Labour would be mistaken to rely too much on ‘Tory sleaze’ as the key to regaining power

Sleaze did for the Major government and it has the power to topple any other prime minister who allows his party to be tarnished by its stain.

For a lot of political journalists of a particular generation, this is a foundational truth about the way they see Westminster.

Whether it is the sex scandals of the 1980s and 1990s, the perennial awkward relationships between MPs and money or the more recent concern with offensive language and behaviour, there is a widespread belief that a party which transgresses the mores of the day will pay for it at the ballot box.

But viewed a little more closely, it’s not at all clear that this is the case.

Yes, the seemingly endless parade of Tory MPs caught cheating on their wives or accepting brown envelopes stuffed with cash did nothing for the image of John Major’s administration – particularly after he was foolish enough to issue a “back to basics” message, which was widely seen as a call for a return to traditional morality.

But his fate was sealed by the wave of house repossessions, the financial carnage of Black Wednesday – when the pound fell out of the European exchange rate mechanism and interest rates were hiked twice in a day – and the sense that he had lost control of his own party over the EU.

Anger over the perceived mismanagement of the economy provided the foundations for voter fury over Tory sleaze, but it is doubtful that erring MPs on their own would have produced the demands for change that swept Tony Blair into power in 1997.

Since then, the MPs’ expenses scandal of 2009 may have entrenched negative opinions about MPs, but the overriding sense has been “a plague on all their houses”.

If anything, voters’ conviction that all MPs have their hands in the till may have blunted the outrage when an individual is found to have misbehaved financially.

And of course Boris Johnson’s long history of marital infidelities, children out of wedlock, offensive comments and questionable gifts from wealthy friends has demonstrated that misbehaviour is no bar to popularity, so long as it is done with a certain roguish charm.

Again and again, it appears that voters are happy to overlook the specifics of allegations so long as they feel generally well-disposed to the MP involved.

All of this means that Labour would be mistaken to rely too much on “Tory sleaze” as the key to regaining power.

The Major years showed that sleaze can turn a tide of opinion against a governing party into a tsunami.

But until Labour can convince voters that the Conservative government is letting them down on the economy, on living standards and on jobs, questions about ethics and standards are not likely to become more than a passing inconvenience for the PM.

Yours,

Andrew Woodcock

Political editor