Tribune leader, 3 April 1992
When the election campaign started, the Conservatives were
confidently predicting that they would win an overall majority of 20. Today, as
even they admit off the record, the best they can hope for is to be the largest
party, clinging to power with the help of the Ulster Unionists.
Even though most Liberal Democrat voters are former Tories
and, whatever Paddy Ashdown may say about being prepared to go into coalition
with either of the main parties if the terms are right, the Liberal Democrats
know that their credibility would collapse if they agreed to shore up the
Tories. The Tory campaign has been alternately lack-lustre and filthy. Their
senior politicians look either dull and uninspiring or dangerously mad. This
worn-out, discredited Government knows that it needs a miracle to win on April
9.
So far, everything in the campaign has gone according to
plan for Labour, apart from last week's party election broadcast on health. It
is now apparent that Labour walked unwittingly into a well-planned Tory ambush,
exacerbating its difficulties by not making it clear from the start that the
film was a representation of a typical case rather than a straight documentary
about a particular one. Although the ambush was eventually revealed for what
it was, Labour's discomfort was a timely reminder that too much hype can damage
a perfectly good case.
This week, Labour has been emphasising its positive agenda
for ending the recession, introducing a fair taxation system and improving
education and the welfare state.
It is right to do so: these are the
bread-and-butter issues that will determine most voters' choices. But, as
polling day approaches, it would be foolish for Labour not to give some
prominence to its policies on Europe, aid to the Third World, the environment
and constitutional reform. With the exception of devolution for Scotland, none
of these is likely to swing more than a few middle-class votes - but those few
votes could be enough to return the majority Labour government that Britain so
desperately needs.
Fair shares for the
poor
Nothing illustrates better the Tories' contempt for working
people than their attitude to Labour's proposal for a statutory minimum wage
of £3.40 an hour. The Labour plan is a modest attempt to improve the lot of
those 5 million or so workers, many of them women and part-timers and many of
them unorganised, who are currently on scandalously low rates of pay. Its main
problem is that it will be very difficult to police and enforce except in
larger unionised companies.
Yet the Tories have rubbished the minimum wage, claiming
that it will cost billions to introduce in the National Health Service, that
it will increase inflation and will lead to 2 million job losses. Independent
analysts disagree on all three counts, with some reckoning that total job
losses would be as low as 4,000 in three years, and there is no evidence that a
statutory minimum wage has had any detrimental effects in any European
Community country that has one. Why do the Tories not admit that their real
concern is the profits of low-wage employers, some of whom, particularly those
in retailing and the hotel and catering trades, are among their biggest
backers?
