The National Assembly Election Campaigns 115

DEFEAT IN ADVERSITY FOR THE CONSERVATIVES

J.B arry Jones

INTRODUCTION The Conservatives entered the first general election to the Welsh Assembly with two severe handicaps.The first was that eighteen years ofConservative government was a ssociated with the virt ual clo sure o fthe coal-mining industry,the d raconian rationalization ofsteel p roduction,increased centralization at the expense ofWelsh local authorities,a nd the erosion of democratic accountability through the creation ofa whole range ofquangos composed ofministerial nominees.The second handicap was the product of these experiences.In the 1997 general election the Conservative Party lost all their Welsh seats;in parliamentary terms,Wa les b ecame a Tory-free zone and,although not totally u nexpected,the Welsh Conservatives were traumatized by the scale and depth oftheir rejection by the Welsh electorate. The p arty kept a very low p rofile d uring the su bsequent referendum cam- paign while st ill at tacking d evolution on the gro unds o fcosts a nd constitutional irregularities.Th eir unambiguous,if mu ted,hostility to devo- lution compromised the p arty’s st rategy fo r the Assem bly elect ions;it is difficult to rubbish a policy a nd then ask for support to make t he p olicy work.Many C onservative a ctivists sh ared the p arty’s lo ng-standing opposition to devolution and fully subscribed to the view t hat devolution would lead inexorably t o the ‘ slippery slo pe o fseparation’.In retrospect, some Conservative AMs now acknowledge that changing these deep-seated perceptions was an impossible task in so short a time.

PLANNING The first election to the National Assembly was a unique event requiring the Conservative Party to make unique arrangements.The party in had never en joyed majority electoral su pport and had avoided the issu e o f constructing a coherent and distinctly Welsh organization,contenting itself with a superficial labelling change.T his deficiency had now to be addressed, but time wa s at a premium and the p arty esch ewed a comprehensive restructuring.In stead,a ‘leader ofthe campaign’was elected by members’ ballot,in which the establishment favourite,N ick Bourne,wa s defeated by 116 Contemporary Wales – 14

Rod Richards,a minister in the in the p revious C onservative government.There was no campaign committee as such but a series of ad hoc discussions with regional groups ofcandidates.The planning initiatives lay with wh o ‘fronted’radio and television appearances a nd attracted considerable m edia coverage wit h his t renchant attacks o n the Labour Party.However his authority was significantly qualified;he was not the leader but simply in charge ofthe campaign.Even with this limited role he was a fforded only a grudging a cceptance,esp ecially o n the ‘ centre-left’ wing o fthe p arty.Consequently,the broad-church characteristics o fthe Conservatives came to the fore and considerable discretion was afforded to local candidates to trim the party programme not only to local constituency circumstances but also to candidate preferences.

STRATEGY Quite sim ply,the C onservative st rategic o bjective was to put the an ti- devolution line b ehind them.T he rat ionale b ehind this st rategy ra n as follows:t he people have voted,albeit by a small majority,for devolution;as democrats we a ccept that decision;now we mu st ensure t hat devolution works for the benefit ofWales. This message p roved difficult to get across t o core C onservative vo ters. Early canvassing revealed that those who had voted Conservative in the 1997 general election were indicating they wo uld not turn out for the Assembly election.A pattern ofdeliberate abstention was emerging.To a large extent this determined the party’s strategy ofgetting out the core vote rather than appealing to a wider section ofthe electorate.T his would also appear to have been a mistake,bu t for Conservative candidates it appeared to be the only viable option. The ea rly canvass ret urns in dicating deliberate ab stention threatened to undermine t he party’s fundamental o bjective,t hat ofrepeating t he general election performance wh en the p arty had won almost 20 per cen t ofthe Welsh vote and come seco nd to Labour. In effect,the A ssembly elect ion campaign was p lanned as a damage-limitation exercise b ased on the aphorism ‘What we have we hold.’However,t his strategy was the product of a British general election analysis.As the Conservatives now realize,it was inappropriate for what was more ofa ‘Welsh general election’th an had been generally expected.The Conservative st rategy t o portray themselves a s the opposition party and to project the electoral campaign as a ‘two-horse’ra ce was consistent with a British analysis.Thus Rod Richards sought to assume The National Assembly Election Campaigns 117 the ma ntle o f‘leader o fthe Op position’a nd the p arty presented,rather theatrically,its ‘’to the media,even though it realized that up to halft he ‘shadow secretaries’wo uld not win a seat.However,t he attempt to invest the campaign with British characteristics became counter-produc- tive as the Plaid surge became increasingly apparent in the opinion polls.

