MEDIA STUDIES
The fascinating affinities between William Hague and the editor of the Sun
STEPHEN GLOVER
Last week something happened which has caused Alastair Campbell, the Prime Minister's press secretary, to pull out his hair. The Sun, which from before the last election has broadly supported New Labour, started rooting for William Hague, a man whom a year ago it depicted as a dead parrot.
During the European elections in June the paper stayed surprisingly on the side- lines. Now it has suddenly become a fervent supporter of Mr Hague's harder line on the euro. And this appears to be no momentary aberration. Last Friday afternoon Rupert Murdoch, proprietor of the Sun, had a pri- vate meeting with the Tory leader which was later described by one of his confidants as 'very friendly'. This person was quoted in the Financial Times as saying that the rela- tionship between the two men had 'become more positive . . . The tide has turned for the Tory party'.
It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of this development and the panic it has occasioned in Downing Street. The govern- ment has long nurtured the hope that Mr Murdoch could be 'turned' on the euro. It wasn't such a barmy idea. After all, a man whose business interests have led him to express his 'admiration for China's tremen- dous achievements in every respect over the past two decades' could plausibly be expect- ed to learn to love the euro. Only last week Mr Murdoch stressed his determination to play a larger role in European television. Might not such expansion carry with it a more pragmatic line on the euro? When, a few weeks ago, Mr Murdoch had lunch with Romano Prodi, President of the European Commission, some people thought that this was a prelude to a Damascene conversion. Well, I suppose it still might be. You never can be sure with Mr Murdoch, and the Sun is famously fickle. But it would entail an enor- mous amount of rowing back from its new pro-Hague and extreme anti-euro position.
Mr Murdoch evidently calculates that it is possible to advance his interests in Europe while remaining anti-euro. But, in fact, the Sun's love affair with Mr Hague' did not start with him. Amanda Platell, the Tory leader's quite recently installed spin doctor, realised that the Sun, which is read by ten million people, was a prize worth battling for. So Mr Hague was put together with David Yelland, the paper's editor, who had likened him to a dead parrot. Some-
how they hit it off. Maybe they were drawn to each other because they are both excep- tionally bald. It is also pointed out that both men hail from Yorkshire and are about the same age. No doubt there was a genuine meeting of minds. At all events, the relationship has blossomed and, at the Tory party conference in Blackpool earlier this month, William and Ffion lunched with Mr Yelland and his wife. The paper was slightly appalled by the ferocity of Mr Hague's attack on Mr Blair during that conference (Whatever else you say about Tony Blair, he is essentially a good man') but judged that 'Hague is getting better there's no denying that'. Last week it turned its guns on Michael Heseltine and Kenneth Clarke (`rony's Toadies') and berated them, and John Major, for attack- ing its new hero, William Hague.
We can be certain that Mr Yelland did not swing his paper behind the Tory leader without the support of his proprietor. Mr Murdoch always takes an interest in the Sun, and in some sense acts as a kind of edi- tor-in-chief. He runs the Times on a much looser rein. It is a nice irony that, just as Mr Murdoch is beginning to see the point of Mr Hague, the Times's dislike of the man should deepen. Last Wednesday it carried a long editorial in which it accused Mr Hague of having committed 'a remarkable error' by saying that a Tory government would seek further opt-outs in Europe. The paper, which is firmly against the euro, argued that this opened Mr Hague to charges of extremism. So critical was it of the Tory leader that a senior Times executive called Michael Gove is said to have had severe palpitations. Mr Gove has something of a soft spot for Mr Hague. Perhaps he is also more alive to the shifts taking place in his proprietor's mind than Mr Stothard, editor of the Times. Mr Stothard's view of the Tory leader is inevitably coloured by the Michael Ashcroft affair. Mr Hague has stood by Mr AshcrOft, the Conservative party treasurer, who is engaged in a to-the-death libel battle with Mr Stothard.
How do we explain Mr Murdoch's new- found respect for Mr Hague? He hasn't simply had his arm twisted by Mr Yelland. A clue lies in what the unidentified confi- dant said to the Financial Times: 'The tide has turned for the Tory party.' Though he spends most of his time in America, Mr Murdoch is clever enough to see what many of our home-grown political commentators have not yet grasped — that Mr Blair is beginning to lose ground to the Conserva- tives. On the euro Mr Hague is obviously much more in tune with the British people — and Sun readers — than the Prime Min- ister. Mr Murdoch does not want to be left behind. Of course, it is still too early to drop Mr Blair. But unless the Prime Minis- ter renounces the euro — which surely even he cannot do — he will find himself more and more at odds with the Sun. If the next election is fought on the issue of Europe, which seems likely, the paper will find it impossible to resist the logic of its own position. Which is to tell its readers to support the Tories again.
William Rees-Mogg, as I have men- tioned before, is one of my heroes. He is a prince among columnists. So I was a little unhappy to see him roped into a piece of shameless pro-Chinese propaganda in the Times. To mark the visit to Britain of Jiang Zemin, President of China, Lord Rees- Mogg was flown to Peking to interview the Chinese leader.
President Jiang was plainly impressed by Rees-Mogg's life peerage. There was a lot of talk about the differences between life and hereditary peerages, and the status of knights. It was a remarkably bufferish inter- view. Lord Rees-Mogg knows China well and has often written about it, but he could manage nothing more searching than an extraordinarily indirect question about Tibet. He didn't remotely put President Jiang on the spot about China's appalling human-rights record or its political prison- ers. He concluded: 'Overall I found the President very relaxed, very friendly, very intelligent, a man at ease with himself. I am glad he is coming to Britain.'
Can this be the same Lord Rees-Mogg who, in July 1997, chastised Ted Heath in a column for his 'grotesque' support for the Chinese regime? The same Lord Rees- Mogg who in August 1996 wrote about 'the continued oppression in the western terri- tories'? I realise that Chinese leaders do not appreciate being asked aggressive ques- tions. But if the condition of the interview was that Lord Rees-Mogg should chat away with President Jiang as though he were a fellow member of the Garrick Club, it would have been better not to have done it..
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