Over the last few months, amongst the chattering classes at any rate, it has become taken for granted that the Conservatives will win the next election. There has been some discussion about the size of the majority and, amongst Tory supporters, a considerable amount of schadenfreude as they list the Labour cabinet ministers who will lose their seats. But no one entertains the prospect that Labour might pull off an astonishing fourth victory.
It is strangely reminiscent of the run up to the general election of 1992. No one considered the possibility of a Conservative win. John Major had been written off. Robert Harris wrote an entertaining piece in the Sunday Times which started, “Right, that’s it. Unless Colonel Gaddafi kidnaps Dame Vera Lynn, Labour will win the election.” Then came John Smith’s fully staged, misjudged, faux budget in which he promised swinging tax rises. John Major meanwhile eschewed technology and spin and went out on his soap-box. It seemed mawkish, but it struck a note. Finally, there was Kinnock’s cringe-making performance on Sheffield Wednesday and John Major scraped home for another five years in office.
Seventeen years later, Dame Vera is safely at home, Colonel Gaddafi dines at top table and the outcome of the next election is, once again, thought to be certain. But a Sheffield Wednesday size disaster is approaching.
Peter Mandelson is the most skilled presentational politician in the country and he is beginning to turn the tables. Most of us feel sorry for Alan Duncan in that he was “set up” during what he reasonably thought was a private conversation. But, set up or not, it was his second gaffe and there are too many loose cannons on the Tory electoral ship. The exigencies of realpolitik forced David Cameron to censure Duncan for telling the truth in private. Now realpolitik dictates that he must deal even more firmly with Daniel Hannan for telling lies in public.
Hannan's attack on Gordon Brown in the European Parliament was entertaining enough though most of us felt a sense of distaste that he should behave thus in an international forum. The resulting YOU TUBE publicity has gone to his head. Hannan is now lapping up the American publicity without a thought for the damage he is causing. But it is not enough just to dismiss him as an "eccentric". He is far more than that. In the book he co-authored, The Plan - 12 months to renew Britain, his ideas for transforming the NHS are commendable. He does not recommend US-style private insurance. He favours instead a Singapore style insurance model, with individual health accounts for routine healthcare plus government backed catastrophe insurance. And he fully recognises the state's duty to pay the premiums for the poor - everybody would have cover.
By taking cheap shots at the NHS from abroad, Hannan has made sure that his valuable suggestions about health care reform cannot be considered or discussed by the Conservatives. He has also made sure that some of the reforms that the NHS so desperately needs, reforms that were being considered behind the scenes by the Conservatives, will not see the light of day. Once again, the NHS will be at the forefront of the next general election. Once again, no politician dare suggest wholesale reforms. Whatever the chatterati may think, and however different the reality may be, the "patients on the street" are committed to their idealised, fantasy image of their NHS.
Twelve years of appalling New Labour mismanagement of UK health care will count for nothing if Peter Mandelson can persuade the “man in the street” that the NHS will not be “safe” in the hands of an incoming Conservative government.
Daniel Hannan must be sacrificed on the altar of realpolitik.