The daily take

Out of sight, but not out of mind

Voters may not be interested in ideological battles, but politicians still are

ONE of Britain's many cherished national myths is that its people (unlike those excitable continentals) are not much moved by grand ideologies. Not for Britons the revolutions that convulsed Europe over the past few hundred years. If there must be change, make it gradual, and do it with the minimum of fuss.

This election certainly seems to be cleaving to that stereotype. Global capitalism's near-death experience has not led to public calls for a sharp shift to the left. And even before the credit crunch, there was little appetite for the sort of radical state-shrinking popular on the right.

Yet the launch earlier today of the Conservative manifesto had just the faintest whiff of ideology about it. The front cover is emblazoned with the words “Invitation to join the government of Britain”. Briefly, the idea is that Parliament and the state have become absurdly overmighty. Why, say the Tories, does Whitehall feel the need to interfere in every school, hospital and police force around the country? Better, surely, to offer local people power over local services. With that in mind, they offer voters the power to elect police chiefs, American-style, to set up their own state schools if local ones aren't performing, to veto tax rises and even sack MPs.

Britain is certainly a very centralised place, and it does seem absurd that Parliament should busy itself discussing the ins and outs of cleaning schedules and surgical procedures at individual hospitals hundreds of miles from the capital. But the Tories' offer is a neat bit of political recycling, too. Offering more power to voters means taking it away from bureaucrats. Other things being equal, that means curbing the power of the state-a dearly held Tory ambition, but one that many voters do not share.

Labour dismisses such ideas as a throwback to the bad old Tories of yore (which, in politics-speak, means the days of Margaret Thatcher-the last of Britain's overtly ideological prime ministers). The theme running through its manifesto, published yesterday, is that an activist government still offers the best route to a fair society.

For the truth is, while voters may be uninterested in ideological battles about the proper size and function of the state, politicians remain gripped. The financial crisis has sharpened the arguments: within Labour, calls for a return to old-fashioned leftism have become louder, and the ballooning deficit has put fire back in the bellies of small-state Conservatives. The parties would prefer to hold such arguments in private, for fear of frightening off the voters. But behind the scenes, they are happening, and the manifestos have let a little of the din escape from the back rooms.