Ken Livingstone: Let us hasten the historic decline of the Tories

'The Conservatives are in the extraordinary position of being cut off from big business'

Even among staunch Labour supporters, it is common to hear rumblings that another landslide for the Labour Party would be bad for progressive politics. I disagree. Contrary to those who have expressed their concerns, I believe a strong Labour victory would be good for politics as a whole.

The principal reason for returning Labour with a large majority is that ­ apart from a few seats where Labour is challenged by the smaller parties ­ reducing Labour's majority would mean returning more Tories to the Commons. That would mean returning more xenophobes, more men and women who despise asylum-seekers, more Europhobes and supporters of all sorts of barmy right-wing causes, and people who think Margaret Thatcher was actually a good thing. Any boost to such forces would be bad for politics.

The Tory party has been arriving at its current state of crisis for many years. The 18 years in which it was in government disguised the fact that it had been in historic decline for decades. Shortly after Mrs Thatcher's 1983 election triumph, while most political commentators were speculating whether the Tories could ever be beaten, anyone looking at the figures would have seen a very different scenario. Even in 1983, when the Tories appeared at their most dominant, the Conservatives actually won with a smaller share of the vote than they had lost with in 1964. They had travelled some way down from the 55 per cent of 1931, to the 42 per cent of 1983.

The modern Tory party had inexorably gained in strength throughout the latter half of the 19th century, successfully incorporating both the new manufacturing industrialists and the old landed aristocracy. It expanded from its base in the Home Counties and London suburbs, finally building strong bases in Scotland, Wales and Cornwall. It reached its high point in the mid-1930s. It achieved this rise as the dominant party of a rising and ultimately dominant world power. It expressed an extraordinary coalition of those who benefited from that status. At each election where it returned to power, it did so with a higher vote than at the previous election.

As Britain's role in the world has declined, British capital has adjusted to this new role. The components of the Tory party that were put together at the end of the 19th century and the start of the 20th were gradually disentangled. The Tory party no longer held a monopoly as the representative of modernising business. This is the reason why the Tory party is now in the extraordinary position of being cut off from large parts of the City of London and big business, who know there is no future for them outside the emerging eurozone.

Since 1935, each time the Tories have returned to power they have done so with a lower vote than on the previous occasion. Each time it has lost power, the Conservative Party has done so with a worse vote than at its previous loss of office. In a mirror image of its expansion, the Tory collapse means it now holds not one seat in Scotland, Wales or Cornwall.

The most progressive thing that can be done on polling day is to keep the Tories in disarray. Reducing the Conservative Party to a parliamentary rump for the second time would isolate the backward forces they have now been boiled down to. Consequently, re-electing the Government with a large, even landslide, majority would be good for politics.

None of this is to say that I think a Labour landslide is guaranteed or even likely. On the contrary, New Labour has spent four years in government presiding over a decline in active support from its own core voters. But this constituency should still make common cause with Tony Blair so that Thursday night and Friday morning are as bad as possible for the Tory party.

My own feeling is that the political situation over the last four years has been characterised by the inevitable caution that flows from avoiding doing anything that might assist in a Tory revival. With the Tories roundly beaten, it is more likely that there will be a good and serious discussion of how to deliver the best possible policies and public services for the vast majority.

Following my canvassing for Labour candidates in seats as diverse as Hackney North and Stoke Newington, and Putney, I am convinced the public is giving the Government a second chance, but it expects big improvements in public services. I think, having noted the reception on the doorstep, Labour MPs will be bolder in this Parliament than they were in the last. They will be conscious that the public has been patient and the Government must now move into delivery mode.

Of course, any landslide brings its downside. Most obviously, a huge majority combined with the compliance of back-bench MPs to the dictates of the whips builds in the potential for overly strong government. But I am optimistic that a big Labour victory on Friday morning will be good news for British politics, which is why I have no qualms at all in looking forward to the Labour landslide William Hague is so desperately trying to stop.