ORGANIZATIONAL STRATEGY AND THE VOTING SYSTEM The C onservative Pa rty rea lized it would have t o depend heavily o n the second/regional vo tes,bu t found it difficult to break away fro m t he traditional structure ofparliamentary constituency campaigns.F urthermore, the decision to concentrate on core Conservative voters inhibited initiatives to campaign outside t raditional To ry areas.T he p arty took the n ecessary steps t o take a dvantage o fthe seco nd ballot;the b est-placed constituency candidates were placed top ofthe regio nal lists;clu sters o fConservative voters in Labour constituencies were identified with the intention offocusing the canvass,b ut generally the effort was left to individual candidates.In the two regional constituencies in south Wales the lead candidates organized a ‘one-day’Va lleys ca mpaign,but did not attempt to convert Labour supporters.In the first Assembly electio n there was a coherent but limited strategy,q uite simply to get out the traditional Tory vote.

POLICY The Conservative manifesto, Fair Play for All:Y our Voice in the Assembly , represented the mo st advanced step in devolution within the Conservative Party.Unlike previous elections the manifesto did not lean heavily on Central Office publications bu t was genu inely t he p roduct ofthe (n ewly lab elled) Welsh Conservative Party.While not perfect,it established a precedent to be followed in future Assembly elections.

Manifesto commitments The inherent ambiguity in the Conservative Party’s position was illustrated by the fo reword to the ma nifesto entitled ‘Wales o ur Nation,Britain our Country’, which talked about Welsh men and women being proud to be British and linked this sentiment with threats to the British identity posed by the transfer ofpower from Westminster to Brussels.T he tone ofthe mani- festo reflected a British orientation with only a limited focus on exclusively Welsh issues. 118 Contemporary Wales – 14

Sustaining themes raised in the manifesto were developed in the Assembly campaign;in particular the q uestion ofcosts and ofAMs ‘ junketing’a nd ‘jet-setting’at the p eople’s exp ense.On more p rosaic p olicies su ch as t he environment,the economy and social services,t he party line expressed was rather bla nd and largely n on-controversial.H owever,o n education the manifesto argued it was in appropriate,d uring t he fin al t wo years of preparation for GCSE examinations,th at children should have compulsory Welsh lessons.This turned previous Conservative government policy on its head and caused great anguish and division in the party,with accusations of linguistic ap artheid directed at the revisionists.On local govern ment,the manifesto focused on ‘local authorities dominated by one political party’a nd insisted on ‘more rigo rous scru tiny,inquiry,a nd accountability to restore confidence in local govern ment’.This wa s a n obvious at tack on ’s local government establishment and could well have contributed to a public sen se o funease wit h Labour-dominated Valley a uthorities,a nd, ironically,wa s t o benefit .Elsewhere the manifesto advocated ‘fair play’a ll round:in health for patients,d octors and nurses,a nd in culture for the (described as one ofthe building blocks ofBritain) and for non-Welsh-speakers,wh ich was sp ecifically lin ked to criticisms o f Gwynedd’s em ployment policies.Overall t he m anifesto was a somewhat bland document,yet with sharp barbs d irected at the Welsh language a nd Labour local authorities.

