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Norman Tebbit

Lord Tebbit of Chingford is one of Britain's most outspoken conservative commentators and politicians. He was a senior cabinet minister in Margaret Thatcher's government and is a former Chairman of the Conservative Party. He has also worked in journalism, publishing, advertising and was a pilot in the RAF and British Overseas Airways.

Beware of opinion polls. Millions of people can't find a party they want to vote for

By Norman Tebbit Politics Last updated: January 15th, 2010

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It looks as though I rattled a few of the bars on several cages yesterday, so I ought to say a bit more about the BNP. (I’ll come to UKIP another day – and my own party and New Labour, too.)

John Denham, the Secretary of State for Local Government and Communities (another bit of PC mumbo-jumbo) must have been reading what you have been writing here on this blog. The Government really is running scared of losing seats not so much to the BNP, but because of the BNP, to other parties.

They need not have have waited this long to wake up to the problem. When I condemned multiculturalism back in 1997, the modernisers tried to get me expelled from the Conservative Party. When Trevor Phillips, Chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, said much the same sort of thing in 2006, Ken Livingstone advised him to join the BNP.

Lord Tebbit and Trevor Phillips found much to agree on (Photo: Geoff Pugh)

More recently still, when I interviewed Trevor Phillips for The House Magazine in January last year he told me that whilst he thought that discrimination against women, the elderly and disabled, not to mention “ethnic and sexual hate crime” were still serious issues, he was more worried about “the big and growing problem of people stuck at the bottom of society … and that is not to do with race”.

I do not think it did Trevor Phillips much good in the race relations industry to say such things, least of all to me, and he has had to put up with a lot of sniping from his “friends” since then.

However, whether it is because of me, Trevor Phillips, or the BNP, I am glad that even this Government is becoming aware of the plight of poor white kids denied decent schools, and of the fact some ethnic minorites (such as the Chinese and Ugandan Asians) seem not to be held back by “racism”. We should all cheer at the sight of a sinner stumbling towards repentance, even if not virtue.

I thought that, as we are going to have one before very long, I might offer a morsel or two of food for thought about elections.

Beware of the published polls telling us that the Conservatives are running at about 40 per cent, Labour at 30, Lib Dems at 18 and 12 for the rest. There is another big party out there called “None of the Above”.

So here are some figures. The electorate in 1979 was 41.1 million. In 2005 it was 44.1 million. On a very good day for Labour they made 13.9 million votes (in 1951, when the electorate was only 34.6 million). Well, it wasn’t altogether a good day – they lost.

On a very good day for the Tories they made 14.1 million in 1992. The Lib Dems managed 6.0 million in 1992 and in 2005. Margaret Thatcher won in 1979 with 13.7 million. After eight years she won a third time with 13.8 million.

Tony Blair won in 1997 with 13.5 million. After eight years he won again with 9.5 million. You have to go back to the 1920s to find a government being elected on less than that. Even when they lost in 1992, Labour polled 11.6 million. But it only took Tony Blair eight years to turn 4.0 million Labour supporters off voting.

So who on earth would want to be “the heir to Blair”? The Tories, by the way, polled 9.6 million in 1997, 8.4 million 2001 and 8.8 million in 2005.

So where did all those Tory and Labour votes go? Nowhere. They belong to people some of whom have died, but mostly to people who cannot find a party which represents their views, and people who don’t think it would make much difference who won the election.

I find that worrying, don’t you?

Tags: BNP, general election, John Denham, Margaret Thatcher, Trevor Phillips