POLITICS
Decay all around I see, and possibly even change
SIMON HEFFER
Last month I interviewed Mr Enoch Powell before an audience of about 150 members of the Conservative Party. Given the attitude of those who run the party now I had better not say which Conservative association played host. The audience, all of whom had paid to see Mr Powell, was predominantly young, professional, and activist; in short, just the sort of people the Tory party needs for the future.
Each time Mr Powell made a remark critical of the Government, he was applauded incontinently. When a man stood up to announce he would be standing as an anti-federalist candidate, against a Tory candidate, in June's Euro-elections, the ovation from his fellow Conservatives verged on the hysterical. There are pockets of Toryism flourishing and vibrant in Britain today. Sadly for Mr Major, they are unrelated to the Government.
It might have been polite for the party to wait for next month's tax rises, or the elec- tions of May and June, before letting recrimination rip. However, this was not to be. There is said not to be the old rapport between Mr Major and Sir Norman Fowler, his party chairman; or between Mr Major and Mr Ryder, his chief whip. Though Sir Norman is a better chairman, and Mr Ryder a better chief whip, than Mr Major is a prime minister, the leader is said to feel they deserve more blame for the state of the Tory party than he does.
How 'in touch' Mr Major is with his own party is debatable. Senior MPs and peers are horrified that he is apparently relying on two people in particular to be his 'eyes and ears'. One, understandably, is his par- liamentary private secretary, Mr Graham Bright, known among colleagues as 'Gra- ham Dim'. The other is the environment minister Robert Atkins, with whom, on a barge trip, Mr Major years ago plotted his unlikely ascent to 10 Downing Street. 'I wouldn't tell Atkins the time of day,' says a leading supporter of the Prime Minister. `He's got a brain the size of a pea.'
Sir Norman Fowler will vacate the chair- manship this summer. Some feel he should not wait so long. 'If you let the world know you're going, you've got to go the next day,' said a former Central Office insider. 'He's lost authority now.' There is unrest that Mr Anthony Weldon, a Treasurer of the party until he resigned last week, could ever have been appointed in the first place when it was well known in the City (and people from the City told Central Office) that he had been convicted in America of offences connected with his business practices. But then the party does not always know what it is after. One successful businessman, at a recent candidate selection weekend, was told by those interviewing him that he was `too thoughtful'. Morale in some depart- ments of Central Office is now so low that people no longer even want to discuss it.
The belief at Westminster is that the chairmanship is now 'certain' to go to Mr Hunt, the Employment Secretary, who is making an unsurprisingly convincing dis- play of reluctance to take it. The old Thatcherites were coming round to the view that Mr Heseltine had been rehabili- tated sufficiently to be allowed the chair- manship, at which he would be brilliant. However, the effect of his appearance before the Scott inquiry is said to have put paid to that. It is not that the Right have changed their minds — far from it. It is that Mr Major's advisers fear Mr Heseltine would overshadow him so much if he became chairman that the pressure on Mr Major to leave, and Mr Heseltine to suc- ceed him, would become irresistible. This, though, is just one manifestation of the paranoia breaking out all over the party at the moment. Mr Heseltine may well be prime minister one day, but he could just as easily become the next Joe Chamberlain.
While the giants and half-giants squab- ble, the mood in the party in the country is dire. 'Things have become far worse since Christmas,' one MP told me. 'They are just tired of Major.' Another MP, a Major loy- alist, commented that the decline in morale was due to unreasonably pessimistic expec- tations of the effect of VAT on fuel from next month. 'Once they see that's not the end of the world, they'll be back,' he said. Few of his colleagues agree with him. And, judging from the freedom with which Mr Heseltine, Mr Clarke and Mr Howard have discussed, in public, the delicate question of the leadership in the last few days, doubt about the future extends right to the top.
Most Tory activists are old Thatcherites, and it is they who feel the worst discontent. Even the most Euro-fanatical Tory MPs have long since abandoned hope of per- suading their activists to make an effort for the June elections, so disenchanted are the workers with the party and so deeply do they despise the European Parliament. By contrast, those making trouble at Westmin- ster are centre-left supporters of Mr Hesel- tine and Mr Clarke. There is no plausible right-wing contender for the leadership.
'Heseltine's always been a loner in Cabi- net,' says a close colleague. He doesn't real- ly have any friends, and you could feel the froideur after he went for Nick Lyell. It's nothing to do with what we think of Nick. It's a lot to do with what we think of Michael, yet again, starting a campaign when there isn't a vacancy.' For a campaign there is, and Mr Clarke's higher profile in recent days, popping up on wireless inter- views and in the press, suggests he is in no mood to give Mr Heseltine a clear run. If the president is handicapped by the cen- sure of his peers, Mr Clarke has a double problem. First, as a more decent and less ruthless man than Mr Heseltine, he does not want to do anything that adds to uncer- tainty about the future of Mr Major. Sec- ond, for similar reasons, he does not have a campaign team actively working for him. After Mr Heseltine's appearance before Scott, his team was out in force. At least one Cabinet minister was approached by Mr Peter Temple-Morris, the president's acolyte-in-chief, and sounded out on what he thought of the way things were going. Colonel Michael Mates, now back in the team after a temporary estrangement, is going about his evangelising duties with military precision. And Dr Keith Hampson is said by one colleague to be 'living on the telephone'. The team is ready if Mr Major chooses to go of his own accord; mean- while, loyalty to him is the word. But the very existence of the team, and the relent- lessness of its activities, further destabilise Mr Major.
Nor does it matter that Mr Heseltine it seems, despised and rejected by his Cabi- net colleagues. They are but 20 or so mem- bers of a party in the Commons numbering 332. He can do without them and, noting how inspirational they are, he is probably content in that knowledge. It is the pre- dominantly centre-right backbenches he is after. He is making his rhetoric more delib- erately right-wing, now even attacking the European Community. So disheartened are the troops that they are prepared to believe anything. As in 1990, the instability of the party and dissatisfacItion with the leader- ship provide Mr Heseltine's opportunity.
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