Tremble, Tory MPs

 

No party ever prepares for opposition.

Even predictable defeats are a shock and a trigger for prolonged misery. Nigel Fletcher’s book ‘How to be in opposition’ is a tale of years of arid futility occasionally enlivened by minor triumphs. Heroes of past oppositions are described for our admiration and encouragement. Neil Kinnock and Gillian Shephard write revealing accounts of using opposition to reshape parties into governments in waiting.

Neil Kinnock’s chapter is pain–wracked. He still smarts from the suicidal bent of the Labour Party when he was leader. ‘Self-inflicted wounds in politics are the ones that turn septic most quickly, and where gangrene sets in’.  Purging the Shibboleths of Labour's past was his prime and most difficult task. He rightly takes pride in his achievement. But he admits he failed in an opposition’s leader main task of getting out of opposition. He fairly observes, ‘I made the party electable, Tony Blair got the party elected. There’s a hell of a difference’.  

Gillian Shephard eloquently describes the desolation of losing office. She felt crushed by a sense of nostra culpa and powerlessness after the crushing defeat of 1997. Soon she recovered and found ‘opportunities for renaissance.’  John MacGregor urged a policy of keeping the Government up night after night. He claimed that defeat through exhaustion worked in the seventies. That cheered her up. But few notice the Pyrrhic victories of the Tory army that was invisible to the media and public.

The progress of Opposition Leaders to elevate their status has been slow. Churchill had the greatest difficulty in adjusting from the collapse of his high status. As Opposition Leader he demanded inclusion in Government Defence decisions and foreign visits. He threatened to publish private correspondence to embarrass the new premier Attlee. Clem replied that such contacts might impose on the war-time leader a ‘most unwelcome restraint’ on his ability to speak freely. Churchill was persuaded. 

Labour opposition whip Bob Mellish was outraged to see the man who had been Prime Minister a few weeks earlier standing in the taxi queue at Members’ Entrance. The new Government’s Chief Whip avoided further indignity for Harold Wilson and provided him with a Government car. This remains the Opposition Leaders most obvious sign of status. David Cameron’s use of taxpayer-paid driver embarrassed him when a PQ revealed that cycling Cameron was followed by a car containing his briefcase, shoes and shirt.  

Humiliation has been routine for opposition leaders. Harold Wilson, Margaret Thatcher and Neil Kinnock suffered embarrassment on foreign visits after hostile briefing from Governments. At home indignities were heaped on them.

So cramped and confined was Mrs. Thatcher ‘airless' office, her secretaries had to sit on the floor to sort correspondence. John Major dealt with his correspondence from his home because initially he had no office. 

Opposition leaders have gradually gained status. Clement Attlee was the first to be provided with an opposition leader’s salary from Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin. But it was Labour’s Edward Short who introduced much needed cash for research staff that partly bridged the gap between a few Opposition’s researchers and Government's mighty resources of the Civil Service. Short money is now worth a comforting £5.2 million to the Labour Party and £145,000 for the next largest party the SNP

The author Nigel Fletcher is the founder of the Centre for Opposition Studies. His confessions of his media manipulation as a Tory foot soldier should be be compulsory reading by Labour. Planting stories of the "Government spend £millions on pot plants" type is cumulatively corrosive.

This collection of essays omits the role of constructive individual backbenchers often acting in opposition to their own parties. In the last parliament Bob Marshall Andrews brilliantly forged alliances with Tory MPs that shook Government morale. Supreme backbencher Leo Abse relied on all-party backing for his daring legislation initiatives.

Eric Forth, Bob Cryer and Dennis Skinner successfully ran their own opposition offensives outside of the bounds of their own parties. Eric Forth in 2000 summoned enough speakers to keep a debate going until 2.30 p.m the following day. It wreaked a day’s business in which Tony Blair intended to celebrate his first thousand days in power.

Conservative MPs in the present parliament may dread the prospect of Labour MPs replicating the guerilla tactics of Eric Forth and David Maclean. In 1999 Forth divided the House on nine inconsequential motions on Statutory Instruments. Night after night, hundreds of exhausted Labour MPs were kept in Westminster for possible votes that often never materialised. The flamboyantly dressed Forth was described as 'Dennis Skinner in drag' by an infuriated Labour MP. He was spurred on by this abuse into more torment by legislative vandalism. 

In the 70s Labour's James Wellbeloved succeeded with similar tactics in order 'To knock the stuffing out of government backbenchers'. Is a revival due? 

Tory MPs, read and tremble.

 

 

 

Comments

[Nigel Fletcher]

Many thanks for your kind comments - I'm glad you found the book interesting. Your point about the role of backbench opposition is certainly valid, and I think that should be the subject of further study. Oh, and one small point - I'm Nigel Fletcher, not Fisher (in your third sentence). Best wishes,

[Paul Flynn]

Sorry about the name mix-up. I think I am entirely guilty. It was only on the blog. The spelling was correct in the House magazine. Sorry the final version did not do you enough credit. There was a longer version that I invited the House Magazine to slash and trim. They did. I thoroughly enjoyed the books which was full of surprises even for a plolitical nerd. I knew nothing about your work in this neglected area of how to be an effective opposition. David Miliband asked me a year ago what it was like in opposition to the Tories after being in opposition to my own party for so long.

If you in the House sometime, please drop in or give me a call so that I can buy you a wholesome drink or two,

Paul Flynn

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