Tonight We’re Going To Party Like It’s 1996

The 1997 Election should have been a proper contest. New Labour had a programme of undergraduate Marxery from twenty years before where social, cultural and constitutional matters were concerned, but wanted to leave exactly as they were the economic matters that were the reason why absolutely any Labour Leader at all had by then been bound to win for four and a half years. None of this was discussed.

Instead, the same media that now refuse to report Harriet Harman’s truly scandalous past shrieked “sleeeeaaaaze!” until it was barely even a word. Labour would and should have won anyway. But this coverage (or lack of it) delivered a crushingly huge majority which at least appeared to vindicate the Blair Project, and which left the Dear Leader wholly independent of more economically left-leaning, more conservative and more patriotic elements of his party either within or beyond Parliament. In its old economically left-wing, conservative, patriotic strongholds, turnout is now sometimes as low as one in three, and the BNP is filling the void.

Much the same thing is beginning again. The extremely liberal social and cultural views, attitudes and behaviour of the people now running the Conservative Party are never mentioned. Nor is their strong stance in favour of a united Europe under overall American control. Nor is their wholesale acceptance of, and indeed desire to extend, the New Labour constitutional agenda. Nor is anything else about them. They are simply presented as fresh, clean, pretty and posh, whereas the Government is stale, dirty, ugly and frightfully non-U. After two terms of Cameron, if not before, turnout in the old Tory heartlands of the social conscience, traditional values, patriotism and constitutionalism will sometimes be as low as one in three. In a third term, if not before, the BNP will fill that void.

For, if this strategy works (and it is mercifully still unclear that it is doing so), then we will be given another government of ultra-capitalist, ultra-liberal, Eurofederalist, uncritically pro-American constitutional vandals, with another majority so enormous that it can just ignore the dwindling band of social consciences, moral and social conservatives, patriots and constitutionalists. Those four overlapping categories of Tory gave Margaret Thatcher an awful lot of trouble before going on to oppose Maastricht, but of that another time.

In fact, no. Of that this time. Ann Winterton may tell bad jokes, but she and her husband were and are moral and social conservatives, diehard patriots, and not without a strain of economic populism; that was why they were never Thatcherites, and that was why they opposed Maastricht. Richard Shepherd was and is an unyielding constitutionalist and civil libertarian; that was why he was never a Thatcherite, and that was why he opposed Maastricht.

Sir Peter Tapsell was and is an ardent Keynesian and Commonwealth enthusiast who has gone on to be a magnificent opponent of the neoconservative war agenda; that was why he was never a Thatcherite, and that was why he opposed Maastricht. Sir Richard Body was and is an anti-nuclear Quaker, a conservationist, and a Small Is Beautiful agrarian; that was why he was never a Thatcherite, and that was why he opposed Maastricht.

And so on.

Next year, insist that you will only vote for a candidate who is a moral and social conservative, a diehard patriot, an economic populist, an unyielding constitutionalist and civil libertarian, an ardent Keynesian and Commonwealth enthusiast, an opponent both of the neoconservative war agenda and of nuclear weapons, a conservationist, and a Small Is Beautiful agrarian.

With extremely rare exceptions, you are going to have to be that candidate yourself.