With general elections scheduled for May, Britain prepares for a new-look Labour after years of Tory rule—and John Major
BRITAIN is not prone to election fever the way pre-Seshan India was. But some amount of excitement is beginning to build up over elections this summer. The excitement seems less over the uncertainty an election brings, more about a certain feeling of change to follow. It's the beginning of a summer when Britain is widely expected to move to Labour.
To Tony Blair as prime minister, that is. The public debate is more about the ways of Prime Minister John Major and the promises of Blair, less about the policies of the Tories or of the New Labour that Blair heralds. It isn't competing charismas that overwhelm party debate. Major hasn't shaken off that 'grey' image despite his recent recrafting in pink shirts. And Labour's attempts to build up Blair as the new John F. Kennedy did not go far. If personalities count over parties it's because the differences between the Conservatives and New Labour are beginning to get almost too subtle to tell.
That's when the ad men come in and the party ideologues go home. Poster wars have taken over from public debate. The Tories postered Blair in a mask but for a pair of ghoulish eyes showing through. The poster was ruled unfair, but only after it was seen enough. A new Tory poster shows a lion shedding a tear of blood, with the slogan "New Labour New Danger". Labour has produced a two-faced Major looking opposite ways, captioned with U-turns, with things said and not done. This is growing into an election about images, not issues.
바카라 웹사이트"New Labour is neither old left nor new right," the party declares in a policy document. But there is much in its new talk of the good old right. Labour is seeking election without Clause 4 of its old Constitution. That was the pillar of its commitment to socialism. About the first thing Blair did when he took over from Neil Kinnock after Labour's defeat in the 1992 election was to scrap Clause 4. Blair argued winningly that either that clause or Labour itself must face extinction. New Labour is modelling itself on the Democrats of the US, giving Britain a choice between two parties well and formally right of the Centre. Less and less do Labour leaders call themselves 'comrades' now. More and more, they are the right hon'ble gentlemen. British voters watching the diminishing differences between the two look like voting a change of gentlemen.
The opinion polls all point to change, and there are a couple every week now. Typically they give Labour a 20 percentage point lead over the Tories, suggesting that about 50 per cent will vote Labour, 30 per cent Conservative and the rest for the Liberal Democrats and some regional groups like the Ulster Unionists and others. So confident is Labour of forming the government that Blair is telling his supporters to think of elections first as an appropriate show of modesty.
THE Times has run a page on Blair's new office as prime minister. A sketch figured who will be there, even who바카라 웹사이트 will sit where. It suggests that No. 10 have to be done up for the Blairs' children aged 13, 11 and 8. Blair, The Times said, would be the first prime minister with children at 10, Downing Street since Clement Atlee moved out in 1951. The British press has made much of his wife Cherie's gym visits. She must think Britain deserves a first lady in shape. Like Hillary Clinton.
The American influence is for real. Labour has roped in George Stephanopoulos, Clinton's key adviser in his election, to see Labour through. "I know how to run the last three months of an election campaign," Stephanopoulos says. Labour is planning for a prime minister very presidential in runninggovernment with a team of close advisers headed by a chief of staff. The shadow Labour cabinet is already talking of putting in policies that tie in with Clinton's second term.
Almost all decisions of one party in the US could well be decisions of the other. So it is coming to be in Britain, though there is enough rhetoric for one to aim against the other. The agendas of the Tories and Labour are not identical, but not significantly conflicting either.
Both Major and Blair have been at pains to explain differences between the two parties and declaring their own priorities. After all that, the priorities of one sound just like the priorities of the other. Labour, says Blair, will work to improve education, the health services, employment and welfare while tightening the net to check fraud. That is exactly what Major says he will do. On Europe both leaders are similar in their ambivalence.
In its policy document, Labour describes its vision of Europe as "not that of a federal superstate, but an alliance of independent nations choosing to cooperate with one another to achieve the goals they cannot achieve alone." It takes no stand on the controversial single currency proposal. Greater economic integration will come "with or without a single currency". That is a question on which Labour says "we reserve our options". But it promises a referendum on a single currency before taking any decision. England, it knows will not easily confine the pound to history. That is exactly the Conservative position. But neither Conservative nor Labour offer a referendum on the question whether Britain should continue being a part of the European Union or not.
Both parties are committed to membership of the European Union, though rumblings against it in the Tories are louder.
If Labour now talks what was the Tory language, so have the Tories taken on a Labour-like position on Europe. Labour believes Britain should continue European Union membership because Britain can "shape the direction in which we want Europe to go". Britain, both parties say, will not be a part of Europe but its natural leader. Labour promises it will "retain the veto over key matters of national interest, such as defence and security, immigration, decisions over the budget and treaty changes". That is also the Tory stand.
But Europe could be an issue more among party leaders and media commentators than the people, one survey indicated. Half the people surveyed in a poll for the Mirror said they want Britain to play a stronger role in Europe, a quarter said they were happy with things as they are, only a fifth wanted Britain out of EU. Europe is the most talked about non-issue in Britain.
A real quarrel over Europe is on the social chapter which the Tories refuse to sign and which Labour is pledged to. This chapter would bind Britain to a minimum wage and statutory working hours. The Tories think this will make Britain uncompetitive, Labour says "the Tories are engaged in a quite absurd distortion of the debate about it". But the social chapter is not socialism. Labour, as much as the Tories, is bent on cutting down social benefits while speaking of a commitment to social service. Both parties mouth the new mantra on social support—a hand up, not a handout.
That's a £93 billion-a-year (Rs 5.4 lakh crore) handout both parties know Britain can't afford any more. A working adult in Britain pays on average £15 a day towards that. The elderly, the lone parents, the unemployed think that isn't enough and in the last election Labour promised them more. No more now. The new Tory-like Labour slogan is 'welfare-to-work'.
Where the parties disagree, the differences seem not to matter. Labour is committed to devolution of power in Scotland and Wales, and to giving them their own parliaments. Major has said this could threaten the unity of the UK. Issues like this raise strong passions in India. In Britain few think this worth thinking about. That Scotland or Wales or even Northern Ireland may go their own way is a quaint question. Election is also the time for opposing parties to look at the economy. Labour predictably is attacking the Tories for "boom-bust stop-go economics which have bedevilled business and ruined family finances." Lab-our alleges an added £100 billion debt since 1992, and a large trade deficit despite a 20 per cent devaluation of the pound. But the Labour attacks do not negate some enviable economic achievements of the Tories.
Since 1992 the British economy has grown faster than any other major EU economy. It has lower unemployment than any major EU country. Britain has had its longest run of low inflation for 50 years. The motor industry production is the highest for 20 years. Sixteen of the 25 most profitable EU firms are British. Britain has begun to export more per head of population than the US and Japan. It is the number one destination for direct inward investment in the EU. Major has done well for Britain, and Britain has done well under Major. But now he could go, not because he failed but because the British are bored.