POLITICS

Mr Jeremy Hanley unwittingly reveals the Aristotelian limitations of John Major

BORIS JOHNSON

It does not require inside information to know that it will be a turbulent Tory conference for Mr Jeremy Hanley, the newish party chairman. The motions tabled by the constituency associations are, more than usual, a long howl of pain. In the style of the late Kim Il Sung, only the most sycophantic of these have been chosen for debate by Sir Basil Feldman, the Chairman of the National Union. But the tone of voice of the participants can be gauged in advance.

Bring back the birch. Stop cutting the defence budget. No Euro-currency. No sur- render in Ulster. Stop pussy-footing. Get a grip. That is the message that Tory activists will be bringing to Bournemouth on 11 October.

A few days ago, though, it seemed that Mr Hanley had hit on an entirely novel means of political defence. Called upon to comment on thuggery by fans during a box- ing match, and which it was his job to con- demn under Mr Major's new crackdown on yobs, Mr Hanley, who had not been prop- erly briefed on events, described the sav- agery as mere 'exuberance'. In apologising for this gaffe, he produced a ravishing self- exculpation.

No harm intended, old boy, he said. It was just that he was a a bit new to the game, a bit of a duffer, really. He was not `competent'.

For a moment hope flickered that this might be the studied declaration of a new Tory tactic, an all-purpose fire-blanket for Bournemouth. Perhaps, at last, Mr Hanley was getting at something that few of his col- leagues are honest enough to admit, that incompetence is just a fact of life; that it is perfectly proper and British to own up to the odd burst of pure bungling. After all, he seemed to be saying, better to be incompe- tent, than to be dishonest, or malicious, or ideological.

The party chairman, who comes from a theatrical family, appeared to be reaching out to the great mass of us who go through life making the most tremendous bishes and goofs. We lose underground tickets. We for- get people's birthdays and our wedding anniversaries. Perhaps Mr Hanley had recog- nised that people relish avowed incompe- tence; and delight to see it sometimes rewarded, like Devon Malcolm playing a for- ward defensive and scoring four runs over the wicket keeper's head. Fleetingly, as I say, we seemed to be on the verge of a devastating riposte to muti- nous Tories. Perhaps, to the 51 constituen- cy associations who have tabled motions critical of the Government's policy over Ulster, Mr Hanley and the party leadership could say in all conscience: 'Actually, we never really meant to begin selling out the Unionists of Northern Ireland with this Downing Street declaration, and hand the initiative entirely to Dublin, Sinn Fein and Washington. 'It just sort of crept up on us, you know. I'm awfully sorry. Incompetent, but there we are.'

And the disgruntled activists from Ley- ton to Liverpool Walton, from Exeter to Edinburgh, will respond, in refreshed amazement, 'Oh I see. Why didn't you say so in the first place? We thoug4t perhaps you were hypocritically encouraging negoti- ations that might lead to the erosion of the Union. But incompetence — that's differ- ent. Right you are. Carry on.' And so on and so forth. The same excuse could be used over VAT on fuel, European federal- ism, the rise in crime — mere glitches and howlers, not what we intended at all.

Alas, Mr Hanley's deprecation of his own abilities does not seem to presage such a strategy. The Tory high command remains obsessed with 'competence'. They believe that only by restoring faith in Mr Major's `managerial skills' can they win the next election, and the chairman's blunders pro- voke much wincing. And yet I think Mr Hanley has inadvertently hit on something.

Speaking as one with only the most fal- tering understanding of the Docklands Light Railway, I have always felt that com- petence was a grossly overrated virture. Think of Mr Major and his parodic array of biros in his breast pocket. We have all admired the way he opens a file at Ques- tion Time, efficiently flipping through the multi-coloured partitions to find the right answer. The Prime Minister, it has been incessantly remarked, exudes competence, like a bank manager.

The trouble is that competence is a mere utensil. It is just a contingent operational attribute, like good eyesight, or clear hand- writing. In Aristotelian terms, I seem to remember, competence has little to do with phronesis, which implies moral and intel- lectual nous actuated by principle, and which should be the virtue of politicians. Competence alone is of little use if one does not have a clear idea of where, in genes eral, one is aiming.

In the run-up to the party conference, what irritates senior Tories and backbench MPs, is that on that question of overall direction, they are still in the dark. As one Conservative grandee put it to me, there is no point in having an assault on drug-deal- ers in Britain, if one simultaneously takes steps to spring British drug-dealers from jail in Bangkok. Or in having competent White Papers on defence, without any clear idea of what the British army is for.

Or take Europe as we must. Mr Major's speech in the Dutch town of Leiden was competent enough. He spoke of subsidiari- ty, enlargement, the usual British shibbo- leths. But at the end of it we were none the wiser about what his answer was to those in France and Germany who wish to blast ahead to full European Union. As the Maastricht Treaty explicitly accepts, if there ever is to be such a fusion, it will be first achieved only by a 'hard core' of states. The question for Mr Major, which he com- petently ducked, is should Britain or should it not be part of such an advance guard? On these issues and more, Tories do not want displays of 'competence'. They want a lead.

As it happens, the publication of this week's Spectator coincides exactly with the second anniversary of Black Wednesday 16 September 1992, when the pound was expelled from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism and the Government's economic policy was destroyed. Here, if anywhere, is a sermon on the benefits of incompetence.

If Mr Major and Mr Lamont had been efficient, and succeeded in staying in the ERM for so many more weeks and months, the damage to British industry would have been so much the worse. Many of the motions for the party conference slavishly congratulate the Government for its brilliant economic policies, which they say have pro- duced a recovery. They might also note that it was a Government cock-up, the total implosion of its stated policies, which put Britain on the path towards economic sanity. I have a motion of my own: 'That HMG sould set aside the futile quest for compe- tence, and instead decide what they really want.'

Boris Johnson is on the staff of the Daily Telegraph.