POLITICS
Mr Portillo has an ego, and Mr Hague has a problem
BRUCE ANDERSON
In public relations terms, it was the least successful Tory conference ever. Just over a month ago in Bournemouth, the party spent most the week fighting itself. The opinion polls' verdict was predictable. This helps to explain why many Tories have been so jittery since the conference, espe- cially in retrospect — they found the whole experience unnerving.
There were two consolations, according to the party's strategists. After the ballot of party members, the Tories now had an agreed line on Europe. As a result of that, there was no further need to discuss the matter. At Bournemouth, the Tories may have misled the public into believing that they were a single-issue party who could not even agree on the issue; post- Bournemouth it should be possible to cor- rect that impression.
But these consolations have been slow to appear. Despite the government's manifest incompetence, the Tories are still not regis- tering a significant political presence. There is talk of strengthening the communications team by bringing in some wise old hand like Jonathan Holborow, a former editor of the Mail on Sunday, or Trevor Kavanagh of the Sun. All very well, but the malady is being wrongly diagnosed. No communications team can work effectively unless it knows what it is supposed to communicate.
So this week Michael Portillo offered his answer to that problem. In Tuesday's Daily Telegraph he argued that Mr Hague should toughen his line on Europe. He will have delighted many Telegraph readers and most Tory activists; he also succeeded in annoy- ing the great majority of senior Tories at Westminster. The European wound had barely begun to heal, and there was Mr Portillo relacerating the lacerations. He did not seem to realise that the ballot result is binding on Mr Hague too. All this caused even more annoyance among the sane Eurosceptics than it did among the Europhiles. Some of the latter, and espe- cially Michael Heseltine, saw it as an opportunity to make mischief. Mr Hesel- tine accused Mr Portillo of plotting against Mr Hague's leadership, and on this occa- sion, even some Tories who would never normally agree with Hezza about anything, were inclined to believe him. It seemed to be the only rational explanation for Mr Portillo's behaviour.
That ought to remind us of Michael Oakeshott's essay, 'Rationalism in Politics', in which he argued that there usually was none, and that when there was, it was gen- erally a bad idea. If Mr Portillo had been making a leadership bid, he would probably have shown more tactical astuteness. It was, however, much more of an ego bid.
Mr Portillo's problem is that he does not have enough to do. He is certainly keeping himself occupied, and making more money that he did as a Cabinet minister, but there is no great project: no big job or big book to fulfil his energies in the interim before he returns to the Commons. But he does have a court, and there is not much scepti- cism or irony among the courtiers, who assume it to be preordained that Mr Por- tillo will become premier and tend to go weak at the knees whenever his name is mentioned. This encourages his worst fault. As was said of Neil Kinnock, he finds it hard to hold his applause. Not only is the court in permanent session; so is the ego.
But Mr Portillo's article also relates to a wider question which was raised by Newt Gingrich's degringolade. The Telegraph had its answer; Mr Gingrich failed because he was insufficiently right-wing: 'Hard-edged figures such as Mr Gingrich need to mobilise and even to polarise the elec- torate.' Mr Gingrich had not polarised them enough, apparently, which is why he lost.
Mr Gingrich's loss was, of course, strictly relative, as he himself has pointed out; the Republicans still control both Houses of Congress. But this election ought to have been a historic opportunity for the Republi- can party, enabling it to build up such a commanding majority that its control of Congress would have been secure for a decade. The Republicans' inability to achieve this was nothing to do with their being right-wing or left-wing. There is a much simpler explanation for Newt Gin- grich's failure: Newt Gingrich.
I have only had one significant conversa- tion with Mr Gingrich, and that was back in 1980, but he does not appear to have changed much. While I was waiting in the then freshman Congressman's outer office, one of his staff, who seemed wholly unable to understand the rationale of mutually assured destruction, was assuring me that the United States could survive a nuclear war. I did not find this reassuring, and nor was Congressman Gingrich. He was brighter than Jack Kemp, another Republi- can politician and would-be intellectual. But both men had the same problem. Though they loved ideas, they could never persuade them to return their affection. As has been said of Philip II, Messrs Gingrich and Kemp are stupid intellectuals.
Mr Gingrich also frightens people. The worst mistake that the Right has made on both sides of the Atlantic is to deceive itself into believing that the public is now per- suaded of the case for a substantially small- er state. Though most voters readily become hostile to the state when it appears to intrude unnecessarily into their own lives, and especially via tax demands or traffic wardens, they also want to feel that the government is able to protect them. Mr Reagan won well, not because he was a right-wing ideologue, but because he made the American people feel good about them- selves and safe with him. Mrs Thatcher was unable to work that magic with the British people, so only a divided opposition and the British electoral system enabled her to overcome her unpopularity and to convert what would usually be losing percentages into substantial majorities. As for Mr Gin- grich, in 1994 he exploited Mr Clinton's unpopularity; in 1996, he ensured Mr Clin- ton's re-election. Because of Newt Gin- grich's threatening demeanour, the Presi- dent was able to persuade millions of ordi- nary Americans that the Republicans were a threat to education, the environment and health care. The President was saved from his own failings by Mr Gingrich's rhetorical incontinence.
This does not mean that right-wing par- ties need be timid. There is poll evidence to suggest that the public believe Mr Hague to be too right-wing, which may explain the party's abject performance over General Pinochet. Some of Mr Hague's advisers are said to be worried about his right-wing image. If so, they are misunderstanding the problem. When voters accuse a politician of being excessively right-wing, they are not referring to an ideological checklist. TheY simply mean that they do not trust him. That is Mr Hague's current problem. Though the government is giving the elec- torate all the excuses it needs to withdraw its trust, the Tories are still not offering a safe haven. In large measure, the mistrust is part of Mr Hague's accursed legacy from the last Parliament, but he has not yet worked out how to rehabilitate his party.
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