Blair Re-Elected, Seven Straight Wins for Thatcher

Yesterday's general election in Britain was never in doubt. It was almost Soviet in its predictability. Eight minutes after the polls closed, the BBC forecast a Labour win with a majority of 66. With just 19 more seats to declare (and almost all of those in Northern Ireland), Prime Minister Tony Blair has a majority of 68. This is the third straight victory for New Labour, or as Sir Simon Jenkins put it in The Times, the seventh consecutive win for Thatcherism. And yet, Mr. Blair is finished, Tory leader Michael Howard is quitting, and Liberal Democrat Leader Charles Kennedy has doubts about his style for the next election.

In the case of Mr. Blair, he promised to leave before this third term ends. Although he suggested to the press earlier this week that he might stay on, his electoral result was devastating. His majority shrunk by over 90 seats, and that is a defeat. It is only the gerrymandered and twisted electoral system that keeps him in office with 36% of the vote. He's lost his authority within his own party, and the only question before Labour now is how to engineer the succession.

Michael Howard is not the most cuddly fellow in British politics, but one cannot deny he deserves to keep his job as Tory party leader. Winning 197 seats, a gain of 33, is progress. However, he has said his job was to win, and he didn't. He said he was stepping down as soon as the party decides how to proceed. At 63 years of age, he would be 67 or so at the next election, and that is certainly a consideration. The man has served his party and his nation, and his departure is graceful and honorable. In some ways, he is a better man than the Prime Minister.

And Charles Kennedy is probably the most cuddly fellow in British politics -- the man had his first born arrive just as the campaign started. He's got matey-ness down to a science. And there are complaints that this lack of killer instinct cost the Liberal Democrats their chance. Labour suffering from the war, Tories in disarray, and the Liberal Democrats didn't make the breakthrough some expected. Still, at 62 seats, he has done better than any leader of his party since David Lloyd George in 1929.

The real winner, though, is Thatcherism -- or as it might be called after 8 years of New Labour, Blatcherism. Mr. Blair has not reversed any of the reforms of the Iron Lady. Indeed, in places like university education, he has gone further than she dared in employing market forces. In this regard, New Labour is merely Thatcherism with a human face. That is not really a bad thing since much of what was wrong with the Thatcher Revolution was not its "what" but its "how." And in some regards, it is something else; devolution for example was fought tooth and nail by Mrs. T.

In the end, the war in Iraq did the damage to Tony Blair's campaign. Reg Keys, whose soldier son Tom died in Iraq, ran against Mr. Blair in his own constituency and took 10% of the vote. George Galloway, who was expelled from Labour for his opposition to the war, ran against Oona King (one of the Blair's Babes) and managed to take the safe Labour seat of Bethnal Green and Bow. In his victory speech, he said, "All the people you have killed and all the loss of life have come back to haunt you and the best thing that the Labour Party can do is sack you tomorrow morning." But an opportunity to do so has been lost.


© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
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