The right had their hopes but Mr Clarke had bottle

Political Commentary

MANY years ago, an unfriendly critic accused me of having only two or maybe three subjects: the identity of the next leader of the Conservative or Labour Party, and the date of the next general election. I did not think this was entirely true at the time. Nor do I think it is today. But if it had been, and were still, I should not repine. For they are the subjects that constantly preoccupy our members of Parliament. Most of the time, they cannot talk about anything else.

Today nearly all Labour MPs dislike what Mr Tony Blair is doing to their party. But they think he is going to win the election for them. So they do not talk about a successor. In any case, in the People's Party, talk is what it mostly is. Since the formation of the party, the one forced resignation has been George Lansbury's in 1935.

Tories are different, both in the past and in the present. Mr John Major will, however, carry on till the election, subject only to the appearance of Mr Michael Heseltine, clad all in white, with spangles in his hair and carrying a wand with a glittering star at one end, saying: "I am the Queen of the Fairies, and will grant you your dearest wish." To which the Conservatives in the audience reply with one voice: "Just save us our seats, that's all."

But no theatre has as yet been firmly booked for this affecting spectacle. Mr Heseltine's appearance is a matter of speculation merely. Indeed, it would be surprising if Mr Major had arrived at any understanding that Mr Heseltine should take over if the Government continued to perform disastrously at by-elections and in the polls. Few aspects of last summer's campaign by the Prime Minister were more striking than his repetition of the formula that, if re-elected, he would serve up to, through and after the general election.

The other incantation which he kept repeating was that the Conservative Party was, historically, best led from right of centre. This sounds good but does not happen to be true. Stanley Baldwin, Winston Churchill and Harold Macmillan did not occupy precisely this position. It is often forgotten that in 1970 Sir Edward Heath did, to a greater degree than Baroness Thatcher in 1979, though she altered her stance later on. At a dinner last week, by the way, she was for the first time - I do not want to sound ungallant - looking her age, which is 70, with Sir Denis, at 80, appearing younger.

Mr Major would not have desribed himself as centre-right in 1990, whatever Lady Thatcher may have thought he was at the time. Indeed, at that period he used to say that his great hero was Iain Macleod. He certainly did not call himself centre-right during the 1992 election campaign. He categorised himself in this way five months ago for internal party consumption - and because, presumably, he thought it would also go down well with the wider electorate - rather than because it defined in any very exact manner his own political position. This remains as flexible today as it always has been.

In these circumstances, the Labour campaign to persuade the voters or, at any rate, the Westminster journalists that the Conservatives have suffered a "lurch to the right" is curious, to say the least. Mr Blair's advisers - for he now has advisers in much the same way as Her Majesty the Queen has them - nudge one another gleefully whenever the phrase is used on television or in the papers, as if they have just secured a notable triumph of public relations.

I cannot see it myself. For if Mr Major wishes it to be thought that he has moved to the right, why should the Labour Party be helping him to convince people that he has? I am afraid I should never be able to pass the examinations for membership of the Royal College of Spindoctors.

Moreover, the propaganda does not work. It would have been very difficult to represent Mr Kenneth Clarke's Budget as a movement to the right of any description. No one really tried. Mr Blair, in his reply, was constrained to depict it as a do-nothing, go-nowhere kind of budget which would not even win the Government the next election. Very well he seemed to be doing too on television, in a diminuendo kind of way, until Mr David Dimbleby cut him off to move to a studio discussion, promising to replay Mr Blair's performance later.

This was what Mr Dimbleby or, rather, his producer - for presenters are largely powerless in these matters - did last year, though on that occasion I do not remember any replay of Mr Blair. Yet this is not only an important speech. It is also the most difficult that any opposition politician has to make, because he or she is given no sight or hint in advance of the minister's script. The BBC behaved in the same crass way as it has before. Throughout the programme, indeed, speakers were silenced to allow the most banal comments to be superimposed upon their words.

The same kind of thing went on at the party conferences. Altogether the corporation's political coverage has deteriorated markedly over the last 15 years. The whole - some would say the only - glory of television is that it allows you to see and hear an event when it is happening, from Budget to rugby international. We do not want interminable explanations and comments from an array of "experts".

The political experts on and outside television tell us that Mr Clarke has not done enough either to win the election or to satisfy his backbenchers. They add that the election is not, however, likely to take place until 1997, perhaps not until May, the last possible month. I have argued before - or not so much argued as pointed out the truism - that the date of the election is no longer within the Prime Minister's unfettered discretion. Dissident bankbenchers, Ulster Unionists and the Grim Reaper himself may all play a part in next year's political events.

But assuming the Government can hold out until Mr Clarke (for it will probably still be Mr Clarke) delivers his next Budget, he will be seen to have done a good job. Several people have quoted Macleod in the last week. What he said was that a budget which was acclaimed at the time never looked so impressive six months later; while one which was denounced or received coolly often turned out in retrospect to have been rather good.

What Tuesday's Budget marked was, in my opinion, the political rehabilitation of Kenneth Clarke. The lack of response of the Health Police over the diminution in the price of a bottle not only of Scotch whisky but of all spirits was matched only by the sullen silence of the Tory right over the lack of any substantial tax cuts. We should remember that, to this section of the party, tax cuts are not merely a convenient way of helping them to retain their seats; if, indeed, they do perform this function. They are also an article of the true faith. In recent months ministers, even including Mr Malcolm Rifkind, and always including Mr Major, have surrendered successively to this faction. Mr Clarke has now had the courage to stand up to them. For this he deserves some credit.