What chances Howard?
Daily Express, 8th March 2004

It doesn't take much to get a Conservative audience going. Even Iain Duncan Smith managed to get standing ovations during his little-lamented tenure as leader. The most intriguing issue in British politics is not will Michael Howard rejuvenate the Tory party, but does he have what it takes to snatch power from Tony Blair at the next election?

The Labour party is worried. It is right to be. But it should keep things in perspective. For the first time since Blair took over his party - 10 years ago this summer - he faces a credible alternative. John Major was washed up. William Hague tried too hard when the tide was against him. IDS was, well, IDS. Everything is relative.

Howard has done the basics well. He has restored authority to his position and a large measure of unity to his small but unruly band of MPs. He has sorted out the organisation at party headquarters. He is working to give his policies a mainstream but distinctive look. And he is taken seriously in the media.

In his speech to the Tories' spring conference in Harrogate yesterday, Howard sought to contrast his party's vision of a state that intervenes less in people's lives, especially the economy, with the actions of Blair, or more particularly with the Chancellor, Gordon Brown. "The British people will decide between these two visions of government - a Labour government that knows best or smaller government in a country where people are in the driving seat," Howard told them. "These are the differences that will form the battle lines at the next election."

He is trying to have it both ways. Quietly his party has shifted emphasis from cutting taxes to supporting core services such as health and education. The implication is that the state will take less from people's pockets, but that is not a promise. He is simply hoping that the public will conclude that Labour has not delivered in its pledge to improve the NHS or schools and a Conservative administration, whatever else one might think of them, is better trusted to do that.

Trust is at the heart of the debate. When the election does takes place, probably in May or June 2005, voters will have to ask themselves firstly whether they trust Blair, and if they don't, would they opt for Howard? For that to happen, voters would have to switch from a passive anti-Blair refusal to vote to a more active approach to politics, going out to vote for the Tories. They would have to forget about the worst aspects of the Thatcher and Major years, including Howard's time as Home Secretary, and they would have to conclude that Blair has nothing more to offer. They would, in short, have to agree with Howard's claim yesterday: "To vote Labour next time is to vote for a government that has run out of steam, run out of ideas and reached a dead end."

Polls suggest voters might be disillusioned with Blair, but are a long way short of casting their ballot for Howard, which makes all the more bizarre the boast over the weekend by the Tories' joint chairman and advertising guru, Lord Saatchi, "not only is it possible to see that we will win the next election, it is actually hard to see how we will lose". The way the constituencies have been drawn requires the Tories to perform very strongly to win back enough seats.

If Brown were to take over before the election - an unlikely but not impossible prospect - he would almost certainly galvanise the Labour grassroots in a way Blair has never been able to do, but in equal measure he might draw some floating voters back into the Conservative fold.

Howard's task is to continue doing what he is doing and hope that the vague interest and respect he is attracting turns into something stronger. Blair's task is similarly easy to discern. He has to find new life for his government. He needs to win back some of the trust he has lost. To do so he is desperate to move on from Iraq. His speech on Friday setting out his thinking on the world was a brave and intelligent attempt at explaining not just the dilemmas facing countries like ours in the face of the global terrorist threat, but at explaining his many mistakes in joining President Bush in their war with Iraq.

Whenever Blair thinks he has fought off a problem, another seems to arise, the latest coming with the malicious allegations by Peter Foster about the Prime Minister and his wife's lifestyle guru, Carole Caplin. For the past 18 months Blair has not had a trouble-free run. More turbulence is expected between now and the election. Still, for all that, shut your eyes and imagine Michael Howard walking through the gates of 10 Downing Street in triumph. If you can you really see it then it might happen. If you can't, then it won't. The odds are still long.


This article first appeared in the Daily Express and may not be reproduced without permission.