The Anti-Tory Tidal wave
BARONE, MICHAEL
The Anti-Tory Tidal Wave by Michael Barone The most stunned face in the election-night coverage of the British election was that of Michael Portillo, who began the evening as minister of defense...
...Williams...
...A 20-year-old worker in a soup factory favored John Major...
...The swing against Conservatives was biggest in greater London, where voters evidently have little contact with their MPs—or at least with those who see themselves as national leaders...
...Some Tory voters had just given up...
...I don't think I'll be voting this time," said Mrs...
...What they said helps explain why support for the Conservatives collapsed...
...one 20-year-old Conservative loyalist said, "I don't know him...
...The Anti-Tory Tidal Wave by Michael Barone The most stunned face in the election-night coverage of the British election was that of Michael Portillo, who began the evening as minister of defense and high on the short list for Conservative party leader and before dawn had become the second-place finisher in his seat of Enfield Southgate...
...I don't know Michael Portillo, but the fact that he was so out of touch with opinion in his own district suggests it's no tragedy for the Conservatives that he won't be their leader any time soon...
...And one Tory voter called him "slimy...
...I'd like to see what Labour is like...
...I've only known Tory government...
...Look what they've done to the National Health Service, ripping the daylights out of it...
...I don't fancy Labour...
...In a district Portillo won by 58 to 26 percent in 1992, I found only six Conservative voters, versus 13 for Labour and five for the Liberal Democrats...
...The local Conservative party office was nearly empty when I called, and Robert Goss, treasurer of the local Conservative organization, whom I saw on Green Lanes, said, "We're not doing anything in this district...
...I'm not very happy," said Mrs...
...You know what you get...
...They make a quick buck and wash their hands...
...They've done enough damage years ago," said 75-year-old Mrs...
...We need a change," said Rob McNi-cholas, a 29-year-old stone mason who voted Conservative in 1992 and 1987...
...I'm unhappy now, I should be unhappy with Labour...
...They made a mess of the beef crisis...
...My sample of 30 voters wasn't scientific, of course...
...But Portillo lost by only 1,400 votes...
...Labour seem more together than the Tories...
...As Goss said before the election, "If we lost this seat, something dreadful would be happening...
...If he'd worked the district harder, perhaps he would have won...
...Tories need to be a lot more united...
...Simon, a 33-year-old tennis coach, was switching to Labour this time "because Conservatives have been in too long...
...Robert Ward, a 29-year-old who puts together corporate hospitality sporting events, was voting Labour because "we deserve change...
...In most seats the tide was so high it would have swept anyone away...
...I just think the country needs change...
...As Philip Williams, a computer manager who voted Conservative in 1992, said, "I'm not impressed by the behavior of the parties...
...But it wasn't Conservative either...
...But Edmonton, which Conservatives carried by only 600 votes in 1992, was a dead-certain loss...
...The still faithful Conservative voters sounded dispirited...
...Nor did Michael Portillo, though hailed as a possible future prime minister, have much special appeal...
...A Labour voter said that when he complained about having to pay ?300 tax on his public housing, "Portillo told me I can't get my money back...
...Harvey, always a Tory in the past...
...Something dreadful was happening to the Conservatives, but they didn't seem to have a clue...
...Yes, I suppose I will vote Conservative...
...Michael Barone, senior staff editor at Reader's Digest, has been interviewing voters here and abroad for 35 years...
...It's better to help the neighboring seat of Edmonton...
...All over the country, Conservative turnout was way down: In Enfield Southgate, it dropped to 19,000, from 28,000 in 1992...
...He's so smooth he could slide uphill...
...These voters—the voters Margaret Thatcher gained in the 1980s and John Major lost in the 1990s—were switching not just out of ennui or curiosity...
...His district is only half an hour's drive from Westminster, but none of these voters had seen much of him...
...I've had enough of the Tories...
...This has happened before, in 1906 and 1945, in all three cases after the Tories had governed for 18 of the preceding 20 years, after they had split publicly on an important issue (free trade in 1906, appeasement in the 1930s, Europe now), and after the opposition (Liberals in 1906, old Labour in 1945, Tony Blair's New Labour in 1997) had transformed itself from an unthinkable party into one that seemed capable of governing...
...And the public fractiousness of the Tories—the result of assuming after their 1992 surprise victory that they could never lose—was unsettling to many...
...I saw him once, in his car, with the window up...
...Adams...
...I was less surprised...
...The way things are now— the hospitals, the waiting lists...
...In Enfield Southgate and the four other constituencies where I interviewed voters, I heard over and over complaints about the National Health Service—not surprising, since there is infinite demand for, and finite supply of, the services the NHS provides...
...It is the political marketplace at work: If the Conservatives ordinarily seem the natural ruling party, they can also grow stale after a long period in office and lose support even in their bedrock base...
...He's not perfect, but not as much trouble...
...I had been out in Enfield South-gate, in the northern suburban reaches of London, three days before the election, interviewing voters on the high street, called Green Lanes...
...When a party has been in for 18 years, grievances accumulate...
...As they did in Enfield Southgate...
Vol. 2 • May 1997 • No. 35
