Labouring through the campaign

Labour looks set for a second term in office. Yet, the Tory campaign has been surprisingly competitive. HASAN SUROOR on the British poll scene.

BRITAIN GOES to the polls on June 7 and barring a miracle, which even diehard Tory supporters do not anticipate, Labour looks set for a second term in office. Yet, for an election which is so palpably one-sided, the campaign has been surprisingly competitive and with the Tories getting off to what many thought was a pretty good start, Labour, in fact, seemed to be floundering at one stage. The first week was particularly tormenting for Labour as it found itself outsmarted in the very departments which are supposed to be its forte - strategy and presentation.

First was the fiasco over the campaign launch itself with the Prime Minister, Mr. Tony Blair, choosing a girls' school to make his first election speech in an embarrassingly evangelical style. The move backfired with the Tories accusing him of ``exploiting'' a state-funded school for partisan party propaganda, and even Labour supporters thought the party had gone over the top in its bid to project him as a ``people's leader''. The pro-Labour Guardian was scathing saying the event ``stank of the spinmaster's sweat'' while another Labour sympathiser, Mr. Peter Riddell of The Times, said it reminded him of what was most objectionable about New Labour: ``its obsession with symbols and presentation''. If Mr. Blair really wanted to have a ``dialogue with voters he should drop the artifice'', he said.

Its next - and more serious - mistake was to delay its manifesto which allowed the Tories to seize the initiative. Within hours of the announcement of the election, the Tories were out with their manifesto promising a heady cocktail of tax cuts and improved public services. It was an absurd proposition and anyone could see that the sums did not add up. Observers were surprised when Labour walked straight into the Tories' trap by adopting a defensive posture.

Senior Labour MP and a party veteran, Mr. Roy Hattersley, was puzzled why given the ``absurdity'' of the Tory proposal - a tax cut of œ 8 billions without affecting public spending - Labour chose to follow the tax agenda, rather than shift the debate to issues more comfortable. ``A radical party should never be on the defensive'', he pointed out.

The poor start to the Labour campaign has triggered a blame game with the Blairites accusing the Chancellor, Mr. Gordon Brown, a Blair rival and incharge of the campaign, of messing things up. It is said the party is sorely missing the creative touch of Mr. Peter Mandelson, a Blair loyalist who ran its highly successful campaign in 1997. For Mr. Mandelson, who has been in political wilderness since his exit from the Government over the Hindujas' passport affair, there is suddenly light at the end of the tunnel; and at the first hint he struck. In newspaper interviews, he criticised Labour strategists - mostly his opponents - for relying too much on ``the well-worn methods of campaigning, message delivery and rebuttal.'' Stories about tensions in the party are the last thing Labour needs at this stage but for once its media management skills seem to have deserted it; and it is not helping matters by alienating those in the media it regards as its critics.

None of this has, however, dented Labour's commanding lead in opinion polls and even the never-say-die Baroness Thatcher, who famously claimed that she ``never lost'', acknowledges that Mr. William Hague faces a ``mountain''. His own father has ruled out a Conservative victory, and a Hague biographer says that he will be lucky even to hold on to the leadership of the party ``because that is the battle he will face afterwards''.

Voter apathy is Labour's only worry, but only to the extent that a low turnout can reduce its victory margin though The Sun, which is supporting it with the zeal of a neo-convert, maintains that Mr. Blair will in fact return with a bigger majority. Yet, opinion polls can go horribly wrong - and that is what the Tories are banking on, at least for public consumption. ``All my plans are for victory,'' Mr. Hague says harping on 1978 when Sir Edward Heath had the pollsters on the run with his party's shock victory in a general election that everyone thought was in Labour's pocket. The Tories' constant refrain is that opinion polls are no substitute for ``real'' voters, voting on ``real'' issues on the ``real'' polling day.

Meanwhile, as the campaign enters the third week, the economy is emerging as the major issue with focus on tax. While the Tories are promising lower taxes, Labour says it will not raise the basic rate of income tax and will spend a lot more on public services than it did in its first term in office. The Liberal Democrats, on the other hand, are telling people that if they want better services they must be willing to pay for them - and their manifesto proposes a nominal increase in income tax. Europe is another issue that is beginning to emerge with the Tories particularly keen on pushing it, claiming that ``70 per cent'' of the people are opposed to Labour's pro-Europe line. But not many think it is a vote-catching issue - certainly not to the same degree as crime and asylum.In the end, however, an image that is likely to linger on long after the elections are over is of the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr. John Prescott, hitting a protestor for throwing an egg at him. For many, this was the lowest point of the campaign.

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