TRUTHFULLY, KEN OR WILLIAM?
Anne McElvoy on what Labour thinks about the Tory leadership, rather than says
A NEW Labour friend telephoned just me after William Hague's victory was announced. 'Damn,' he said, 'Tony will be upset: he's always liked Ken.' The liking was mutual. So much so that when Mr Blair shadowed Mr Clarke as home secre- tary, Mr Clarke took to joking that they were 'in danger of agreeing' on their approach to crime and punishment. That happy state of affairs ended when Michael Howard took over from Mr Clarke and gave Labour an a la carte menu of things to disagree with.
But which of the Tory candidates did Labour really fear? The official answer was Mr Clarke. At times during the cam- paign it seemed that the Labour propagan- da machine was more efficient on Mr Clarke's behalf than his own spluttering model.
Alastair Campbell, Mr Blair's press sec- retary, assiduously informed the lobby that Clarke packed a big punch and was popu- lar with the voters. In the guise of victor's grace, this rapidly became New Labour gospel. It fed into the Independent and the Guardian, which raved about Mr Clarke's virtues, disassociating him entirely in their leading articles from their dislike of the Tory party. So insistently, in fact, did New Labour tell us that they esteemed (and by implication feared) Mr Clarke that one began to wonder what purpose all this con- spicuous admiration was intended to serve.
Even before the election there were signs that New Labour — an organisation which leaves nothing to chance — was developing one of its lines-to-take' on the future of the Tory party. When Peter Man- delson told the Sunday Telegraph's Matthew D'Ancona that the only Conser- vative politician he really admired and held as a 'personal role model' was Mr Clarke, connoisseurs of Labour spin began to smell a very fresh red herring. Leaving aside the adverse affects on Mr Clarke of being considered to have assisted in the formation of Mr Mandelson, why would Mr Mandelson, one of the government's chief strategists, so boost an opposition fig- ure? Could it possibly be that he hoped to raise the price of Mr Clarke's shares with the Tory party? And if so why? `Do you want the spin or the truth?' said a Labour spin doctor who works in a rival practice to Dr Mandelson. 'The spin was Clarke, the truth was Hague.' The spin had indeed been intended to help heave Mr Clarke into the leadership by making it seem that Labour feared him. This failed to achieve its intention. The Blairites are such a ruthlessly disciplined and cen- tralised team that they tend to forget that Her Majesty's opposition is currently so disorganised and unpredictable as to be immune to manipulation.
For all the fawning over good old Ken, New Labour had calculated that he was a vote loser for the Conservatives — and not just because he personified the split over Europe. He was deemed a gift to Labour strategists during the election campaign because he was, in the words of one cam- paign manager 'always off message'. This in turn reveals a classic New Labour flaw — to equate a politician's calibre with his performance during the election cam- paign.
Ken was also road-tested by New Labour with the voters. 'It is a myth that he is popular with the public,' said the spin doctor. 'Our focus groups showed that men liked him, but women voters hated him — they thought he was arrogant and sloppy. All that stuff about him being the most popular Tory with the country is rub- bish. It just suited both the Clarkeites and us to play along with it.'
Such was the Labour fixation on Mr Clarke that when Mr Hague's campaign began to gather momentum, they were unnerved. Downing Street strategists began to see in Mr Hague the one charac- teristic that most fear in a Tory — moder- nity. The challenger was `unbothered' by the idea of gay marriage. He is the aca- demic survivor of a school which Labour turned comprehensive. He has retained his northern accent whereas Mr Blair ditched his at Fettes. He is unpretentious. While he looked decidedly odd at 16, he has grown younger with the passage of the years and there are signs that his agree- able manner is tempered by steel. When, after the vote last Thursday, he stepped before the cameras to issue a threat to his own ranks, 'The way we conduct ourselves in this party is going to change,' he accom- panied this with a broad smile. One young Blairite remarked, 'It's eerie. That's just like Tony challenging Clause 4 — he's basi- cally taking control of them while looking as if he is wooing them.'
One question haunts the more far- sighted New Labourites — what if Mr Hague turns out to be a New Conserva- tive? Until now, they had not bargained for that. Mr Blair's lieutenants were impressed by Mr Hague's press confer- ence in the Atrium restaurant, the feeding trough of lobby correspondents and MPs in Millbank. 'It was so well chore- ographed,' said one. 'He swept down the stairs with a lot of people behind him, which gives a strong visual impression of leadership. It was exactly what we would have done.' They particularly liked the touch of a white podium against a deep purple background. 'Very regal, but clean and modern at the same time.' We seem to be in for a political culture in which the two parties review each other's handiwork like fashion designers.
The presentation of the Clarke-Redwood pact, on the other hand, did not impress. 'It looked amateurish. They clearly hadn't intended to leak the bit about Redwood becoming shadow Chancellor. It just looked like a messy, stitched-up deal.'
But wait — wasn't Mr Hague criticised for not having a clear message with which to rebut Labour? 'Doesn't matter,' said the spin doctor. 'The message will come in time. The main thing is that Hague looks like a Nineties man and Clarke doesn't.' Another member of the Blair penumbra added, 'Hague is more like us —pragmatic and not hung up on doctrine. Clarke was just another old fart — a superior old fart, granted, but he's been around for so long that the cracks are beginning to show. Tony was always going to look good beside him.'
So, for the most part, New Labour's declared liking for Mr Clarke was artifice. But there was a shred of genuine regard in there too. They liked Ken because he was to the very end his own man, con- temptuous of the spinners and focus groups. He represented all the political traits they have exorcised from their own ranks. They fear Mr Hague because they sense that he might turn out to be rather like Mr Blair.
These twinges, it should fairly be said, are slight and likely to remain so while the government enjoys the pheromone high of its majority and Mr Blair's early successes. But there has never been a prime minister who is not haunted by the realisation that on the benches behind or opposite him sits someone whom fate has chosen to be king hereafter. Birnam Wood always comes to Dunsinane and you can never slay all of Macduffs chil- dren. Mr Hague has plenty of years left to perfect his swordsmanship.
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