THE NEXT general election in Britain is at least 18 months away. Will the Conservative Party win it? Is President Tony Blair’s long reign over at last?
Not a hope, the pessimists will say. It will take a huge effort to overturn a majority in the House of Commons as large as new Labour currently enjoys – about twice as many MPs as the Tories have.
The perceived wisdom is that two general elections would be needed, as was the case post-1945 when Labour last enjoyed a large parliamentary majority.
My view is that the chances of a Conservative government in the next parliament are now better than they have ever been since new Labour came to power. And precedent and recent political history prove it.
I was Chairman of the Conservative Party when Edward Heath succeeded Alec Douglas Home, and I was Chairman of the 1922 Committee (the Conservative parliamentary party) when Margaret Thatcher beat Heath in the election for the leadership of the party. Both, at the time, were outsiders. And both went on to win the next general elections. So there is precedent.
Is there other, solid, evidence for my instinctive judgment, born of those experiences? Indeed there is, the legacy that Iain Duncan Smith has left. Part is inadvertent.
The mounting and incessant criticism of his leadership pleased the Conservative Party’s Labour and Liberal opponents – and gave the Labour government much relief. Blair has been lucky indeed to escape without more effective and damaging attacks in Britain’s worsening economic and social situation: the failing public services, the rise in crime, the asylum crisis, the dishonesty of Britain’s participation in the war in Iraq, the absurd tinkering with the Constitution – the scope for informed and effective attacks on new Labour’s performance in government is vast. The duty of an official opposition in parliament in Britain is to oppose – and, sadly, Iain Duncan Smith has been universally regarded as less effective in this respect than the situation required.
“Loyalty,” said the late David Maxwell Fyffe, in those early post-war years when so many of my generation, fresh out of the armed services, were organising to topple Clement Attlee’s Labour government with its huge parliamentary majority and its insistence on ever-increasing state control of the economy and the individual, “is the Tory party’s secret weapon.”
The sacking of Iain Duncan Smith by Tory MPs by a fair majority of 90 votes to 75, and the private bickering which preceded it, has had one remarkable consequence. The mood is for the parliamentary party to unite behind its new leader, whoever he may be. And that determination has already found practical expression in the declarations of senior MPs, previously thought of as aspirants for the leadership, to support the leading candidate, Michael Howard.
They come from both wings of the Tory party, left and right. That is highly significant. United, the Conservative opposition in parliament is likely to be increasingly effective.
Again, there is precedent. Heath was chosen as leader of the Conservatives in preference to Reginald Maudling, and Thatcher in preference to Heath, in part at least because of their effectiveness in parliamentary debate – and that is why Howard is currently front runner. His parliamentary performances, opposing Chancellor Gordon Brown, have been outstanding.
William Hague, when he was leader of the Conservative Party, introduced new rules for the election of his successor. Every member of the party had a vote. In the election which Iain Duncan Smith won, some 300,000 votes were cast, and IDS won convincingly, with a large majority.
Some commentators have suggested that ordinary members of the Conservative Party will resent it if there is in effect a coronation rather than an election of the new leader. I am sure there will be no argument about this. The overwhelming desire of grass-roots Tories in the constituencies will be to unite the party, to avoid and long drawn-out process of an election campaign, and to become again an effective and credible opposition exposing new Labour’s failures in government.
On Wednesday, Iain Duncan Smith made probably the two most valuable speeches of his parliamentary career. The public only saw his speech outside Conservative Central Office acknowledging his defeat as leader. It was a fine performance, utterly without rancour or bitterness, and pledging loyal support to whoever the party now elects as its new leader. I have no doubt that his excellent example will be universally followed by Conservatives, inside and outside parliament.
That is not the only legacy bequeathed to the Conservative Party from which it will surely derive a new strength of purpose.
There is another, of the greatest value. The party has been busy in opposition in its work on new policies on which to fight the next general election and to form the basis of its programmes in government. That work has gone well, and in the aggregate it is an impressive catalogue. In effect the Conservative Party is enjoying an intellectual renaissance.
Add to that its growing strength on the ground in the constituencies, where the political battles are won (or lost). Recruitment in its youth section is strong. In the last local elections – a sure barometer of organisational capability – the Tories won considerable victories, and now have more councillors and control more Councils than for many years.
These are certain recipes for success at a general election. Again there are precedents – in 1951 (when Britain re-elected Winston Churchill), in 1970 (when Edward Heath became Prime Minister), and in 1979 (when Margaret Thatcher was first elected). The actors change, but the show is the same.
Cynics will say that in getting the sack on Wednesday, IDS got his comeuppance. After all, he was one of the group that John Major called “the bastards”, the opponents of Britain’s increasing surrender of sovereignty to the European Union. Serves him right, they’ll say, that the biter got bit.
Politics is a hard business. Above all, it is the duty of an MP to fight for what he believes to be right. IDS has given his party and the nation loyal and honourable service. Above all, he is an honourable man, as that last speech of his so clearly showed.
So many British expatriates I meet in Cyprus tell me of their deep concerns about contemporary Britain. As a nation, we seem to have lost our way, perhaps even faith in ourselves and our ability to manage our affairs well. And many of our Cypriot friends, too, share our anxieties.
That need not be. It can be put right, and it must be. I’ll not be alone, I am sure, in looking to the Conservative Party under a new leader to apply itself with vigour to this necessary, urgent and honourable task.
The Rt. Hon. Sir Edward du Cann was elected MP for Taunton in England nine times. He served in the British Parliament for 31 years. He was twice a Minister in governments led by Harold Macmillan and Alec Douglas Home. Then he was Chairman of the Conservative Party under Alec Home and Edward Heath and Chairman of the 1922 Committee (the Conservative backbench MPs) during the Premierships of Edward Heath and Margaret Thatcher. He is now retired — but has begun a new career as a writer — and lives in Lemona, outside Paphos.
