AFTER THE AXIS DEFEAT

Michael Gove on what happened in the Tory party once Mr Hague saw off Clarke-Redwood

IT WAS the Bomb wot won it. Labour's implausible policy on the nuclear deterrent gave the Tories victory in the Eighties and something reminiscent of it gave William Hague his victory last week.

It wasn't just Labour's unilateralism that crippled the party in 1983, it was the inability of Michael Foot and Denis Healey to agree on what unilateralism meant that turned defeat into disaster. However, in comparison with the 1997 axis between Kenneth Clarke and John Red- wood, Healey and Foot were a model of seamless conformity and close harmony to rank with Take That.

Confronted by one MP with the mani- fest absurdity of their alliance, Clarke took refuge in his own deterrence formula, one that owed more to the terraces than Thomism, 'Look, it's shit or bust for me, and Redwood. We both know that neither of us can afford the other's resignation; if either of us fall out, that's it, we're fin- ished, and that will ensure we stay united.'

The MP was not convinced by this poli- cy of mutually assured destruction. 'MAD is what it sounded like, and mad is what it was.' Unwilling to rely on a balance of ter- ror to keep the Tory party one minute from midnight, he and 91 others chose Hague. Some were Redwood supporters who turned up to their man's press confer- ence with Clarke and realised, like Custer at Little Big Horn, that they were outnum- bered and surrounded. Some were Red- wood supporters who enjoyed private chats with Clarke and came away realising, in the words of one, 'I had no idea how far apart we were.' Some were Redwood supporters elegantly informed in ringing terms by the gentlemen of the Tory press that their party would be over within weeks of the election of Clarke if they did not see sense. One was a Redwood supporter frankly informed in four-letter terms by a former minister now in the shadow Cabinet that his career would be over within months of its start if he did not see sense.

They swallowed their doubts that Hague would prove another John Major and, it seems, they were right. His victory depend- ed, like Major's, on his skill as an ideologi- cal illusionist, but it was a different group who, as with all legerdemain, wanted to be fooled this time.

John Major was elected with the votes of the Right, even though he was probably the most liberal Tory leader since Baldwin. William Hague won with the help of the Tory Left, enough of whom shared Mar- garet Thatcher's early doubts and believed him to be the least right-wing of the candi- dates who weren't Ken. He is, however, potentially the most radical of all the lead- ers who haven't been Margaret.

One of those on the Tory Left who, it seems certain, backed Hague in the final ballot was John Major. Of course, Mr Major wrote to the Daily Telegraph this week to upbraid the reporter who had said he originally backed Clarke, was repelled by the Redwood deal and set to winning over waverers for William. The reason he was driven to write appears, according to one former ally, to have sprung not from annoyance that anyone should think he had deserted Clarke but anger because he had always been loyal to William. One Hague supporter believes Major's private demeanour after previous ballots, not least his disappointment that Clarke topped the second round, gave away his loyalties. Another Hague ally who worked with Major in the past is in no doubt that the former prime minister wanted to frus- trate in the leadership election the ex- Chancellor who had frustrated him in the general election. He argues, 'It was Ken who threatened to resign if the promise to hold a referendum on a single currency lasted for longer than a parliament, or if Major ruled out a single currency before the election.' Having had Clarke hold a gun to his head, Major may have enjoyed his own finger on the trigger.

Major, however, did not choose to enjoy the celebrations that followed the Hague victory. In the bowels of the Hague head- quarters at 28 Stafford Place, Henri Harlin champagne (Oddbins' cheapest) and smoked salmon sandwiches were distribut- ed among the exhausted campaign work- ers and several whose contribution to the campaign had not been apparent until that Thursday evening.

The building's owner, retread MP Jonathan Sayeed, busied himself saving his carpet from retrodden ash and found his biggest challenge in a guest whose contri- bution to the Hague victory had been only too apparent. Kenneth Clarke had not been on the official invitation list but he, and a knot of his supporters, turned up in a spirit of magnanimity. Although the ges- ture was sincere, the choreography was clumsy, with the Hague team in their lead- er's suite and the Clarkeites strung out in the antechamber. It was, in the words of one Hague supporter, 'like the Montagus and Capulets'.

Young Romeo stole off with his bride- to-be a little after nine, but it was not to the nuptial bed, instead other couplings were arranged. While the party was still swinging in Stafford Place Hague and his chief whip James Arbuthnot had decamped to the leader of the opposition's office vacated by John Major, and set to work. Hague is shortly himself to vacate those rooms for the suite that, until recently, housed John Prescott. There was, however, no time for decor decisions, or dinner, on their first night as the Hague team forswore supper while they unpacked and drew up their shadow Cabinet.

The next day the team were informed and that Friday night the first names released. Hague was delighted that each member of the shadow Cabinet had swal- lowed his injunction about 'no belly- aching' and accepted the portfolio offered. That was not, however, to be the case with everyone offered preferment.

Two of the most surprising omissions from the final list of shadow teams were David Davis and Eric Forth, former minis- ters of state and campaign stalwarts of Michael Howard and Peter Lilley respec- tively. They were, not, apparently, deliber- ately passed over; like Hague on the single currency they chose to rule themselves out of participation because the conditions were not right.

Both were irked at the elevation of lain Duncan-Smith from the back benches straight into the shadow Cabinet and nei- ther relished the deputy's post (allegedly at Defence) offered them. On Tuesday after- noon they were alleged to have 'faces like thunder' in the tea-room. One Hague sup- porter could not find it in himself to sympa- thise, pointing out that neither had publicly declared for his man in the final ballot.

Although the shadow ministerial teams have been assembled, the broader Hague coalition still requires some building work. The Rutland MP Alan Duncan has begun to give thought to an overhaul of image and, although he deprecates the compari- son, would be delighted to prove as effec- tive as Peter Mandelson. Yet while he handles strategy the Tories need a tacti- cian, a permanent press secretary loyal to the leader in the manner of Blair's bruiser Alastair Campbell. Hague's campaign press officer, Anthony Gordon-Lennox the shrewd, understated and floppy-fringed nephew of the Duke of Richmond, leaves at the end of this week to set up in business and the search is on for a replacement. The name of the former Express political editor Nick Wood has been mentioned.

Image may matter, but ideas matter more, and Hague supporters are anxious to give the new leader the intellectual support Thatcher enjoyed in her reinvention of the Tory party. Several cerebral Conservatives are anxious to take up the invitation and the think-tanks are already on Hague's lawn. Perhaps the most hopeful is John Redwood's old outfit, the Conservative 2000 Foundation. The price of Redwood's place at the shadow Cabinet table was his divorce from the organisation, and its influ- ence without him must be open to ques- tion. The director, Hywell Williams, is, however, a figure of great inner resources, intellectual and otherwise. External resources may prove a problem. One for- mer Redwood fan believes the lease on the foundation's headquarter comes up for review within three weeks and wonders whether that will be enough time to per- suade its two main backers, Brian Myerson and Crispin Odey, to stump up again.

In better heart is the outfit that presided over the last radical renewal, the Centre for Policy Studies. Its director, Tessa Keswick, is shortly to move the Centre, physically and ideologically, closer to Smith Square.

It was the intellectual exhaustion of the Major government that set the seal on defeat, the intellectual incredibility of the Clarke-Redwood axis that ensured its demise; it will be the intellectual vigour of any Hague renaissance that should be the precondition of victory.

The author writes for the Times.