MEDIA STUDIES
We are the guilty men who once mocked Mr Hague and are now having to eat our words
STEPHEN GLOVER
Let this column serve as a confessional for all those columnists who once berated William Hague as a hopeless nincompoop but, now that the Tories are only 3 per cent behind in the polls, depict him as a man of vision and of substance. We must achieve some sort of catharsis. I say 'we' because I too have erred, though it is for others to judge the gravity of my sin. On 11 Novem- ber 1998 I wrote in the Daily Mail that Mr Hague was 'young and inexperienced . . . [and] curiously detached'. It is true that in the same column I also described him as 'a very attractive personality and a first- class intellect', but I do not really offer that in mitigation. In full possession of my facul- ties I had joined the pack of columnists, mostly Tories, who have dwelt on the alleged personality defects of the leader of Her Majesty's opposition.
Step forward Simon Heifer, my greatly esteemed colleague at the Mail. On 13 September 1997, three months after being elected leader of the Conservative party, Mr Hague was dismissed by Mr Hafer as 'a monumentally awful' leader elected by 'a bunch of halfwits'. On one occasion he had looked like 'a child molester on a day- release scheme'. Mr Heffer's admiration for Mr Hague and his party did not increase with the passage of time. On 9 January 1999, in an article generally favourable to Tony Blair, Mr Heifer wrote that 'the Tories stumble deeper into irrele- vance'. As recently as 11 December 1999 the party was still 'deranged'. So there was great rejoicing and some surprise when on 29 April of this year Mr Heifer rallied to 'the new populist Hague'. Attacks on him as 'an opportunist' had been 'shameful'. 'He may not succeed in winning the next election, but what he is doing is undoubted- ly right for our beleaguered democracy.'
Richard Littlejohn, sage of the Sun, the floor is yours. You may never have flirted with Mr Blair, but you have had some harsh things to say about Mr Hague. On 24 Febru- ary 1998 you wrote, 'The Tories are a waste of space and by choosing William Hague have replaced Captain Mainwaring with Pike. Stupid boy.' But after the Tory leader's recent statements about crime and asylum- seekers you generously found it in yourself to overlook the character deficiencies of the stupid boy. 'William Hague is getting it right on crime, the pound and asylum.'
But you are not alone. We are not alone. Trevor Kavanagh, also of the Sun, has had some pretty withering things to say about Mr Hague, and he too has recently found it in his heart to write sympathetically of the man. So, come to that, has his paper, which represented the Tory leader as a dead par- rot in October 1998 and now seems unsure whether or not it prefers him to Mr Blair. Then there are those who, if not actually rude about Mr Hague, have certainly had their dark nights of the soul. Our own much-cherished Bruce Anderson, who recently wrote in another place that a Tory victory was becoming daily 'less unthinkable', could not help castigating Mr Hague when he sacked Viscount Cranbome as shadow leader in the Lords. (Lord Cranbome has himself been a nodal point of disaffection, as was the late Alan Clark.) And there is our dear friend Captain Gove of the Times, who has recently written that Mr Hague 'is the spokesman for the genuinely marginalised in our society'. On 25 April 1998 this same Sir Galahad faced 'a long journey back to rele- vance, let alone power'.
I could go on, but there is little point. We know who we are. Some, of course, have not yet recanted. For example, the Times under its acting editor has barely tempered its for- mer asperity towards Mr Hague, though I suspect it will if he grows more powerful. Others may never recant even with the prospect of a Tory victory, and in a way one admires them. They will continue to repre- sent Mr Hague and the Tories in Hefferish terms as being several apples short of a pic- nic. Not long ago the 'shameless populism' that has inspired some souls led George Walden in the London Evening Standard to assert that 'Mr Hague does not have an orig- inal idea in his head'. On the Left, the Guardian's Hugo Young still wrinldes his lordly brow as he peers down from the heights of Mount Olympus on the petty machinations of Mr Hague and the Tories. The recent Conservative by-election defeat in Romsey apparently 'signalled the deep ill- ness if not yet the death of Tory England'.
My point is not that Mr Hague's erstwhile Tory critics are a bunch of calculating cynics who have rallied to the standard as soon as the tide of the battle has turned. They have a strong defence. They will say that they criti- cised Mr Hague when he was weak and inef- fectual and embraced trendy causes, but that as soon as he hardened his line on the euro and crime and asylum-seekers, in short as soon as he revealed his Thatcherite colours, they started praising him This explanation is perfectly fine as far as it goes, but is it the whole truth? The criticisms made of Mr Hague in his darkest days were not simply to do with his policies. They were also about his character. Because his policies were bad, he was not only wrong but also an idiot who was not up to the job. Now that his policies are judged to be good, his former character defects are forgotten and he is said to be ideally suited to leading the country.
There are some columnists who never rub- bished his character. On the Left, there was Andrew Marr, who wrote this in the Observer on 24 October 1999: `[Mr Hague] is not pathetic, or worthy of sniggering contempt, or a nutter. He is a brave man doing a diffi- cult job and you really don't need to agree with a word of his political analysis to see it plain.' Pretty fine, I would submit. On the Right, there has been the redoubtable Janet Daley of the Daily Telegraph. From the announcement of Mr Hague's candidature for the leadership of the Tory party until now, Mrs Daley has been loyal and steadfast but never sycophantic. She is a woman of the Right and always believed that Mr Hague was her man. I admit there was a small wob- ble, a momentary flicker of doubt, in a col- umn she wrote in April 1999, but she never descended to invective or doubted that Mr Hague meant well. As the rest of us clamber to get a foothold on the bandwagon, Janet Daley can be justly proud that at times she has been the only person riding on it.
Ihad hoped to write at greater length about Prince William. When he leaves Eton in a few weeks' time the media's agreement to respect his privacy will lapse. The News of the World has already broken ranks by pub- lishing paparazzi pictures last Sunday. There is talk of continuing media self-denial but I'm not convinced. The Daily Telegraph fights for exclusive use of official pho- tographs of Prince William taken to mark his 18th birthday. The Guardian publishes photographs of blonde bombshells with triple-barrelled names who are said to be ripe for Prince William's affections. With these respectable publications increasing the appetite of readers, we can hardly depend on the 'red tops' to show self-restraint. Prince William is in for a torrid time, and I don't know how it will end.
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