When TINA means Tony

When Margaret Thatcher said 'There Is No Alternative', she could have been giving a prescient description of the current election campaign.

Tony Blair has started to receive widespread endorsement from the UK media. But has backing ever been given with such little enthusiasm? When Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee suggested to disaffected Labour voters that they begrudgingly vote for Blair while holding their noses, even promising to send clothes pegs to any readers requiring them, it seems she could have been speaking to the entire political class.

The Times (London) today suggests voting Labour, but hopes that Blair will have a much-reduced majority. The Economist's front page summed it up perfectly: 'There is no alternative (alas).'

The problem is that the political terrain is so narrow that on all the major issues the differences between the parties are administrative rather than political. All the parties supported the war on Iraq (although the Lib Dems would have preferred the UN's thumbs-up first); all the parties want to limit immigration, they simply disagree about how; all agree that major public services will continue to run pretty much as they do now. The refusal to turn the closure of MG Rover into a 'political football' was utterly symptomatic.

Given the choice between three mediocre platforms, it is no surprise that the movers and shakers of British society have despondently decided 'better the devil you know'. Let's hope Toynbee has a good supply of clothes pegs.

There is no alternative (alas), The Economist, 28 April 2005