The Telegraph made fain Duncan Smith.
Will it break him?
STEPHEN GLOVER
To say that the Daily Telegraph has the same relationship to the Tory party as Pravda once did to the Soviet Communist party would be a bit of an exaggeration. There are some sections of the Tory party which the Telegraph does not like, and there are some sections in the Tory party which do not like the Telegraph. There is little love lost between the newspaper on the one hand and either Kenneth Clarke or Michael Portillo on the other. Nonetheless, when the Telegraph makes ar cathedra judgments about the Tory party, many Conservatives listen. Never is this more true than when there is a leadership contest in prospect.
The Telegraph warmly embraced kin Duncan Smith when he stood for the leadership in the summer of 2001. Charles Moore, the paper's editor, had long admired and liked him. IDS shared the Telegraph's politics: Eurosceptic, pro-American, strongly unionist as regards Northern Ireland, in favour of low taxes, and a good family man. It did not at all undermine the esteem in which he was held that he appeared to be decent and gentlemanly. The paper urged first Tory MPs and then the wider constituency of party members to vote for lain Duncan Smith. Most of its columnists swung behind him. Dean Godson, who as chief ideologist occupies the same role in the Telegraph as Suslov once did in the Soviet Central Committee, gave IDS his imprimatur. When lain Duncan Smith triumphed in September 2001, the paper declared that 'a chapter of strife and bitterness in Tory history can now close'. It might be too much to say that the Daily Telegraph won the leadership for IDS, but it is difficult to see how he could have got it without the paper's backing.
The Telegraph still supports lain Duncan Smith. It has not yet turned on him as it did on Ted Heath after the 1974 election. But the enthusiasm has gone, the love has waned. It is not easy to put one's finger on the moment that doubts first crept in. Perhaps it was at last autumn's party conference, when IDS associated himself with Theresa May's extraordinary description of the Tories as 'the nasty party'. (The columnist Janet Daley, previously one of IDS's cheerleaders on the paper, rapped his knuckles at the time.) Perhaps it was after lain Duncan Smith's somewhat melodramatic invitation to the party last November to 'unite or die'. (A leading article of almost suicidal depression ended with the words, 'Yesterday was the most des perate day in the history of the Conservative party.') Around that time, one of its columnists, Tom Utley, broke ranks and confided that he was fed up with having to defend IDS out of a sense of duty. At the end of the year the Telegraph reflected. not unjustly, that 'it is clear that lain Duncan Smith — and not Tony Blair — will end the year mired in gloom'. The editorial concluded with words — whether penned by Mr Moore or Suslov, I do not know — which will not have brought much New Year cheer to the heart of the Tory leader: 'The public will continue to wonder what the party stands for under lain Duncan Smith.'
The Telegraph seems partly exasperated by IDS's lack of leadership qualities Ca stronger leader would find it easier to shrug off such attacks', it observed on Monday) and partly depressed by his tendency to back away from some of the policies which, in its view, justified his election as leader. What strikes the reader as much as the paper's chiding is its reluctance to offer strong support to a man who is undoubtedly on his uppers. Often a rather eerie silence reigns. One imagines that the leader conferences at the Telegraph's offices at Canary Wharf must have become sombre affairs, with a troubled Suslov wondering how, or whether. IDS can be rescued.
It is important to emphasise that there is no evidence that any decision has been made by the Telegraph to dump IDS. Mr Moore is a patient man; and besides, whom else could the Telegraph support? For its part, the IDS camp is certainly aware that relations are not what they were. If anything, it exaggerates the deterioration. Some of Mr Duncan Smith's men believe that a decision has been made at the highest level at the Telegraph to turn against the party leader. This seems to he based on a partial misreading of a fairly recent Telegraph board meeting during which the paper's political correspondent Rachel Sylvester is believed to have said some critical things about IDS which went down well with the assembled company. In actual fact, any critical comments which she may have made seem to have been surpassed by those of Lord Cranborne, who is a director of the paper. But it is mistake, I think, to imagine that in this matter Mr Moore is likely to take directions from the board of the Daily Telegraph. If the paper does disown IDS, it will be because Mr Moore has himself arrived at that decision.
Will he? And, if he did, what difference would it make? Let me take the second question first. As I have said. the Telegraph is not Pravda. In 1975 it could not bring itself to back Margaret Thatcher in the second and vital round, and yet she won. (Lady Thatcher misremembers in the first volume of her autobiography when she writes, 'The Daily Telegraph, an important barometer of Tory grassroots feeling, swung decisively on to my side.' Perhaps her mistaken recollections were influenced by John O'Sullivan, a Telegraph leader-writer in 1975 who helped her with her book.) So the Tory party is not putty in the Telegraph's hand. Yet there is reason to believe. with IDS so low in the water, that if the Telegraph let go of him he would probably drown. It is Tory MPs who will determine whether there is a leadership contest, but they are unlikely to do so without the support of Tory bigwigs in the country. These people look first to the Telegraph for guidance. The Daily Mail is important too, but it is strictly speaking a right-wing newspaper rather than a Tory one.
And so to Mr Moore. I am sure he still likes and admires Mr Duncan Smith. He is instinctively loyal. And yet he evidently has his worries. If IDS should rally, or if the polls should move sharply his way, then it will be glad confident morning again. But if things get worse? My bet is that the Telegraph would in that case gradually withdraw its support, though it would not be the first to plunge in the knife. When it became clear that Mr Duncan Smith was for all practical purposes finished, the paper would regretfully inform its readers. Then it would probably turn not to Michael Portillo or Kenneth Clarke — for obvious reasons both men are beyond the pale so far as the paper is concerned — but to the younger generation, whose most outstanding representative happens to be Mr Moore's old Cambridge room-mate and friend, Oliver Letwin. The Daily Telegraph has been kingmaker before, and it will want to be kingmaker again.
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