Land of lost content

dismayed by the auguries will tell you. Psephologists defend them as

''snapshots''. I prefer to think of them, taken collectively, as a

temperature graph.

Never take a poll in isolation, is the lesson. That the Conservatives

are now Scotland's fourth party is fascinating news but only part of a

bigger picture. As John Major rearranges the deck chairs on the Titanic

-- or throws his friends to the sharks: mix your own metaphors --

Scotland's steady drift from Unionism seems part of a pattern.

Britain's decline is now palpable. By any yardstick, from crime rates

to homelessness to the PSBR to the constitutional question, the United

Kingdom is breaking up. Laugh if you like at La Mont's vision of ''the

good society'' (as shared with the Guardian yesterday) but the laughter

will be as hollow as a manifesto promise.

''The good society,'' said Parliament's newest back-bencher, ''is one

that has opportunity for everyone and a golden safety net for those who

can't look after themselves.''

Golden. It is an odd word to use of a society in which four million

people are unemployed; in which 12 million are defined as poor by EC

standards; in which five million are claiming income support; in which

one in four children lives in poverty; in which the right to a minimum

wage or to working hours fixed by statute is denied. If the safety net

is golden, I would be fascinated to hear La Mont's definition of base

metal.

Very soon now, class-based politics will return to British life. While

Michael Portillo plays games with the media in his efforts to whittle a

few billion off the Government's borrowing requirement, his little list

of possible victims reads like a declaration of war against the weak and

defenceless.

This is not an accident. As things stand, two-thirds of the adult

population shoulders the financial burden for the remaining one third.

Meanwhile, demography, in the shape of the growing army of pensioners,

promises only to make matters worse. Portillo, speaking on behalf of all

those Jacks who are all right, thanks very much, has made it clear these

people will no longer be protected.

Those who can provide for themselves will be obliged to do so; those

who cannot will be discarded. Spurious arguments over universal benefits

(shared with Labour, which fears what it one day may inherit) are meant

to disguise an attempt to dismantle the welfare state.

Every privatisation carries the same sub-text. Road-pricing, for

example, means that freedom of movement for the poor will be curtailed,

since few privatised bus companies will resist passing on the cost of

tolls. Whatever the promises, rail privatisation will have the same

effect. The arguments over water privatisation need no further

rehearsal.

The PSBR crisis has helped to lift the veil. It is no longer plausible

to complain of wage costs in Britain, or of strikes. Labour is cheap in

Britain, as even Major likes to boast, and industrial disputes are rare.

Inflation is low, the pound is competitive, the ''social costs'' of

industry are slight -- yet Britain's decline continues, inexorable and

chilling. Among EC states only Portugal has more poverty.

Health, education, housing, transportation -- a wedge is being driven

into society at every level. Think only of the paranoid fear of crime

endemic within the middle class. They do not know poor people; they do

not understand them; but they fear them. If there is a one-nation Tory

left in captivity, I would pay money to hear how closely Britain matches

the old, dishonoured ideal.

You cannot create this situation -- and it was created -- without

storing up trouble. You cannot maintain social cohesion by declaring 12

million people to be non-persons. Without an attempt to end economic

apartheid you can only sit back and wait, behind your double glazing and

your home security systems, for fires to blaze.

Scotland's resistance -- this thread of thrawn dissent that runs

through every poll -- amounts to more than a protest vote.

Constitutional change may not be everyone's priority -- when was a

hypothetical question anyone's priority? -- but the demand for it

refuses to be eradicated. In calling for a new political settlement,

Scots are doing more than stating their own preferences in domestic

affairs. They are also rejecting the British state.

The recent history of System Three polls amounts to a sustained

critique of the way British society is constituted and run. Britain's

politics shape British life. Yet the Westminster system seems

increasingly culpable for the decline of the United Kingdom.

Scotland dissents; the north of Ireland is a killing ground; England's

industrial base is shattered; the south-eastern triangle is no longer

golden.

The psychological effects are already obvious. Cynicism is the vice

anglais as we slouch towards the millennium, that and a kind of unease.

La Mont, plainly baffled, still talks of the elements for recovery being

in place while his Prime Minister witters on about warm beer and cricket

grounds.

The rest of us think of racism, religious bigotry, the pabulum of

narcotics, or breakfast television, or party politics, or the Murdoch

press. In this land of lost content, hatred for the other -- the black,

the gay, the impoverished -- becomes acceptable again. So the vacuum is

filled.