turns out, did Brown  
– but he and his advisers said that they did and so were granted  
control. A pact of convenience emerged in which both camps understood  
that taxes would eventually go up, stealthily at first, but English  
voters would be persuaded that this wasn't really happening. And as  
long as there was a continuation of the growth started under the  
Tories – which a tide of cheap money turned into a boom – this was  
just about sustainable.

Ever present, however, was the Blairite fear that an unshackled Brown  
would revert to type, spending all he could lay his hands on and  
attempting to tax his way out of the resulting mess. Ahead of the  
1997 election, Brown argued privately for a 50p top rate of tax, but  
was beaten back. All these years later, he has finally got his wish –  
in circumstances that will haunt him in retirement, if he has even  
the tiniest capacity for genuine introspection.

Behind the rather frightening grin, there are signs that this process  
has already begun. Although he was involved in all of the big  
decisions about the Budget, the Prime Minister was still strangely  
detached. Alistair Darling was allowed a surprising amount of leeway,  
with his leader more preoccupied with the toxic fallout of the  
McBride affair. The PM seems to have enjoyed the displacement  
activity of the G20 so much that he would rather do anything now than  
focus on cleaning up the domestic mess he has created – hence his  
busying himself with an attempt to sort out MPs' expenses in the most  
partisan way possible.

Of course, there is horror among the Blairites – albeit much too late  
– at Labour's legacy. One unlucky soul, racked with tribal loyalty  
and guilt, was captured by the Downing Street machine on Budget Day,  
and forced to parade around parroting the party's position in the  
manner of a brainwashed prisoner of war. But others got the real  
point. "This is not New Labour," said a former minister. "I honestly  
don't know what it is, but it is not what I came into politics to do."

The fault, in a way, actually lies with the Blairites. Their basic  
instinct about Brown was correct, but they never acted on it  
properly. Until surprisingly recently, they took a "Gordon will  
provide" view of the economy, in which they rarely – if ever – had to  
think about it and could instead enjoy the fun of higher public  
spending. It leaves the party intellectually threadbare, with very  
few senior figures who have even dared to have any thoughts about  
economics in the past 15 years, much less voice them, for fear of  
assassination. The result is not only that New Labour is dead, but  
that those beside the corpse barely have a clue what to do next about  
the defining subject of the age: how to get Britain back on its feet.

Enter the Tories. If there is Blairite horror at the condition of the  
public finances, it is easily exceeded inside the shadow cabinet.  
"The meek shall inherit the earth," says a leading Tory frontbencher.  
"But what will we inherit? Just a pile of garbage." The scale of the  
numbers involved, of rampant borrowing and fantastical projections by  
the Treasury for a speedy return to growth, have shocked leading  
Conservatives. Cuts, senior Tories widely acknowledge, will have to  
be much more severe than Darling's proposed pruning. Once in office,  
they will try hard to limit the extent of any tax rises.

But that is the stuff of tactical calculation, of which there has  
been a little too much in the Conservative leadership in recent  
years. The central question, with the country in such a deep funk, is  
this: are the Conservatives capable of putting our affairs in order?  
Do they have the right stuff?

They are certainly mastering the art of sticking it to Labour – but  
that is not enough. However, those looking for a fully formed  
economic programme before polling day are not going to find it. The  
Treasury does not know what the state of play will be next month, say  
the Tories, so how can they be expected to judge what spending and  
taxation will need to be in 2010?

David Cameron's colleagues report that this year the Tory leader has  
effectively taken over the party's economic policy. The penny does  
appear to be dropping, gradually, that if the country is going to pay  
off any of the debt he decries as an obstacle to recovery, then  
spending will need to fall steeply.

On other matters – education, welfare, crime – the Tories have good,  
clear thoughts. Through all of them runs the defining Cameroon theme:  
of presuming that big statism does not work and that individuals and  
communities need liberating.

Ultimately, this comes down to strength of character and personality.  
Cameron's actions have indicated that he has it. His leadership has  
not been an entirely smooth affair; he has been written off and made  
mistakes. Yet he has always shown a capacity for learning on the job,  
in contrast to Gordon Brown's conviction, throughout his adult life,  
that he invariably knows best.

The bedrock of recovery, in several years' time, will need to be  
optimism; an optimism that we can take it, that as long as the  
Government doesn't get in the way too much, our national genius means  
we can invent and trade our way out of it. That would sound a good  
deal more convincing coming from Cameron's mouth than Brown's.

In the end, it is really rather obvious. The country is utterly  
exhausted with Labour; we have passed the point beyond which it has,  
in its current incarnation, anything much to offer. In those  
circumstances, the Conservatives need to start making the simple  
point, over and over again, that help for Britain is on the way.

There has been a surprising amount of reticence on this subject  
recently, so I'll be among the first to say it clearly. It's time for  
a change [NOW ! -cs]: a change of government.