In Britain, a Tory government, long in office and beset by a cost-of-living crisis, battles allegations of sleaze as it tries to heal the latest self-inflicted wounds from its civil war over Europe.
It has recently knifed the charismatic prime minister who won its largest majority in a generation, and installed as leader a man who is the first person from his background ever to lead the Conservative Party.
Hardly anyone gave John Major a chance of defeating Neil Kinnock in the general election of 1992. He did.Credit:AP
Labour, meanwhile, has replaced a doddering old socialist ideologue with an uncharismatic but respectable leader from its centre-left. One by-election after another is catastrophic for the Tories. Labour leads in the opinion polls by over 20 points, with an election only 18 months away.
The year is 1990. Hardly anyone gave John Major a chance of defeating Neil Kinnock in the general election of 1992. He did.
This little jaunt down memory lane reminds us how remarkably history repeats itself. Of course, there are differences. There was no Liz Truss-type interregnum between Margaret Thatcher and Major. The UK had not just left Europe; it was about to engage even more deeply through the Maastricht Treaty. Kinnock was uncharismatic in an entirely different way than Keir Starmer is uncharismatic. (The excitable, verbally incontinent Kinnock was known as “the Welsh windbag”. Starmer is as tersely methodical as the Crown prosecutor he was.)
Nevertheless, the look and feel of UK politics in 2023 is uncannily similar to 1990.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has steadied the ship, but he has very little electoral appeal beyond the Tory base.Credit:Getty
The 1992 British election also reminds us that, no matter how desperate a political leader’s position looks, the voters have a habit of proving pollsters and pundits wrong. Victory can never be taken for granted; defeat is never inevitable. No struggling prime minister is politically dead until they are actually on the slab. (Just ask John Hewson or Bill Shorten.)
Yet I still think it will be very difficult for the Conservatives to win a fifth term at the election due next year. While 18 months is an eternity in politics, everything appears to be going Labour’s way right now.
Only a Major comeback can save the Tories
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19.02.2023
In Britain, a Tory government, long in office and beset by a cost-of-living crisis, battles allegations of sleaze as it tries to heal the latest self-inflicted wounds from its civil war over Europe.
It has recently knifed the charismatic prime minister who won its largest majority in a generation, and installed as leader a man who is the first person from his background ever to lead the Conservative Party.
Hardly anyone gave John Major a chance of defeating Neil Kinnock in the general election of 1992. He did.Credit:AP
Labour, meanwhile, has replaced a........
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