CONSTITUTIONAL reform such as Scottish devolution was “not of general interest” to voters, Tory HQ insisted as it drew up the party’s manifesto for the 1992 General Election.
One document, written two months before the April poll, pointed out how Chris Patten, a key ally of John Major, had “noted there had been no discussion of constitutional reform, which the other parties would major on”. Labour proposed the immediate creation of a Scottish Parliament and later a Welsh Assembly.
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The document went on: “The Government’s response should be that such issues were not of general interest and that the Labour Party’s proposals for Scotland would result in expensive regional government in England for which there was no popular demand.
“However, work should proceed on identifying a number of ways in which the process of government might become more open.”
Five years later, the Conservatives would be wiped out in Scotland and Wales; the new Labour Government would begin the process of major constitutional reform, including the creation of a tax-varying parliament at Holyrood.
The manifesto file ranges over the usual subject matters from tax and spending to health and education.
In a section headed “women,” the paper gives an insight into the social attitudes of the day; from a Conservative perspective.
It noted how it was “politically important to attract working A, B and C1 mothers. The elderly were natural supporters but the younger working women might be attracted by some form of childcare provision”.
However, the document went on: “It was argued that this could become very expensive. It would be a completely new departure to accept that the State was responsible for making it easier for mothers to go to work.
“The Government should not do this.
“If a measure for younger women were required, it would be better to go for expansion of state-paid, though not necessarily state-provided, nursery school provision.
“No new principle would be involved and it would get over the present anomaly whereby about half the population did have access to state-provided education for three to four-year-olds but the other half did not. It was agreed that a paper should be written on expanding nursery education although it was noted that Kenneth Clarke[the Education Secretary] was not keen.”
The file also noted that more work was needed on options for carers, who were predominantly women and who were “arguably a more deserving group than the childcare lobby”.The Tories’ proposed theme for the 1992 election was “choice and accountability”.
“’Choice,’” said the paper, “was a fundamentally Conservative theme. Choice put power in the hands of the customer, not the supplier; the citizen, not the state; the individual not the collective. It is alien to Socialist philosophy. The PM had emphasised the need to give everyone ‘the power to choose.’”
It explained the policies which delivered the “power to choose” were low taxation, competition, opening up of markets and information. However, the file noted how the less choice there was, the more important was accountability.
Post-Thatcher, privatisation continued to be a dominant theme.
As well as mentioning a “line of route” option on rail privatisation, specific proposals on introducing toll roads and “liberalising transatlantic flights” to UK provincial airports, the paper noted how three candidates were identified for abandoning public control: British Rail – “opinion polls showed that privatising BR was popular with the public. It would be important to bring about privatisation in a way that captured the political trick” - Docklands Light Railway in London and London Underground “probably on a line by line basis”.
The document pointed out how the energy sector had been “transformed” by the Government with privatisation resulting in more competition and more choice.
It added: “The flagship privatisation in the next Parliament would be British Coal.” This took place in 1994.