Labour's Tory Hatred

The ever-entertaining* Charlie Brooker has written a revealing article about his feelings – or, more properly, his hatred of – the Tories. It all dates back to fear of Tory led nuclear war in the eighties and the behaviour of Thatcher administration:

As if plotting to destroy the world wasn't bad enough, the Conservatives went on to preside over the most wilfully obnoxious and polarising decade imaginable: braying yuppies at one extreme, penniless strikers at the other. The Tories weren't just nasty – they seemed to actively enjoy being nasty. And there was no getting rid of them, even when Thatcher got the boot. Consequently, an entire generation grew up regarding the Tory government as something like rain, or wasps, or stomach flu: an unavoidable, undying source of dismay.

Of course, this is largely nonsense – an unthinking reproduction of the ideologically driven and largely false left-wing slurs that built the Tories into some sort of evil nemesis for anything or anyone moderate in the UK. The Tories were far from perfect – as their failure to combat, and occasional moments of relishing, this crude caricature of them shows. But they weren’t the sort of monstrous, greedy political thugs as many people – such as Brooker – seem to have grown up believing them to be. That’s one of the reasons why they were able to win landslide election victories in the 1980s: many people in the country genuinely liked the Tories and (whisper it) even liked Thatcher.

Despite the fact that the eighties, Thatcherism and the Tory government of the 1990s are all over, this caricature has even informed much of the case against the Tories since they lost power in 1997 – hence the ongoing depictions of Tory leaders with Thatcher’s hairdo – and despite the fact that far from being a Thatcherite in disguise, David Cameron appears to be one of the most moderate and middle-of-the-road Tory leaders in living memory. Much of the Cameron political project has been to reverse this perception of the Tories – to the extent where the Liberal Democrats are prepared to do what appeared to be, for so long, utterly unthinkable: to go into coalition with the party of Thatcher.

Which is something that the self-confessed Tory hater Brooker acknowledges:

But instead we've got this . . . coalition thing. This disorientating mash-up. Cameron and Clegg engaging in public foreplay. A sour Tory cookie with chunks of Lib Dem chocolate. Even the prospect of George Osborne as chancellor seems less chilling in the knowledge that Vince Cable can pop his head round the door from time to time, if only to pull disapproving faces. If the Tories had won more seats, or slogged on as a minority government, at least we'd have a clear set of hate figures we could start despising immediately. Instead, we've got the Nazis forming an alliance with the Smurfs.

We couldn't even hate the Tories for looking smug on the steps of Downing Street – partly because Downing Street doesn't have steps, but mainly because the result forced a helping of humble pie down their necks, which they swallowed with infuriating good grace. Cameron appears to be making a sincere attempt to permanently drag his party toward more moderate ground, which is a crushing blow for those of us who were expecting outright malevolence from day one.

Of course, Brooker’s article is simply a means by which he can cast his acerbic wit across a bit of current affairs. But actually, there is something far more important within his article than might first be appreciated. Because Brooker is talking about what is a typical Labourite mindset, where the Tories become the evil, awful enemy and Labour the only possible way of defeating that terrible foe. It is this mindset that allows Labournistas to forgive the unforgivable – for example, to embrace the party of the Iraq War because it is better than the party that supported Pinochet 25 years ago. And it is this mindset that creates incredulity that the Liberal Democrats would ever go into government with the Tories rather than Labour, even though the Liberal Democrat leadership is far closely, ideologically and instinctively, to the Tory leader. And it is this mindset that leaves Labour clinging to the keys of Number 10 Downing Street, even after they’ve comprehensively lost a General Election. They are entitled to anything that might keep them in power, according to this stupid mindset, because they are not the Tories.

Whether the Tories have really changed or not is almost irrelevant – the Labour party needs to change, and lose this mindset of irrational fear and hatred of the Tories. It is not 1997 anymore, and if the last election has any sort of a lesson for them, then it is this – it is no longer enough just not being the Tories to win an election. The Labour party needs to start showing why it is better than the Tory party. Only then will they find a voice again; only then will they start to recover. And it is only then that they will be able to escape the 1980's - something that is pretty essential, given we are now in 2010.

*NB – ever entertaining does not mean always right…