Allan Massie: Bad case of the mid-term blues for tired Tories

WITH Boris baiting in the wings, an EU timebomb ticking, and even the party faithful losing faith, the Prime Minister has very little to smile about, writes Allan Massie.

Mid-term party conferences tend to be awkward for governments. They often find themselves lagging behind the opposition in the polls. Policies launched in the early days in office are not yet bearing fruit. Disgruntled back-benchers are muttering about the leadership. There may be little that can be done about all this. “Steady as she goes” is perhaps the only possible message; it is hardly an inspiring or encouraging one.

On Monday, the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave a speech which could only be described as a holding action. There was no talk of bright sunlit uplands, no mention of growth prospects. For this relief, veteran observers, recalling the Heath government’s “dash for growth” in the early Seventies, may say, much thanks. But it is scarcely the stuff to rally the troops.

To make matters worse for David Cameron, an alternative leader is waiting in the wings. The Mayor of London protests his loyalty, while shouting his wares loudly. He is a popular figure, one of those rare politicians who is recognised by his Christian name alone. Looming large over the conference, Boris is in a happy position, the Pretender to the throne who is free of the burden of responsibility. Yet he is, for Cameron, no more than a noisy irritant and distraction at present. He is not an MP and so cannot currently offer a leadership challenge. Indeed, there are advantages for Cameron in having his most dangerous rival on the outside looking in.

At last week’s Labour Conference, Ed Miliband sought to address his words to the people beyond the hall. That was why he spoke all that “One Nation” stuff. He was trying to persuade us that Labour is something more than the party of the public sector. He knows that Labour has a core vote which is solid. He also knows that the core vote is not enough. Hence, his speech.

Cameron’s position is different. Of course the core Tory vote is, like Labour’s, not enough to win a majority. The core vote for either party probably falls a bit short of a third of the electorate. The Conservatives got more seats than Labour in 2010 with 36 per cent of the vote; Labour won a majority in 2005 with 35 per cent. Both parties have to do more than appeal to the faithful. David Cameron however, unlike Miliband, is in the uncomfortable position of finding that the faithful are not very faithful. Fraser Nelson, editor of The Spectator and a former political editor of this newspaper, wrote an article last week with the heading “Dave’s going down”, and the sub-heading “Drift and disillusionment will lose Cameron the next election”. Note the personalisation: Cameron, not the party, is to be held responsible for the position the Tories find themselves in. Or Cameron and Osborne. “Embarrassingly,” Nelson wrote, “a Chancellor who defines himself by deficit reduction is now set to enter the 2015 election nursing the biggest deficit in the western world.”

Well, Osborne’s speech did nothing to allay the Party’s fears that the economy may scarcely have edged out of recession by the time of the election. So the Prime Minister has to find some way to drum up enthusiasm. Everyone knows that a large section of the Tory Party is obsessed with Europe and loathes the EU. To my mind many of them are a touch, or more than a touch, deranged on the subject. Be that as it may, they are in terror of losing votes to Ukip – and that terror will intensify when the usual low turn-out at the next European Parliament elections sees Ukip doing rather well, and perhaps better than the Tories themselves as it scoops up votes from the disillusioned drifters.

So Cameron is addressing the issue, but doing so cagily. On the one hand he has no desire for Britain to leave the EU. On the other he believes that as the countries in the eurozone move towards the closer integration needed “to save the single currency”, there will be an opportunity “for Britain to get a fresh and a better settlement” of our position in the EU. He says he is committed to getting that settlement and putting it to the country in a referendum or at a general election, adding that the referendum is the cleanest, neatest, simplest and most sensible way of securing the electorate’s consent.

So there is to be no in/out referendum. This may not appease his critics in the party, but, if they are sensible, they will settle for it; first, because the promise, or threat, of a referendum improves Cameron’s chances of getting the settlement he speaks of; and second, because if that settlement was not approved, an in/out referendum would surely be inescapable.

Then, to please the troops and bolster his flagging support, Cameron has turned to that old Tory reliable: tough on crime. The man who once urged us to “hug a hoodie” is now encouraging us to biff a burglar. His justice minister, Chris Grayling, is happy to play the law and order card, always rewarded with a Tory cheer. The wording of the law (in England) on dealing with burglars, which at present allows you only to use “proportionate force”, is to be changed to permit you to use any force which is not – wait for it – “disproportionate”. What is “proportionate” and what “disproportionate”? No point asking a policeman. The judgment will be made, first, by the Crown Prosecution Service, and then, perhaps, by a judge. Nevertheless, the Tory faithful may be cheered by the thought that you may not be prosecuted if you lay out a burglar with a frying-pan or even shoot him – provided you do so with a licensed weapon which has been stored in a gun cabinet. It seems unlikely that many burglars will be shot by such guns, but the possibility will bring smiles to many Tory faces.

And at this stage in the electoral cycle this is really all that matters. As to the election itself, everyone knows that the Tories’ hope of victory rests in the ability of George Osborne somehow to steer the economy out of recession into something that looks like happier times. Can he do so? I haven’t a clue, and I doubt if he has one either. Still, like Mr Micawber, he hopes “something will turn up”.