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- guardian.co.uk, Sunday 3 June 2001 03.26 BST
This from the woman who turned the Conservative Party into the Cult of Maggie, a hijacking which has since disabled the Tories and made the lives of her successors impossible. This from Tina, There Is No Alternative, the woman whose landslide governments crawled with cronies and creeped with ciphers. This from One Of Us, from On And On, the woman for whom 10 years as Prime Minister was not enough. This from She Who Must Be Obeyed, the woman who became so bloated with power that in the end her own Cabinet had to administer the lethal shot of rhino tranquilliser. Fetch a doctor before I die laughing.
And yet, and yet... this can't be denied. The old monstress touches her claw on the issue of the moment. Between now and Thursday, the question for Britain is not whether the country is going to give a second term to Tony Blair. That is decided. Even William Hague, a man who blinks into the camera with the dead-pool eyes of a boxer who has been hit once too often, knows that New Labour will win. The important question is just how large a victory that is going to be.
There is no doubt that landslides can be bad for governments. Thatcher's own second landslide led to the folly of the poll tax and the alienation of senior colleagues, the combination that ultimately toppled her peacock throne. Those who believe that Tony Blair runs a smug, swollen-headed regime, far too contemptuous already of public opinion, will have made up their minds to try to curb a second large victory.
The Prime Minister's anxiety is that the polling predictions of a landslide may paradoxically militate against it happening by inducing complacency among Labour supporters and rousing opponents to the ballot boxes. It is not just Tories who will vote against a Labour double crusher. There are many on the Left saying that this government would be greatly improved by an unexpected kick in the ballots. They can vote Liberal Democrat everywhere or Nationalist in Scotland and Wales or not vote at all to make their point. If too many of them do it, they take the risk of making the point all too well.
Myself, I don't think that New Labour's problem has been overweening conceit, but rather the reverse. Sure, they have often appeared to behave arrogantly. Even as they cruise to one of the most assured victories in the history of electoral politics, there have been spasms of bullying. That control-freakery is the bastard child of insecurity.
New Labour's abiding flaw during its first term has been neuroticism. This government has expended megawatts of nervous energy looking over its shoulder at Labour's past failures rather than driving ahead. That is why they bound themselves into the Tory spending corset for the first two years - to prove that Labour would not wreck the economy. That is why Tony Blair tried - fruitlessly - to fix devolution in London and Wales: he wouldn't give the horse a little free rein for fear that it would throw him off. That is why New Labour has so often governed not for the long-term, but for the next morning's headline. That is why it has too often set its sail by the fickle breezes of the focus groups and the blustering winds of the tabloids.
Recall the notorious memo written a year ago in the leader's own hand bemoaning how he was 'perceived as soft' on crime, asylum and the family and demanding an 'eyecatching initiative' for the headline writers. The handicap of New Labour has not been that it has ignored public opinion; it is that it has frequently been paralysed by terror of losing popularity. The problem at the heart of New Labour has not been over-confidence, but too little confidence. Tony Blair has rarely ruled as if he had a landslide. His has been the white-knuckle grip of someone who fears power might be snatched from his fragile fingers.
I can see why the likes of Roy Hattersley imagine it would be no bad thing to contain Tony Blair's majority. The Government would have to pay more attention to parliamentary scrutiny. New Labour's draconian tendency towards civil liberties would be easier to curb by backbenchers of independent spirit.
What is a dangerous delusion among some on the Left is the belief that New Labour might somehow be driven into a much more socialist position were Mr Blair's majority to be sharply cut back. The much likelier result is that he would be even more neuralgic about the media and even more prone to appease the forces of the Right.
Tony Blair is nearly always the more impressive when he allows the confident side of his character to shine. Sparkle it has during this election. The Blair on display today is a very different man to the leader of the last campaign. The Prime Minister looks and sounds as though he has been liberated from his nerves. In 1997, he fought a twitchy campaign on a timorous manifesto which was loaded with reassurances that he was safe to choose because he would not change all that much. In the four years since, the Government has been driven by a defensive preoccupation to prove that it was competent to run the country, especially the economy.
'The second phase of New Labour will be defined less by the contrast with Old Labour, and more by what we want the nation to become,' said Tony Blair in one of his key campaign speeches. Last time, he defined himself against the Left; this time, his ideological definition comes from opposing himself to the Right.
The reorientation of his attitude towards Margaret Thatcher is striking. 'Today's Conservatives seem unable to shake off the shadow of Thatcherism,' says Mr Blair. 'But it is now clearer than ever what were the weaknesses of the Eighties.' Well, to many people it was always pretty clear. It is Tony Blair who has taken time to shake off the shadow of Thatcherism. Not so long ago, he would never have sanctioned using the baroness as a mocking stick with which to thwack the Conservatives. The Millbank attack ad plonking a Thatcher hairdo on William Hague's pate speaks to the transformation in Tony Blair.
During the campaign four years ago, caution was the watchword of a leader who was scared that bold talk would cost votes. By the climax of this campaign, the Prime Minister will have delivered seven big speeches, deliberately designed as the spine of the mandate for more radical change he will claim from his victory.
He has spoken more honestly, if not with total candour, about his belief that Britain's destiny must be at the heart of Europe. In his encounters with the voters, he has relentlessly made the case for spending on public services. This is the most dramatic shift. In 1997, Blair and Gordon Brown went to excruciating pains to boast about how little they were going to spend. That contest was still fought on Conservative ground. This is the first election of my adult life in which the Tories are on the intellectual backfoot. Labour is making the case for spending over Tory tax cuts. And has won the argument. That is a massive movement in the terms of political trade to the advantage of the progressives. This sea change makes this election much more significant than the last one.
This is the election at which Britain will at last make the decisive break with the Thatcherite ideology that there is no such thing as society. The lady is for overturning. Now you understand why Margaret Thatcher is so terrified of a New Labour landslide. It will finally bury her.
Also by Andrew Rawnsley
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