As one of the few 1983 election campaign veterans still in newspaper journalism, I can testify that Jeremy Corbyn is notably more hopeless even than the then Labour leader, Michael Foot. Foot won only 209 seats to Margaret Thatcher’s 397. I accompanied him on the stump. He was very, very bad, but he had at least been a senior Cabinet minister and was a charming man and, in his day (which, admittedly, was c. 1945), an excellent orator.
Corbyn is none of the above, and although he was one of the 209 — entering Parliament for the first time in that election — he seems to have learnt little from that experience. So I agree with the orthodoxy that almost nothing can lose this election for the Conservatives.
There is a key difference between 1983 and now, however, which is that voters knew a great deal about Thatcher. She had recently won the Falklands war and was busy turning the economy right side up.
They know remarkably little about Theresa May. This is partly by design. May is not the sort of politician who goes in for endless “This is who I am” speeches. She is reticent. People like this.
We have reacted heavily against the era in which Tony Blair, laboriously casual, walked out into Downing Street in his shirtsleeves carrying a mug of tea with pictures of his children on it. So much nicer to see Mr and Mrs May walking shyly down the path to church on Easter Day.
She is also the master of not saying things. Thatcher rose by speaking out, May by saying very little. Without a contest in her party or in the country, she became leader, and therefore Prime Minister, before you could say Nick Robinson. With so much luck that it amounts to skill, she has now cornered the market.
Uniquely in the western democracies, she is both the establishment candidate — leader of the largest, oldest political party; senior minister already in office; voted Remain — and the disruption candidate — speaking out for the neglected Somewheres; taking us out of the EU. This means that the number of people who feel absolutely bound to oppose her — hard-line Remainers, hard-line socialists, Scottish Nationalists, fans of Gerry Adams — probably amounts to no more than 25 per cent of the population, a very low fraction for a Tory leader.
It is therefore the duty of all those of us who don’t like cornered markets to see this election as our first, best chance to ask May plenty of difficult questions — even if we will probably end up voting for her. Our quest may not be easy, since May is refusing to take part in television debates. She is quite right to do so.
It fits with her reluctance to accept agendas dictated to her by the mighty media “citizens of Nowhere”: she is under no constitutional obligation to television networks. But it will entail extra work for her pursuers.
Here is a quick, unsystematic list of matters on which we do not know her views — the NHS, tax, Russia, Islamist ideology and subversion, the environment, defence strategy, international development and, which shows how clever she is, the EU itself. Even today, she has avoided telling us whether she is in favour of Brexit. All we know is that she says it will happen and that it will be a success.
To this could be appended a list of more philosophical questions about which her views are, so far, opaque. What is her attitude to freedom, a word which she rarely uses? Does she think free markets are the key to prosperity? If so, how can an “industrial strategy” achieve anything? Does she believe in universal human rights law? What is her overall view of government spending and borrowing in the age of unfavourable demographics? Would she call herself a Thatcherite? (I am also curious, because she gives away so little, to bombard her with personal questions: Does she consider herself a town or country mouse? Would she rather holiday in Europe or America? Does she read poetry? Does she prefer the car or the train? Does she put the milk in first?)
So far, May has tended to please Leavers without deeply offending Remainers (though her “citizen of nowhere” remark ruffled some). But in the course of this campaign, Remainers should try to make her answer questions which matter a lot to them. What, for example, about the EU rights of all British citizens which will soon be lost, such as the right to work and live anywhere in the Union?
When so much is at stake in the forthcoming negotiations, voters can reasonably object to giving her a blank cheque. Significant numbers might vote Liberal Democrat as their way of doing so. Elections are usually fought on competing views of tax.
Corbyn’s Labour is devoted to attacking the rich, thus unintentionally undermining the current tax base in which the top 5 per cent of earners furnish 50 per cent of income tax. This foolishness makes life incredibly easy for May. But she should be pressed hard. She has so far slapped down Treasury attempts to pick pockets — higher National Insurance on the self-employed, rises in probate fees of over 1,000 per cent. This leaves her with an uncomfortable choice between spending less and visibly increasing well-known taxes. What are her priorities? Does she stick with the recent Tory vote-catching habit of favouring older people or will she seek to improve economic opportunity by favouring the young?
If you are one of her “just about managing” people, which specific measures will help you manage better? What of immigration, to which, as home secretary, May devoted six years of mostly unsuccessful effort? She should be asked whether the net figure, dependent on the virtually uncontrollable factor of who is leaving as well as who is coming, is really the key benchmark. Since we have been promised the recovery of control, we need to be told who she thinks should come, and who shouldn’t. She has the power, denied to her recent predecessors, of deciding what Britain’s population should look like, so we need to know her preferences.
It is also permissible to question the record on which May came into the premiership. This year, after quite a long period in abeyance, knife crime has risen sharply in big cities. Critics say this is because May got rid of stop-and-search. What is her answer? Similarly, it was she, a home secretary in a tight corner, who hurriedly set up an inquiry into child abuse in high places, largely because of claims against senior politicians and others which sounded preposterous at the time and subsequently proved to be fantasy. It is now on its fourth choice as chairman, ending its third year, and running up a nine-figure bill, beset with false accusations, internal rows and impossible remits.
May acted in haste: does she now repent at leisure? Back in 1983, the Tory foreign secretary, Francis Pym, said on television that “Landslides don’t on the whole produce successful governments”. It was a silly remark from a Cabinet minister in a campaign, and he was duly chopped after the (landslide) victory.
But that doesn’t mean Pym was wrong. One could at least venture that if May wants a landslide, she must first prove she deserves it.
The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2017
Charles Moore has been editor of The Spectator, the Sunday Telegraph and The Daily Telegraph. He is the authorised biographer of Margaret Thatcher.
