The Tories close ranks around an 'umble can of worms

Shortly before going on holiday I asked whether the Conservatives really wanted to win the elec- tion. It was based on conversations with members of the party at Westminster. I make no apology for this. I rarely meet any other kind except at conference time, and not many even then. The politicians thought they were going to lose. Some of them went on to conclude that, as this was going to happen anyway, they might as well start assembling the party which was going to contest the election of 2002. The members of this latter group were Europhobes of one kind or another, who would go on to canvas the merits of Mr Michael Portillo, Mr John Redwood or whoever.

One of the consequences of this was that the Bournemouth conference was anticipated, with a certain amount of lip-smacking, as the most sanguinary event of its kind since Blackpool 1963. But there was never the slightest possibility that it would be like this - unless Mr Major had emulated Harold Macmillan on that previous occasion and resigned on the very first day. The Conservatives have always had an almost biological urge to unity as an election approaches, like a hedgehog curling up or a snail retreating into its shell.

The show of unity put on at Bournemouth could have been expected. But it was nevertheless more impressive than most of us - including most politicians - thought possible. It would be tempting to conclude that nothing has really changed: that instead of being a hedgehog or a snail, the party is more like a can of worms on which the lid has been hurriedly thrust. There is something in this, but it is not quite the whole story.

Good habits, we are often told - as much these days by Labour as by the Conservatives - are the basis of good behaviour. The representatives behaved better than they had in previous years. From time to time ministers such as Mr Kenneth Clarke, Mr Malcolm Rifkind and Mr Major himself threw chunks of meat into the crowd. These were clearly labelled: "Brussels", "Strasbourg", "Federal Europe, Never" and so forth. The mob eagerly devoured them, with loud and prolonged applause. Then the minister returned quickly to what he had been saying in the first place and the representatives sat back, temporarily satisfied.

Whether a single currency can exist in the absence of a federal arrangement is a difficult question. Mr Clarke, who is in favour of the former but against the latter, evidently believes it can. I do not propose to go into the question in this column. Certainly nobody at Bournemouth wanted to go into it. As Lord Melbourne is supposed to have remarked: whether the price of corn was to be lowered or not, "we must all say the same" or, in another version, "we must all be in the same story". Just so. It is the most fundamental principle of cabinet government.

Yet for the last four years ministers have not all been in the same story about a single currency. At Bournemouth the line was more or less adhered to. The trouble is that the line is still not quite straight. Thus: is the decision to be taken "when it suits us" or "at the last possible moment"? Mr Clarke, a few weeks ago, landed himself in trouble with the Prime Minister by saying it would clearly suit us to join at the first possible moment. This was perfectly consistent with various sloppy utterances of Mr Major and others over the past few years. As we know, politicians usually speak with deliberate imprecision because it suits their purposes. Mr Clarke's interpretation was, however, felt somehow to be not quite playing the game.

There was nothing like this from him last week. He declared his opposition to a federal Europe. And Mr Major and Mr Rifkind came up with another wheeze, no doubt thought up by one of those bright sparks of about 19 and a half who hang about our great political parties these days. The device was to bring in the phrase "the national interest". It is supposed to be in the national interest for our politicians and diplomats to play the fullest part in the negotiations for a single currency so as to frustrate the foreigners and prevent them from getting up to their usual knavish tricks. Anyone who doubted the wisdom of this course, Mr Rifkind said sternly, was putting party before country, political advantage before the national interest. And what could be more reprehensible than that? The floor lapped it up, and the platform breathed again.

The extension of the agreed line is that, if the decision is in favour of a single currency, there will be a referendum. Lady Thatcher asked why, if this was so, there was all this fuss. Why, indeed! But she had come late to the realisation that a referendum was on offer. Only a few months ago she was lending her support to Sir James Goldsmith. Sir James started off by asking for a referendum on the single currency and is now asking for one on the vaguer question of our "position in Europe", which can be reflected in a referendum only by asking "In" or "Out". And yet Sir James wants us to stay in, or I think he does. I know he is a European protectionist, opposed to free trade, particularly with the countries of the Far East. It is all very puzzling. Mr Michael Heseltine denounced him for his wealth and - good fun though this was, and richer than Mr Heseltine though Sir James may be - I thought of pots and kettles, and motes and beams.

Altogether, there has never been a Conservative conference which has played with greater enthusiasm the game of Lowlier Than Thou. We heard endlessly about the humble origins of leading Conservatives, notably about the young Major's two rooms in Brixton. Mr Tony Blair was depicted as a combination of Little Lord Fauntleroy and the Cad of the Remove. All Conservative conferences must have a villain, and last week it was Mr Blair. He was insincere; smiled too much; had been to a public school; sent his son to an opted-out school; drank white wine; spent his holidays in Tuscany; and, most sinister of all, lived in Islington. As a resident of the borough myself, I felt like an early Christian in danger of being fed to the lions unless he kept quiet.

Despite his millenarian twaddle, Mr Blair is really relying on two old slogans: It's Time For a Change and Give the Other Lot a Chance. Mr Major is placing his trust in something slightly more recent: Life's Better Under the Conservatives, Don't Let Labour Ruin It. This was what Mr Clarke's speech came down to in the end. Like the late Alma Cogan, he has a giggle in his voice, which appears after his jokes. Alas, there is little evidence so far that the voters appreciate his policies as much as the representatives did his jokes.

I am still not sure that the Conservatives want to win. But my doubts are less than they were a couple of months ago. Whether the voters are going to be influenced at all by four days at the seaside without any obvious disaster is a different matter. This is what Mr John Humphrys put to Mr Heseltine on Friday's Today programme. Untypically, Mr Heseltine conceded that Mr Humphrys had a point.