John Howard was not only defeated as Prime Minister of Australia, but lost even his own seat in Parliament. An analysis of the results in the Weekly Standard points out some interesting historical parallels. Winston Churchill was defeated in the 1945 election and Labour took over Parliament in spite of Churchill’s success in defending western civilization. He told his wife, Clementine, that he did not wish to be responsible for the affairs of the British voters for a minute longer than necessary, once the results were known. That is probably the height of ingratitude by voters, a 10 on a scale of 10, although there are modern analyses that suggest his lack of a domestic agenda was a factor. “The Beveridge Report, (which proposed the NHS Ed) therefore, presented the Prime Minister with a golden opportunity to reinvent himself as the leader of a party seriously concerned with social questions. What was more, acceptance of the report was not the only option – the party could have decided to devise and publicise an alternative prospectus. Churchill, however, completely missed the opportunity.” Churchill, in fact, was a classical liberal who had broken with the Conservative Party over the Irish Home Rule bill and who had supported measures to alleviate the burden of the poor in the early 1920s. In 1945, however, he had a war to win and seems to have ignored any other consideration. His problem was that the voters considered it won and had begun to think about the post-war period.
Last week, the most recent example of the startling rejection of a successful leader was seen in Australia. The defeat of Prime Minister John Howard after four hugely successful terms was a shocker. It is compared, and I think with good reason, with the defeat of Margaret Thatcher in 1990. The difference was that the Conservative Party, itself, ousted her, only to lose the next election to Labour and Tony Blair. In Howard’s case, he has been criticized for failing to withdraw and allow a successor to take his place before the election. The truth is that his agenda had all been accomplished and his Labour successor will, like Tony Blair adopt almost all of his reforms. The Australian Labour Party was wise in choosing a leader from Queensland, the most conservative of Australian states. Rudd, the new PM, has already announced he “has made a commitment to keep the government’s finances in order by maintaining budget surpluses and to preserve the central bank’s independence to set interest rates.” Howard paid off the national debt and his policies have seen Australia take off economically. Rudd, a Mandarin-speaking technocrat seems determined to follow the Blair path, even to his emphasis on climate change. Environmentalism is safe as long as you don’t actually plan to implement those Kyoto treaties.
Of course, there is always wishful thinking.