For voters preparing to trudge to the polling stations on Thursday, this election may not have generated much passion. It is, however, no less important for that. A defeat for Tony Blair, however unlikely, would be seen as the voters’ verdict on the Iraq war, with implications well beyond these shores. A narrow Labour victory would leave the prime minister as a lame duck leader on the self-declared last lap of his premiership. And a third crushing defeat for the Conservatives would raise questions about whether politics has shifted decisively to the left, with untold consequences for the country.
Two things should determine how we vote: the government’s record, and the direction the country is taking. Labour’s record stands mainly on the economy. Gordon Brown has been lucky; his splurge in public expenditure kicked in just as the private sector was cutting back. But he has delivered economic stability, and even if he inherited low inflation, economic growth and rising employment in 1997, he has not entirely squandered that heritage. Mr Brown’s masterstroke of handing responsibility for monetary policy to the Bank of England has paid rich dividends. It has meant that the Tories remain resolutely on the back foot on the issue of economic competence.
Look beyond the economy, however, and the government’s record is more patchy. Iraq is a particular problem for Mr Blair. This newspaper supported the war and believes the prime minister took a brave decision. But there is no doubt that he heard what he wanted to hear from the intelligence services and that the government machine was engaged almost entirely in propaganda. There was an honest case for war but the prime minister failed to make it. Mr Blair has been helped by Michael Howard ’s political gymnastics. The Tory leader supports the war but, with the knowledge he now has, said he would not have voted for the proposition the prime minister put to parliament. The Liberal Democrats have benefited from their consistent opposition, though this is tinged with the suspicion that the defence of the country would not be entirely safe in their hands.
Iraq goes to the heart of Labour’s record in another respect. Mr Blair’s style of taking important decisions in unminuted meetings on a Downing Street sofa has driven a coach and horses through Whitehall conventions and led to confusion. Policy has too often been driven by the desire for eye-catching initiatives. Corners are cut. A decision to abolish the ancient office of lord chancellor is made on a political whim. Concerns over the integrity of postal voting — a scandal in the making in this election — are ignored in the interests of political expediency.
The prime minister’s style of government has been directly responsible for bad policy. In new Labour’s world you are either for “the project” or against it. The idea of a politically neutral civil service has all but vanished. The Whitehall machine is geared towards proving that the government is meeting its carefully selected targets. The public, unsurprisingly, is cynical. That cynicism is reinforced by the sight of Gordon Brown and the prime minister as best buddies. Their rediscovery of an old friendship is as artificial as many of Labour’s promises. Voters seem to share the view Mr Brown reportedly had of Mr Blair last year: “There is nothing you could ever say to me that I could ever believe.”
Take asylum and immigration. Most people regard it as a humanitarian duty that we give asylum to those in danger of persecution in their own countries. Most people, too, recognise that immigrants have brought economic benefits to Britain and will continue to do so. Labour, however, has squandered that goodwill. At a time of heightened concern over international terrorism, the government contrived to lose control of Britain’s borders. Kamel Bourgass killed a policeman and plotted, however ineptly, a terrorist attack. He should not have been here. He entered the country with forged papers and had his application for asylum rejected four years ago. But despite that, the government’s points-based system for immigration, provided it is properly enforced, is a more sensible policy than that of the Tories. They are saddled with an annual limit that business regards as unworkable. This kind of central planning does not sit easily alongside the need for a flexible labour market.
That same problem over choice applies to the direction the country is taking. Labour has taxed and spent at will. The evidence that all this cash has produced improvements in services is at best mixed. In health, education, crime and transport a huge increase in resources has produced marginal changes in performance. Yet the damage wrought by this extra taxation and the accompanying cascade of regulations is not in doubt. Since 1997 Britain has dropped from ninth to 22nd in the world competitiveness rankings. We may have done better than the basket-case economies of the eurozone. Yet the country has performed poorly in relation to other English-speaking countries. Mr Brown trumpets his record but compared with Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States it is poor.
It is not hard to see why. Higher taxes damage incentives and inhibit economic growth, a vicious circle. Lower tax rates produce beneficial feedback effects that, in the right circumstances, produce a net increase in revenue, a virtuous circle. There is no doubt which route Britain is taking. Figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development show a rise in the tax take in Britain between 1997 and 2006 from 39% to 42% compared with a fall from 39% to 37% across the industrialised world. The gap between Britain and the EU’s average tax burden, eight points in 1997, has narrowed to just three. And that does not take into account the spending rises planned by all three parties. Labour may have kept Britain out of the euro, but it is taking us towards Europe in most other respects.
That, of course, is the most depressing aspect of this campaign. The Tories have accepted that Labour has won the political battle over tax and spend. Talk of deep tax cuts would, they fear, frighten voters. So the party offers new Labour-lite; no significant tax cuts and plenty of extra public spending. The country deserves to be presented with a clearer alternative — a vision for Britain that does not see a relentless rise in public spending on an ever-more demanding welfare state.
That will ultimately lead to the country’s decline and the decline of those public services. Instead we should have a choice of a smaller state that provides good public services through reforms, liberal policies on civil liberties and a business-friendly environment that will produce more jobs and greater prosperity for all the people of Britain. It may be that Mr Brown’s luck is about to run out and that a slowing global economy and his tax rises will finally drag us down, in which case this might be a good election to lose.
The Conservative party has disappointed for its failure to offer an alternative vision the country needs. Partly because of this it seems highly unlikely it can win. But at least the Tories have the instincts, if not the policies, to prevent Britain sliding backwards. Labour’s arrogance needs to be curbed and the Tories need to be given a better platform in opposition on which to start building a genuine alternative. A vote for the Conservatives is the only way to achieve both of these aims.
