It is very close now. The dissolution, then the ecstacy of the campaign itself, and finally the exultation of victory on the one side and exquisite agony of defeat on the other. Understand your options, Conservatives: victory or extinction.
And for the same reason, you others - you UKIP supporters, you Liberal Democrats, you anti-Brown Socialists - vote other than Conservative understanding what you do. For, though of course Cameron is not perfectly what you would hope (what is, in practical life?) a vote for other than the Conservatives is a vote for the following scenario:
- An immediate gilts crisis, with interest rates spiking up following the absence of a Conservative victory
- A totally inadequate attempt to placate the bonds markets by spelling out in a bit more detail the government's pitifully inadequate "plan"
- The IMF summoned in within three years of the Election (for the third time in just over forty years)
- Britain's nuclear weapons are removed within five years
- Britain's security council seat is lost within eight years
- Britain joins the euro within ten years, and becomes an enthusiastic participant in the Single European State
- British Conservatism, the main philosophy of British government for hundreds of years, perishes in a European Christian Democrat sea
Politicians are so given to inappropriate hyperbole, City financiers to hysteria, that when circumstances really do represent an existential threat, we lack the language or credibility to tell the truth. And the truth is this: if the Conservatives do not hold the administration after the next Election, all that will stand in the way of the scenario above is Peter Mandelson.
Now my admiration for Peter Mandelson is all-but boundless. I perhaps rate him even more highly than I rate Tony Blair - those ingrates in the Labour Party that do not appreciate him are little better than the fools on the Right that despise him. But if, somehow, the Labour Party were to be returned to the administration, I very much fear that the power of Brown and Balls would be increased and Mandelson could not protect us. Furthermore, I do not believe that Mandelson fears that scenario above remotely as much as I do - I don't believe that what he values about Britain and the British way of doing things is the same as what I value. I don't believe he would consider it, intrinsically, a disaster if Britain were subsumed within the Single European State.
I see amazing complacency all around me. The voters do not want Brown. They know that. But they don't believe that Cameron would be any different. They are wrong - quite, quite wrong. But that is what they think. And it is straightforwardly and obviously a consequence of a deliberate decision by the Cameroons to try to pretend that they were very similar to the New Labour high command.
It isn't that the Conservatives are not further ahead because people believe that the Conservatives would be radically different in some way that they fear. Every day I hear the refrain: "But Cameron would be no different!" The voters don't believe that Cameron would have regulated the banks differently (with good reason - and they are probably right); they don't believe that he would have spent less (with good reason - though they are probably wrong); they don't believe that he would have taxed less (not for any good reason - though they are probably right); they don't believe that he would have dealt with the bank bailouts any different (with good reason - and they are probably right); they aren't convinced that he will deal any better with the spending cuts to come (with good reason - though I hope they are wrong). The voters simply don't see the difference. And, not seeing a difference, many voters prefer to stick with what they know and understand.
We do not need to invent clear blue water. There is actually a huge philosophical difference between the parties - the largest since 1983. It is sheer bad strategic calls and poor spin that has left us in the position of people believing that "they're all the same".
We cannot tell people how it really is, now. They won't believe us - the reality of the choice is too stark and the consequences of voting Labour too horrible for voters to absorb in the short time left. The most we could try would be to put a few numbers on things (e.g. potential costs for mortgages), as the Editor has suggested. But the Electorate doesn't really need any convincing that Brown is hopeless - they know that. What they don't really know or believe is why we're not.
All that we have left is effort - knocking on doors, pleading, posting envelopes, all the mundane and vital things that our wonderfully public-spirited activists do all the time - and hope. On to Judgement Day.
