their defeat in the Monmouth by-election has the taste of something horribly like panic.
As Major and Tory chairman Chris Patten orchestrated a campaign accusing the Labour Party of 'lying' overthe NHS, it was obvious that this was more than the routine excuse for by-election failure. At the highest level the Tories are rattled.
They are panicked because there are signs that the measures they took to win the election - getting rid of Thatcher and the Poll Tax - have not worked. The Tory lead in the opinion polls is evaporating nationwide. The conventional wisdom that what stood between the Tories and a fourth successive electoral victory was Margaret Thatcher and the poll tax now looks decisively shaky: why?
The answeris not simply the NHS. That of course is a giant issue, from which the Tories cannot hide. But in addition to the NHS there is the flood of redundancies, with real unemploy'ment rising to over 3 million. People are getting their new poll tax bills, abolition. And the underlying rate of inflation is up, despite the decline of the 'headline rate'.
This can be summed up in one word: recession. The Tories have had a massive internal bloodletting to get rid of the poll tax and Thatcher. But they cannot make a U-turn on the NHS as well; neither can they, despite public optimism, turn round the economy in a clear-cut way before the next election.
As a result they are losing support massively in their base in the middle class and the better-off sections of the working class. What is particularly dangerous and threatening to the Tories is that they are losing this support in the Midlands and the South, and to both the Liberals and Labour.
Whatever the exact date, the next general election will be fought under very different conditions to that in 1987. In 1987 Britain was at the crest of the 'yuppie boom'- the mid-1980s speculative economic expansion fuelled by US economic growth and Now hard times are hitting not just the working class in the north, but substantial sections of the better-off working class and the middle class.
Once the Tories heartland support in the South begins to decay, and especially when they lose out to both Labour and the Liberals, they are in deep trouble. While Labour does not have a decisive lead, the possibility of a Labour government is opened up. The Tory hysteria against Labour is just the beginning of a long rearguard action.
What attitude will the ruling class take in a general election? In 1964 substantial sections of capital backed Labour. In the 1980s we have seen sections of the rich happy to back Socialist party governments in France and Spain. Has Labour gone far enough rightwards to attract such support in Britain?
An incoming Labour government would be put under big pressure by the City and big business to carry out right-wing polices - pressure it would be only too happy to accept. But before an election, capital will fight a bitter campaign to prevent Labour coming to power. For sections of the middle class this is just a matter of tradition and habit.
But for the most far-sighted ideologues of British capitalism Labour is still not trustworthy. Not because Kinnock espouses radical policies CO T will capitalism, but because a Labour government is a risk not worth taking.
A fourth Tory term might lead to battles inside the Labour Party as Kinnockism came unstuck, but it would deeply demoralise the trade unions. The effects of a Labour government are not so certain.
Working class expectations would be raised. The conditions for a fightback could be created. Overall, it is not nearly so secure a prospect for the ruling class as another Tory The achilles heel of the labour movement in this situation is precisely the strength of the right and new realism in the unions. A Kinnock government would come to power
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