|
| |
20th May 2005
Published in The Japan Times
By David Howell
Post-Election Puzzles: Choosing the Right New Leader
LONDON- British politics are now in a fluid state. A General Election which
should normally settle things, at least for four or five years ahead, has
unsettled everything in a very puzzling way.
On the winning Labour side an obviously tired Prime Minister, Tony Blair , has
seen his personal stance vilified by his own supporters – on the grounds that he
misleadingly exaggerated the case for invading Iraq alongside the Americans –
and his position as party leader and Prime Minister weakened by the growingly
visible ambitions of his colleague Gordon Brown to replace him.
In more normal times his comfortable majority (sixty-seven over all other
parties and one hundred and fifty-nine over his main rivals, the Conservatives)
ought to have given him triumphant security in his post, having led the Labour
to a third victory for the first time in its existence. He is young by political
standards and could theoretically serve the country for years to come.
But these are not normal times. The media dominate the political scene these
days and the impatient media have grown tired of Mr.Blair. He has, so to speak,
gone out of fashion.
His home policies are producing improvements only very slowly, in health
provision and education, for example, while the centrepiece of his foreign
policy – an attempt to be simultaneously at the heart of the European Union
while also being America’s best friend – is falling apart. Deservedly or
undeservedly, his resignation has become a matter of daily media discussion and
he will get no peace until he confirms that he is going
On the Conservative Opposition side the situation is even more unstable. At
first, the Conservatives were content that they had improved their position and
placed themselves favourably for a further advance to victory at the next
Election in four or five years’ time.
Their leader, Michael Howard was adjudged to have fought robustly, even though
the Conservative campaign was full of truly classic mistakes and notably lacked
profound or illuminating qualities. In particular the Conservatives let
themselves be dragged into an absurdly detailed auction with the Labour about
public spending , failing to demonstrate how a low tax, low regulation society
can in the end produce better social results , more fairness and better services
to the public than old-style , state-centred and tax-financed systems.
Nevertheless, the hope was that the Conservative leader, Mr Howard, would stay
on to consolidate the Opposition, at least for a year or so.
But then came the bombshell. Mr.Howard clearly felt he had had enough and stated
that he would be going within a matter of months. Instantly the struggle to
succeed him was ignited and will now continue through the summer months. The
thinking which the political Right in the UK so desperately needs, as to how to
redefine, and then capture, the centre forward ground of British society, is now
bound to take second place to the jostling for power as the contenders seek to
show their paces.
But perhaps this was always unavoidable. The Conservatives are only now
beginning to recover from the trauma of the downfall of Margaret Thatcher
fifteen years ago. The Thatcher effect may have transformed the UK but it
divided the Conservatives deeply between free market radicals and entrenched
‘conservative’ Conservatives.
Such a polarised division was quite fatal for a party of the Right and years of
subtle healing and weaving together of opposing philosophies have been necessary
ever since to unite the different wings again.
Now this is at last happening. Even on the most contentious issue of all in
British politics, the relationship with the rest of Europe, the old polarities –
for or against membership of the European Union – are giving way to the new
reality – that the Union is transforming itself anyway into a looser and more
flexible network and that the Franco-German motor which used to drive the Union
has stalled. Meanwhile the facts of world change – notably the shift in the
global centre of gravity to the rising Asian powers – are forcing all Europeans
to look outward again, rather than inwards.
Throughout Europe the political Right is beginning to show that it can do better
than the Left in reconciling the great dilemmas of the age, between security and
individual freedom, between central efficiency and local identity, between
globalism and national patriotism, between the need to lead and the need to
listen.
But in the British case the personality has yet to be found that can handle and
voice these ultra-modern concerns. The new leader of this kind of moderate but
thoughtful Right may appear from any direction, be of either sex and come from
any age group, young or old. One of Mr.Howard’s key new appointments as ‘shadow’
finance minister is only thirty three years old.
In the past the UK has been well ruled and led by very young men (William Pitt)
or very old ones (William Gladstone, Winston Churchill). What matters is not age
but intuitive power, a readiness to locate, identify and then set fire to the
spirit of the age.
The British General Election has not solved this problem, but maybe it has set
in motion the processes that will eventually do so.
Ends
|