Campaign commitments Campaigns have a life oftheir own,and frequently the dynamic of‘cut and thrust’debates en genders differing p riorities fro m those exp ected and intended by party strategists.Two commitments emerged in the course ofthe campaign: (1) The language issue had been dealt with in an equivocal fashion in the manifesto,but in the heat ofthe campaign,and particularly in David Davies’s campaign in the h ighly An glicized areas o fMonmouthshire,t he issu e emerged in a more ext reme fo rm,calling in to question the C onservative commitment to Welsh-language t eaching m ade in the mid -1990s.A ‘roll- back’ofthe language policy became an election issue,even though such a policy would never be official Conservative policy.At the height ofthe debate in many Conservative candidates admitted the issue was ‘not big on the doorstep’. (2) In the co urse o fthe ca mpaign Conservatives in creasingly presented The National Assembly Election Campaigns 119 themselves a s d efenders ofthe U nion.Some candidates wen t so far as t o describe t hemselves u nofficially a s rep resenting t he ‘ Conservative a nd Unionist Party’.This had unhappy connotations with Northern Ireland and the Orange Order and was discreetly dropped.However,th e commitment to preserving the ‘UK state’wa s effectively and regularly articulated during the campaign.One C onservative ca ndidate cla imed that this co nstitutional stance ‘played well on the doorstep’,notably amongst Conservative voters, but equally with Labour and Liberal supporters,a nd it is likely to be a central theme in future Conservative Assembly campaigns.This does not imply that the Conservatives will renege on devolution or that another referendum to reverse d evolution is a n option.The p arty accepts wit hout question that Scotland’s position is irreversible and that Northern Ireland is progressively moving to a semi-autonomous constitutional status with close and growing links with the Irish Republic.Aga inst this background,the Welsh devolution settlement must work even if,in the view ofsome Conservatives,it has to be updated with the transfer ofadditional powers to the Assembly.This view contrasts with the ma nifesto commitments u nder ‘ Fair p lay fo r the people who pay’, which declared:‘Any attempt to transfer such (legislative) powers would be u nconstitutional a nd we wo uld demand another referen dum.’In this case at least,the campaign experience would appear to have moved the Conservative Party more firmly along the devolution road.

EVALUATING THE CAMPAIGN Overall,t he p arty en joyed limited successes in the ca mpaign.The Conservatives failed to influence the policy debate,save for the language issue which may have helped the party win Monmouthshire on the first ballot,but made litt le imp act elsewhere.Most disappointingly,the C onservatives,in terms o ftheir overa ll vo te,ced ed second place to Plaid Cymru.The Conservatives thus became not only a minority but a marginal party in Welsh politics,a lthough one su spects t hat their elect oral p otential is st ill substantial.Alth ough public o pinion polls su ggest that t he p arty will perform better in a British general election,there must be doubts whether it can to the 25–30 per cent ofthe vote which was the party’s historical norm before the 1997 general election. More sp ecifically,the p arty a dopted a st rategy an d style t hat were inappropriate.Fo r example,Ro d Richards’s ca mpaigning st yle wa s belligerent and confrontational,a nd while it gave life to the campaign there 120 Contemporary Wales – 14 is little evidence that it motivated core Conservative voters,a nd it might well have alienated more moderate elements. Secondly,the party fell into the trap oftreating the Assembly election as a ‘mini U K’general election and thus fa iled to develop fully t he Welsh dimension as regards either campaign style or objectives.The party focused on a bilateral d ebate wit h Labour, the tra ditional basis o fBritish party politics,t o the a lmost total exclusion ofother p arties.Consequently m ost Conservative can didates failed to anticipate t he rise o fPlaid Cymru,a massive and near-mortal miscalculation. Thirdly,the Co nservatives fa iled to involve su fficient English incomers who,wh ile willin g t o vote C onservative in a British general elect ion, apparently regarded the Assembly elections as the concern ofthe Welsh with little relevance to them. The party’s future objectives are clear. The regional vote ofConservative supporters in strong L abour areas mu st be m ore effect ively t apped. Conservative ab stainers mu st be mo tivated to vote o n the b asis t hat devolution is n o longer a threat but a means o fpreserving the U nited Kingdom,a nd Plaid Cymru,largely d isregarded in the first Assembly elections,will have to be confronted.In this context the Conservatives face a dilemma.Confronting Pla id would oblige t he Conservatives t o adopt a stronger set ofspecific Welsh policies,a tactic wh ich could frustrate t he party’s at tempts t o motivate t raditional C onservatives,wh o abstained because oftheir weak sense ofidentity with Wales.T hus,wh ile the nature of the party’s dilemma is clear, its solution is rather more obscure.

NOTE Fair Play for All:Y our Vote in the Assembly ,Welsh Conservative manifesto,Ca rdiff, 1999.