POLITICS
It's too soon for Mr Hague, but not for the Tory party
BRUCE ANDERSON
From the outset, it was almost certain that William Hague would become the leader of the Tory party. Peter Lilley and Michael Howard are both big men with considerable intellectual and moral quali- ties. Both of them could have united the party; neither had enough appeal to the public. Ken Clarke is another big man who does appeal to the public, but he could never have united the party. Nor could John Redwood, any more than he could have attracted back the lost voters.
It might have been a very different race if either of the two Michaels, Heseltine and Portillo, had been able to stand. But as it was, Mr Hague would always have found it hard to lose. He will win partly because of his opponents' negatives, so the task facing him now is to accentuate his positives.
But it would be absurd to subject any leader to some sort of ideological virility test. The modern Tory party can only be led from the Eurosceptic centre-right. But that position ought to be sharply distin- guished from the Europhobe ultra-right, and above all from the revolutionary defeatists who were looking forward to los- ing an election so that they could recon- struct the Tory party as a doctrinaire sect. Some of them are still active; they obvious- ly feel that the defeat on 1 May was not heavy enough. In Mr Redwood, they have their natural leader.
By viscera as much as by conviction, Mr Hague is on the right of the party. In that respect, his credentials are not only as good as Michael Howard's or Peter Lilley's; they are rather better than Margaret Thatcher's were in 1975. Mrs Thatcher did not spring fully armed from the head of Hayek. Espe- cially in her early days, she always balanced her instincts with a cautious assessment of political practicality. From the failure of the Heath government, she not only learned about the futility of U-turns; she learned how to avoid the need to make them. Everyone remembers 'You turn if you want to: the Lady's not for turning.' But at the same time, in industrial relations as in public spending, the Lady was happy to employ Fabian tactics. Albeit involuntar- ily, Mr Heath had taught her to emulate Montgomery, and only join battle when she was in a position to win.
Mr Hague has also learned lessons from observing failure. John Major is a natural conciliator, and tried to keep his party together by mediating between the warring factions. It is not his fault that this did not work; no one since the New Testament has been able to cast out devils to the necessary extent. Mr Hague is a courteous man and a good listener. Before making up his mind, he will take counsel; there will be plenty of opportunity for others to have their say. But once the decision is taken, he will expect the saying to stop. He will propose a simple concordat to the rest of the party: I lead, you follow.
In this, he will have an ally: the result on May 1st. There is one sole advantage in los- ing half a parliamentary party; it brings home to the survivors the magnitude of the task facing them. One of the many infuriat- ing aspects of dealing with the Tory party over the past five years was talking to MPs who blithely assumed that they could go on attacking their own government until the very eve of the election, and still win. If Mr Major had only lost by 30 or 40, those char- acters would still be at it, confident that the pendulum would swing them back to power at the end of this Parliament. As it is, and as he attempts to restore discipline to the party, Mr Hague will be able to cite the consequences of its previous indiscipline. Most of his colleagues will agree.
But not all. On the whole, the leadership campaign has been conducted in a chival- rous manner. As in 1990, most of the candi- dates and their teams rarely forgot that this was a contest between colleagues and that, once it was over, they would all be serving together in Cabinet or shadow Cabinet. There was one exception. In anonymous briefings, some Redwood supporters have been guilty of vicious and wholly dishonest personal denigration, especially of William Hague. Mr Redwood himself has consis- tently given the impression that he is only interested in the Conservative party pros- pering if he can lead it. This may be a false impression; if so, he will have opportunities to correct it. But he and some of his sup- porters may feel that Tuesday's third place gives them a mandate for further disrup- tion. If so, the devils really will have to be cast out.
A reunited party is a necessary condition for victory, but hardly a sufficient one. Mr Blair will prove to be a cunning, slippery opponent. He has started as he means to go on, running his government as a photo- opportunity and being as skilful as he was in opposition at denying the Tories blue water on any popular issue. There is no evi- dence yet that he plans to repeat the eco- nomic mistakes of all previous Labour gov- ernments, and he has an inheritance from John Major that would be hard to squan- der. So far, new Labour is offering Whig men and Tory measures, except on the con- stitution. There, they have made two cyni- cal assumptions. The first is that the issues are too complex for most voters to under- stand. The second is that the prestige of British institutions has never stood lower, partly because of Labour's success in exploiting so-called sleaze. So Mr Blair and Mr Mandelson think that they can do what they like. In the short run at least, they may be right. It will not be easy for Mr Hague to win early successes.
Nor will it be impossible. He is a skilled debater, and as John Major demonstrated during last week's PM's questions, though Tony Blair may be good at soundbites and set-pieces, he is not at ease with sharp, straight questions. William Hague is quick, and he is not only a good speaker, but an orator.
He may possess a further, crucial gift. The Tory party now has the task of re- working the Thatcherite themes of free- dom, opportunity and Britain in fresh lan- guage, to enthuse its own supporters and win back the striving, self-help middle classes without frightening off that large section of the electorate who instinctively look to the state for help. Mr Hague may have the right combination of intellect, conviction and personality to achieve this.
At dinner on Tuesday night, one or two of the new leader's friends were thoughtful. A Hague leadership was no longer just a dream and a campaign: it was a near-cer- tainty. This is a terrible burden to place on the shoulders of any 36-year-old, especially a man who is about to be married and who should have better things to do with his time than leading the Opposition. As one former Cabinet minister put it: 'I am sure that William could be a good leader and prime minister, and I think he might be a great one, but aren't we risking destroying him by promoting him too early?' There is a risk. There is also no risk-free road to a Tory recovery. Mr Hague has long been tipped for political greatness. Events always impose their own timetable on those who aspire to such heights.
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