History of England 1-6

But if 1993 was hard for the government, the previous year had been troublesome for an institution once thought unassailable. In 1992, Princess Anne divorced Captain Mark Phillips, the Duke and Duchess of York separated, Major announced the separation of Charles and Diana in the House of Commons, and Windsor Castle was devastated by fire. To these dramatic events may be added a slew of photographs, taped recordings and television revelations, all of which were damaging to the monarchy. The queen herself summed up her feelings in an after-dinner speech towards the end of the year. It had been, she said, an ‘annus horribilis’.

If the Tories under Major had stinted on bread, they had been more niggardly still in providing circuses. This was to change in 1994. The English had traditionally baulked at the idea of lotteries. Now, in the aftermath of recession, the advantages both to the nation and to the Tory party seemed obvious; all was grey, and a ‘flutter’ might provide some much-needed gaiety. It might also provide a novel source of revenue, as its critics felt bound to remark. On 7 November, John Major inaugurated the National Lottery, and with it a custom previously thought the preserve of those unfathomable continentals. And if it was, in some measure, a ‘stealth tax’, it was one that benefited the arts, the sciences and the lucky few who won.

It was in 1994, too, that the last great privatization came into force. The days had long passed when the railways were Britain’s boast. The system was complex beyond utility, the machinery archaic, the service indifferent. British Rail was seen as the last great nationalized behemoth and its privatization was trumpeted as a Thatcherite stroke against inefficiency and state planning. Less advertised was the fact that the move was in part the result of an EU directive. The result was a bewildering array of individual companies, each with supposedly discrete responsibilities. That the privatization would improve the rail service was doubted at the time, and the doubts remain. It seemed to many that Major could not get it right.

It was sadly ironic that this supremely conciliatory man should have presided over a cabinet more deeply divided than any in modern memory. Michael Portillo recalled telling Major that he and other Eurosceptics would accept even their own dismissal if unity could be achieved. He could perhaps have played Heseltine to Major’s Thatcher but did not take the role. In any case, Major assured him, he would never sack Portillo himself.

The reputation of the Tories for economic omniscience had been damaged by ‘Black Wednesday’, but there was no reason for them to despair. The recession had ended, and even ‘Tory sleaze’, the catchphrase of the time, did the Conservatives little harm. For after all, was there any alternative? The generation that remembered the Seventies was still politically alert. The Labour party represented, it seemed, a fast-vanishing constituency. The aspirant working class had long ago settled behind the Thatcherite banner, their ardour for political change dampened by affluence. If there was to be a successful counter-revolution, it would have to find its recruits elsewhere.

59

Put up or shut up

In the election of 1983, a young barrister named Anthony Blair had won the seat of Sedgefield. The man forever associated with the modernizing wing of Labour entered parliament just as the country rejected its socialist wing. As a comparative newcomer, Blair saw that there was no future in that faith, at least not for the British Labour party. It was fruitless, he felt, merely to rail against Thatcherism. The British had elected Thatcher three times, even while rather disliking her; clearly she was getting something right. Thatcherism must be understood and learned from – even, if necessary, emulated. He knew that any change in the party must be radical; pruning would not serve. Under the leadership of John Smith, he ensured that the block vote previously enjoyed by the unions should be replaced by ‘one man, one vote’. In democratizing the unions, Thatcher had demoralized them; in democratizing the Labour party at the expense of the unions, Blair sought to revivify it. It was the first of several links with Labour’s past to be snapped beyond mending.