A Tory Civil War Will Move British Politics to the Right

Welcome to the world of politics, Iain Duncan Smith. The troubled Tory leader expresses anguish and outrage that his political enemies are attacking his wife. Sorry, it may be wrong - in fact it's despicable - but it's politics. Ask Tony Blair. And if Duncan Smith is hoping for a little balance and kindness from Britain's political commentators, he can forget it. Last week he was responsible for an ill-judged joke about Charles Kennedy's drinking habits, and came close to accusing the prime minister of killing David Kelly, as well as of being a liar. Crude smears? Wild accusations? That's our job ... and no one in the Amalgamated Union of Pundits, Pontificators and Allied Trades will give the man a hearing just now.

The charge against him and Betsy Duncan Smith - of fiddling a parliamentary allowance - may be insignificant by historic parliamentary standards, but the venom the episode has provoked is truly dramatic, and goes far beyond another little Westminster fuss. The crumbling implosion of the Tories matters for the whole body politic. These people are beginning to make Labour during the 80s look like a smoothly efficient and friendly organisation. They are a complete shambles.

For anyone who remembers Labour in those years, when the Tories arrogantly assumed Labour would never recover, a little gloat is irresistible. The party of Margaret Thatcher is now behaving in a less disciplined and effective way than the party of Michael Foot. It's not just a problem of the leadership; it's the rest of them, too. If I mentioned ferrets in a sack, ferret-fanciers across the country could sue.

Even if they get rid of IDS, which is still not definite, the damage done to the Tory family would be very hard for any new leader to repair, certainly before an election. Michael Howard is probably now their best choice, which tells you all you need to know. For MPs, however desperate, to oust the Tories' first-ever democratically elected leader would cause profound bitterness. In local associations up and down the country they will be spitting with anger at the plotters. How could any future leader, associated with any of the circling factions, ask with a straight face for their loyalty ever again?

Some people will say that this is nothing but good news for Labour. The biggest opposition party is falling apart before our eyes, eaten up with despair and self-loathing. Is this not the historic chance for the government to press quickly ahead, redistributing wealth and reinvesting in our public services while the coast is clear? Might Tony Blair not even go for the euro while he has the chance? If the Liberal Democrats are poised to overtake the Conservatives as the main opposition, what's to lose?

Alas, I fear it is not so simple. For a start, the polls show that the Tory position in the country is not nearly as bad as its position in Westminster suggests. In one recent poll they are actually five points ahead of Labour. It can safely be said that this is not because the voters are turning in their millions to the charismatic allure of Iain Duncan Smith. It is because middle England again feels grumpy about public services and increasingly mistrusts Tony Blair. Partly because of that, the Tories will not collapse, or go away.

Instead, the net effect of the Tory civil war is actually to move British politics further to the right. It may seem paradoxical, but it is happening everywhere you look. First, take the Tories themselves. The more desperate IDS is, the more he needs to appeal to the basest instincts of the party's grassroots in order to survive - his words on immigration, crime and Europe last week were not the words of a man opening out to the rest of the country. Taking their cue, and remembering that it is ordinary party members who now choose the leader, his rivals will move right, not left, as they make their pitch to replace him.

Meanwhile, the details of the Tory policies unveiled in Blackpool, which are ferociously rightwing, have been completely smothered by the excited descriptions of the party's infighting. So there has been little considered coverage of the proposed dismantling of the NHS, or the fantasy of sticking all asylum seekers on some remote island, or the hostility to a European constitution of any kind, which leads to the real possibility of us leaving the EU altogether. This massive agenda intended to demolish the post-1945 state and shift this country even closer to the American model has simply been taken as read. The time may come when we all regret this.

Next, the Liberal Democrats: as they turn their hungry eyes on their long list of Tory target seats, they are shifting to the right as well. Those prominent leftish Liberals, Simon Hughes and Matthew Taylor, have been elbowed aside to make room for free-market enthusiasts. A party that a few years ago saw itself as a potential partner in government for Labour is now trying on more conservative clothes. Yes, this is to do with electoral calculation as much as principle, but the effect will be the same.

Finally we come to the government itself. The real effect of Tory disarray is not to make the prime minister lean to the left, but to release him from any real pressure at all. He can give full rein to his own instincts. All those people who suggested he was in such trouble with the voters that he would have to stand aside for Gordon must now shake their heads and shrug their shoulders.

He may not be loved by his party, or the voters, just now, but the Tory leadership mayhem is cementing Blair into Downing Street. He is under less scrutiny and pressure, not more. This week, for instance, the country might have been discussing Sir Kevin Tebbit's sensational evidence to Lord Hutton, which fingered the prime minister directly for naming Dr Kelly. Amazingly, and thanks to the media's fascination with the IDS affair, we were not. Blair should raise a large glass of bubbly to his Tory opponent.

Remember the 80s? The long years of Labour's chaos were what made Margaret Thatcher's reign a reign, not just a period in office. The unbalancing of the old order, in which any government was faced by a rival and plausible government-in-waiting, produced increasingly arrogant and out-of-touch politics.

Now something of that arrogance is visible in this government too. At Bournemouth, Tony Blair hardly bothered to mention the next election; he assumes it is won already, in the bag, hardly worth the bother of having. His reforms may not be popular in the party, or with the professionals, or even in the country ... but just now it does not matter a jot. The Tory mayhem is bad news for British politics generally. Yes, the riotous plotting and gossiping may be meat and drink for Westminster journalists. Grubby vendettas between back-biting rightwingers may be fun to watch. But they don't make the world a better place.