No one expects the Times to be Conservative, but why must it be anti-Conservative?
STEPHEN GLOVER
The Times is undoubtedly a much improved newspaper since Peter Stothard returned to take up the reins after his illness. But in one respect it is unchanged. Before Mr Stothard went away, during his absence and since he has come back, the Times had been an unwavering and astringent critic of William Hague. In this preelection period it is, if anything, even more anxious than usual to damage his reputation as Tory leader.
On Tuesday 13 March, as the foot-andmouth crisis intensified, the paper had more important matters on its mind. Under the headline 'Tory troops desert on eve of battle' it explained that 'William Hague's plan to revive the Tory grassroots was last night shown to have failed with the leak of internal documents indicating that the party's membership is now little more than 300,000'. This was remarkably similar to a previous splash which the paper ran in April 2000 under the headline 'Hague blamed as party shrinks'. According to the Times, the shrinking has not abated, membership having fallen by a further 25,000. What the paper did not mention in its story of 13 March was that Labour party rolls have also been declining. The fall in Tory membership is interesting, but the headline was tendentious (implying that there is a precipitate collapse on the eve of an election), while the timing and prominence given to the story were calculated to inflict maximum damage on Mr Hague.
There are countless other examples in recent months of the Times placing the least generous construction conceivable on Mr Hague's activities. On 22 February it ran a front-page story stating that the Tory leader had 'confined to barracks' — i.e. Conservative Central Office — his rivals Michael Portillo and Francis Maude for the duration of the election campaign. This is untrue: both men will spend a considerable time on the road. On 6 March the paper took Mr Hague to task in a first leader after he had suggested that a second Labour term would leave Britain as a 'foreign land'. Mr Hague's language was regrettable, but to suggest that he had forsaken 'honour and decency', as the Times did, was to judge him in the harshest possible light.
The latest attack on Mr Hague is an attack on his spin doctor, Amanda Platen, in Wednesday's Times. Relations between Ms Plate11 and most Times journalists are not good; as a result of what she regards as the
paper's anti-Hague stance, she barely speaks to some of its reporters. So the piece by Michael Gove, a distinguished Times columnist who actually has more time for the Tory leader than most of his colleagues, may be seen in part as retaliation. But it was more than that. Mr Gove's line on Ms Platell — that she is an ex-tabloid lightweight who cares about presentation but not policy — is also what Michael Portillo and Francis Maude say in private, and their allies in public. In this spat, at least, Mr Gove was putting himself squarely in the Portillo/Maude camp. His piece ignored Ms Platell's popularity among many journalists, of the Left as well as the Right, and her partly successful efforts to improve the image of the Tory leader.
Why does the Times hate Mr Hague so much? The answer cannot have much to do with Rupert Murdoch, the paper's proprietor. His other daily paper, the Sun, has had something of a love affair with Mr Hague, partly thanks to the intercessions of Ms Plate11. Though it has recently come out for Labour, as I predicted it would in my column of 20 January, this is because it despairs of the Tory party, not of Mr Hague. No, the Times's line is not set by Mr Murdoch. It comes first from the paper's editor, whose libertarianism has been offended by Mr Hague's position on social issues. Mr Stothard also fell seriously out of love with the Tory leader during the paper's campaign against Michael Ashcroft, the Conservative party treasurer.
Around Mr Stothard there is a cluster of Blairite and libertarian Tory journalists who are keen to stick the knife into Mr Hague at every opportunity. Among the former group is Mary Ann Sieghart, a leader writer and columnist, and Tom Baldwin, the picturesque deputy political editor who is the author of many anti-Hague stories, including the pieces of 22 February and 13 March which I have mentioned. Foremost among the libertarian group is a former Oxford don called Tim Hames, who writes leaders and occasional articles. His signed pieces portray Mr Hague as an incompetent with extreme social policies. Mr Hames can barely let an opportunity pass without bashing the Tory leader. On 8 March, after Mr Hague had given what many commentators thought was a spirited response to Gordon Brown's Budget, Mr Hames naturally took the opposite view: 'If the Chancellor pumps any more lead into William Hague, the Tory leader could embark on a new career as a colander.'
There is, of course, no reason why the Times should not take against Mr Hague and favour his rivals, particularly Michael Portal°, in the post-election leadership struggle for which it devoutly hopes. It is a question of fairness. If the paper skews story after story against the Tory leader, its more percipient readers will begin to doubt its judgment. Equally, if the Times is soft on Tony Blair, as it sometimes is, people will wonder about its even-handedness. For example, this week the paper made practically nothing of Tom Bower's amazing allegations against the former paymaster-general, Geoffrey Robinson, first published in the Daily Mail. The Times has rarely been a Conservative paper, but it should not become an anti-Conservative paper either. Nor, unless it wishes entirely to jettison its old reputation for fairness, should it run hatchet jobs about the leader of Her Majesty's opposition.
Why did BBC Radio Four's Today programme on Monday morning make so comparatively little of Mr Bower's sensational allegations in the Mail? I heard only one short item, from Andy Marr, just before the 8.30 news. The explanation is that the Prime Minister's press secretary, Alastair Campbell, rang the BBC early on Monday morning, rubbishing the allegations and announcing that Stephen Byers (whom Mr Bower had accused of hushing up a damaging report on Mr Robinson) was intending to sue the Mail. As a result, the Today programme was cowed. An invitation to David HeathcoatAmory, the shadow trade and industry secretary, to appear on the programme was cancelled. To its credit, BBC 2's Newsnight later made much of the allegations. But Mr Campbell had again succeeded in drawing the teeth of a story injurious to New Labour. I will be astonished if Mr Byers does go ahead and sues the Mail.
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