With the launch of its policy platform yesterday the British Conservative Party projected itself into the foreground of the election campaign. Its promise of lower taxes, reduced immigration and better public services is carefully calibrated to the preoccupations of its traditional base and to the large number of voters disappointed with Labour's record in government.
Conservative leader Michael Howard said it has been eight years of broken promises and warned against another five years of failure to confront the real problems facing Britain. A great country is "heading in the wrong direction," he says. While he has successfully brought his party within a few points of Labour in recent months, as yet there is little or no evidence it will secure the much greater swing required to win an overall majority or become the largest party in the next parliament.
The platform makes six promises which reveal a party promising more supervision, discipline and accountability to an electorate substantially alienated from the governing elite and lacking trust in Mr Tony Blair's outgoing government. More police, cleaner hospitals, lower taxes, more school discipline, controlled immigration and greater accountability are the Conservatives' preferred remedies. Notably absent from this list are criticisms of the war in Iraq, which is now regarded as wrong by most Britons but quietly defended by Mr Howard's party. Nor is there much about economic management, universally seen as the major achievement of Labour in office. The Conservatives remain vulnerable to Mr Blair's criticism that they cannot spend more and tax and borrow less all at the same time.
The Conservatives will oppose the European Union's constitutional treaty in the forthcoming referendum, reject the euro, will withdraw from the Common Fisheries Policy and demand the renegotiation of major EU economic and social policies. But European issues will not figure prominently in the campaign as a result of Mr Blair's decision to hold a referendum on the treaty and Mr Howard's success in countering the appeal of the United Kingdom Independence Party by appropriating many of its policies. As a result these issues will not get the airing they deserve, leaving the contest between the two main parties looking unusually domestic and inward-looking compared to previous election campaigns. If the Conservatives were to be elected on May 5th and if the French electorate was to reject the European constitution on May 29th the EU would find itself in an unprecedented crisis.
Turnout remains the crucial variable in assessing the likely outcome of the UK election. Labour's central task is to convince its core supporters to vote rather than abstain indifferently or vote tactically with the Liberal Democrats to register a protest against the Iraq war. Only if Labour's leaders uncharacteristically mishandle this task are the Conservatives likely to make a breakthrough.