Comparing the current state of the Labour party with the Tories under John Major has become somewhat de rigueur since the government was defeated on its plans for 90-day detention with the help of 49 of its own backbench MPs.
According to the theory, Labour MPs are possessed with a death wish similar to that which befell the Tories in the 1990s. Tired of seeing the prime minister get his own way, and bolstered by the government’s defeat on the 90 days, they are now determined to wreck the remainder of the government’s public service reform agenda in a mindless fit of self-destruction.
Meanwhile, a youthful David Cameron and rejuvenated Tory party wait in the wings to resume the seat of government. To the delight of the comment editors, history repeats itself, and Steve Bell’s Blair promptly dons a pair of Y-fronts.
While the comparison between Blair and Major may make quick and easy copy, however, it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Major presided over a party – and indeed a government – that was bitterly divided over the legacy of his predecessor and Britain’s relationship to the EU (an issue on which Major suffered two of his four legislative defeats and over which he was forced to call two votes of confidence). Furthermore, from the outset Major’s government was beset by a series of personal and political scandals that, from BSE to back to basics, sealed his administration’s reputation for incompetence and impropriety. Consequently, following the debacle of the ERM crisis in 1992 and up to the party’s crushing defeat in the 1997 general election, the Tories were never less than 10 points behind Labour in the opinion polls.
Labour’s situation in 2005 is very different. It suffers from none of the deep ideological divisions that afflicted the Tories in the1990s and its reputation for competence is largely in tact. The most recent opinion poll has the Tories creeping just ahead of Labour, in spite of the positive media the Tories have enjoyed on the back of their leadership election.
Defenders of the Blair/Major comparison argue that it is not broad political context but the precise totting up of parliamentary votes that is important. According to Philip Cowley, much-cited author of The Rebels, with a majority of only 67 and with 60 MPs with previous ‘form’ (ie who rebelled on ten or more occasions between 2001 and 2005) on the backbenches, the government is effectively ‘in office, but not in power’, a conclusion echoing Norman Lamont’s assessment of Major’s government on his resignation in 1993.
There is no guarantee, of course, that the government will not suffer another defeat on its legislative agenda at the hands of the Labour rebels. Nonetheless, Cowley’s assessment is overly fatalistic. First, the government possesses a majority more than three times that of Major’s 21. And, unlike the Tories in the 1990s, who, after over a decade in power, took government for-granted, the memory of 18 years in the political wilderness is still fresh in the memories of most Labour MPs.
Second, the government’s proposed education and welfare reforms, unlike the 90 days, were manifesto commitments on which Labour was specifically re-elected. Also, whilst the 90 days was in many ways an ‘all-or-nothing’ issue, by its nature public service reform is an incremental process open to compromise and negotiation on both sides. The government is currently making a particular effort to address backbenchers’ concerns and there are signs it may be willing to compromise on some aspects of its proposals.
Third, the other side to the story of the Tories’ demise and defeat in the 1990s is the renewal and modernisation of the Labour party under the successive leaderships of Neil Kinnock, John Smith and Tony Blair. While Cameron may talk like a moderniser, there is little indication however, as yet, that he will be able to make the necessary changes to his party to return it to electability. The Tories under Cameron show every sign of being as divided – on Europe, on the role of the state, and on their Thatcherite legacy – as they were under his predecessors. As divided, in fact, as they were under the last Conservative prime minister.