At the time of writing, no one knows the result of this election. Whatever it happens to be, one must salute David Cameron for his courage in being the first party leader in modern times to fly to Northern Ireland during the campaign to try to unite the politics of the whole of the United Kingdom with those of the province. In this, he defies the might of establishment opinion, and strikes a blow for party democracy. His virtue deserves to be rewarded, should any coalition deals need to be done.
Unlike many commentators, I have found this election campaign highly enjoyable, but, as it ends, I do rejoice at the thought of hearing rather less of the following:
1. (a favourite of Nick Clegg, this one) ‘Don’t let anyone tell you that…’ This is usually followed by something that no one was ever very likely to tell you eg ‘the British people aren’t equal to the challenge’.
2. ‘Hard-working families.’ Are we? And if we are, is that a good thing for family life?
3. ‘The British people deserve better.’ Do we?
4. (always shouted self-righteously) ‘Yes or no?’
5. ‘We must protect the front line.’ Why won’t anyone stand up for ‘pen-pushers’, ‘bean-counters’ and ‘faceless bureaucrats’? After all, they make up the majority of the electorate.
6. ‘They’re all the same.’ Perhaps, but not half as much as are the people who love saying this.
7. The suggestion that carers are ‘unsung heroes and heroines’ who, because they do not do what they do for money, should be paid.
8. Anything ending in ‘-gate’.
It is rumoured that the Liberal Democrats are planning a symbolic parliamentary coup if they get more votes but fewer seats than Labour. They will hurry into the Chamber of the House of Commons and occupy the opposition front bench. Since the seating arrangements are governed by convention rather than by law, it would be extremely interesting to see what would happen next.
One of my tasks in the campaign has been to review its coverage on the broadcast media. Because the three leaders’ debates, and Mrs Gillian Duffy, bulked so large, I never got round to the hoary old question of bias. In strict terms of party balance, the main channels are pretty scrupulous. It is quite easy, after all, to stick to rules about the amount of time allotted to each. Given that it now has to take minor parties more seriously, too, the BBC has managed this quite well, putting in little mentions now and again of the Nationalists, and doing proper interviews with the leader of Ukip, and even with those of extremist parties like the Greens and the BNP. Where I have felt the bias is very strong is against a certain sort of voter who is more likely, on average, to vote Tory or Ukip than anything else. Almost all broadcast questions accuse the party under the spotlight of planning ‘savage’ cuts. But most voters are taxpayers, and although most of us use some public services which we value, many of us are absolutely longing for cuts. It is incredibly rare for this point to be heard. Why have the politicians not been challenged to justify the waste, the 100 per cent increase in health service managers since 1997, the ‘flexible’ working which gives such privileges to public sector employees etc? Why have they not been grilled for refusing to promise that all public sector pensions will in future become contributory, and be paid no earlier than those in the private sector? Why is international development, the most bloated and arbitrary of all government departments, sacrosanct? Why do students still pay so little towards the cost of the education which, if it is worth having at all, gives them such an advantage in life? It is easy to see why the politicians wish to avoid these subjects, but indefensible that the broadcasters do not raise them.
Two footnotes of social observation to the affair of Gordon Brown and Mrs Duffy. As soon as I heard the tape of the Prime Minister referring to ‘that woman’, I knew — even before he had called her ‘bigoted’ — that he was in trouble. The phrase ‘that woman’ is curiously insulting, as was apparent when Bill Clinton used it of Monica Lewinsky. For someone of Mrs Duffy’s class and age, it is particularly so. Sure enough, she told the Mail on Sunday that it was this reference, above all, which had upset her. Why had he not referred to her as a ‘lady’, she wanted to know. It is only upper-class and upper-middle-class people, and feminists, who think it right to use the word ‘woman’ of a particular person in conversation. To everyone else, the word is considered rude.
The second footnote is that Mrs Duffy, like many people from Lancashire, is of a Catholic family. Obviously Mr Brown was not to know this when, in what he thought was the safety of the car, he called her ‘bigoted’. But when he went to see her in her house afterwards, he told her that his father had been a Presbyterian minister. This was said to impress upon her his devotion to ‘family values’. But funnily enough, Catholics who have been called bigots by Presbyterians tend not to like it. Mr Brown, who is certainly no religious bigot himself, has done a good deal to seek out the ‘Catholic vote’ in this election. It is a subset of his core support which he is losing, and last week in Rochdale, he lost it.
Readers may remember this column’s revelation that Cherie Blair and Lord Mandelson of Hartlepool and Foy had both — though at different times — been guests of Lord Rothschild at a part of the weekend last year when he gave a shooting party attended by Saif, son of the Libyan dictator, Colonel Gaddafi. Now, I gather, Lord Rothschild has hung a cartoon in his lavatory at Eythrope in Buckinghamshire (there must be a neater way of putting this: obviously he has more than one lavatory in Buckinghamshire). It depicts Mrs Blair and Lord Mandelson dressed in shooting kit, carrying guns. Each has shot him- or herself in the foot. Lord Mandelson, I gather, has taken all this in good part, and asked for a copy of the cartoon. But I should warn Lord Rothschild to be careful of Mrs Blair’s sensitivity. Her lawyers have written frequently and menacingly to the editor of this paper, pointing out that Mrs Blair had nothing to do with any shooting and never met Gaddafi. Will she now sue her former host? For the avoidance of doubt (as lawyers like to put it), let me hereby repeat that I am not asserting, and have never asserted, that Mrs Blair has ever shot, or tried to shoot, anything, anyone, or herself.
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