PERFORMANCE IS THE ISSUE

by RAY FLEMING
WHEN Michael Howard put his post-dated resignation on the table immediately after he had lost the general election earlier this year I praised him in this space for the decisiveness and promptness of his action. Since then, however, there has been nothing but criticism in the British media and in much of the Conservative Party for the way in which he chose to make his exit. I was glad therefore to see Mr Howard make a strong defence of his position in a newspaper interview he gave yesterday in which he pointed out that if he had “just hung around in some sort of limbo” he would have been repeatedly asked whether he intended to stay on to fight the next election when he knew that he wouldn't. However, Mr Howard's contention in the interview that the Tories will find it difficult to win power again until there is a decline in the economy seems to me to be a counsel of despair. “Only a slump can return us to power, says Howard” was the headline version of what he said and it was a pretty accurate summary, although he was also careful to say that he didn't want the British people to suffer economically. So, really, he believes that if Labour keeps the economy on track the Conservatives will never return to office. There is a deep defeatism in such an outlook and it is therefore better that Mr Howard should be departing soon. There has never been a time when Britain needed an effective opposition more than it does at the moment. Furthermore, the Labour government is likely to be in its weakest state as the transition is made from Blair to Brown, with all the internal ructions that it will cause, and as the electorate comes to realise after twelve years that Labour has been a party of promises but not of delivery. With policies quite closely aligned between the two parties what matters is performance and Labour will be vulnerable on that issue if it is subjected to a heavyweight attack of the kind that Kenneth Clarke can deliver.