Sounds of the Nineties

All the coverage of last night's Question Time has related to the lady with the tax credits, and that is understandable.

For a few months in 1992, the Conservatives sincerely believed, and lost no opportunity to say, that they were going to be in government permanently.

But the 1997 General Election was over, in Labour's favour, before the end of 1992.

Likewise, when the tax credits cuts bite, then the 2020 General Election will be over, in Labour's favour, before the end of 2015.

Just as there was no recession on the day of 2010 Election, but try telling anyone that, so there was no recession on the day of the 1997 Election, nor had there been one in years.

But try telling anyone that even now, never mind at the time. Mercifully, I did not have to try and tell anyone that at the time.

Instead, arising out of the events of the later part of 1992, we could tell people absolutely anything about "the Tories", and it was believed. VAT on food, charges for visiting the doctor, the withdrawal of the state retirement pension from people who were already claiming it, anything.

Yes, the withdrawal of the state retirement pension from people who were already claiming it. That one appeared in official Labour Party press releases, and it was discussed in all seriousness on the main television news bulletins. They all did.

Such was the culmination of four and a half years of torrential media and public abuse of the Government of the day and of its party.

By the spring of 1996, when it was clear that that Government was going to hang on for five years, I find it difficult to imagine that even the hardest of the then Ministers and party functionaries could have bared to have switched on the television, and I am by no means talking only about the political programming.

Absolutely any Labour Leader would have won by a landslide. Absolutely any Labour Leader did.

And it is all about to begin all over again. Arguably, it did so last night.

Meanwhile, there was another interesting and important feature of this week's Question Time.

Amber Rudd dutifully parroted the pro-EU big business line on behalf of the Government, while Rod Liddle expressed the profound opposition of the traditional working-class Left, while Simon Schama bemoaned that, in his liberal-Left academic way, he was looking more and more likely to have to vote for withdrawal rather than accept the terms renegotiated to the satisfaction of David Cameron.

Ah, yes. Europe, too. All this, and TFI Friday is back tonight. I feel quite young again.