MEDIA STUDIES
The old Times would never have
trampled on a recumbent figure
STEPHEN GLOVER
We all know that the Times has a gen- eral animus against the Tory party and a par- ticular animus against William Hague. But during the absence of its editor, Peter Stothard, things have taken a turn for the worse — or better, if you see it that way. On successive days at the end of last week, the Times published two tendentious and inaccu- rate front-page splashes about Mr Hague.
On Friday it ran the headline 'Hague blamed as party shrinks' above a story by Andrew Pierce. Just who was doing the blaming? It seemed mostly to be the Times, though unnamed and unnumbered Tories at Central Office were said to blame Mr Hague for failing to create a new identity for the Tories — one of the paper's own hobby horses. The most acerbic comments that it could come up with were from an unidenti- fied shadow Cabinet member, who described party membership as 'disappointing', and a politics professor from Sheffield, who said that membership had being going down for years. This last contention was subsequently denied by the Tories, who claimed it had started to go up again.
Saturday brought an even more skewed story. 'Tory mutiny over asylum rocks Hague' was the headline. The doughty mutineers turned out to be Ian Taylor, a disenchanted Europhile ex-minister, and Stephen Dorrell, a disenchanted Europhile ex-minister. In fact, Mr Donell's allegedly mutinous hand was scarcely hovering over the yard-arm, and he merely agonised in a Dorrell-like way. An unnamed shadow Cabi- net minister was quoted as saying that Mr Hague's policy on asylum-seekers 'looks opportunistic'. Some mutiny! Even by the standards of the previous day, this was a non-story or, at any rate, a non-splash. Mr Hague may well be stoking resentment against asylum-seekers but there isn't the slightest evidence of a party mutiny. Most Tories have too shrewd a sense of public opinion to reach for their cutlasses.
Mr Hague, as I say, is not much loved at the Times. Its editorials tend to dismiss him. Many of its columnists — Peter Riddell par- ticularly, Matthew Parris often, Alice Miles and Tim Hames sometimes — dwell on his inadequacies and the party's terminal hope- lessness. Michael Gave avers that he likes Mr Hague — 'I write as a Hague fan,' he assured us last week — but we all know he keeps a framed photograph of Michael Por- tillo under his mattress. Indeed, the very Gove article that boasted its admiration for Mr Hague went on to mention his many shortcomings, as well as his lack of daring, before invoking the blessed memory of 'one politician' (aka Mr Portillo) who 'once said, who dares wins'.
The Times can no longer be described as a Tory paper. As recently as 1992, 64 per cent of its readers voted Conservative, according to Mori. In 1997 that figure dropped to 42 per cent, with 28 per cent supporting Labour. If Mori's most recent figures are to believed, only 34 per cent of Times readers intend to vote Tory at the next general election as against 47 per cent who say they will vote Labour. In fact since 1997 there has been a bigger Tory to Labour swing among readers of the Times than among readers of any other paper except the London Evening Standard, which is edited by that well-known socialist Sir Max Hastings. There are two possible explanations for the marked swing among Times readers since 1997. (1) Though sales have not gone up over the past three years, more non-Tory readers have been attracted to the Times. (2) The paper has actually con- verted former Tory voters to Labour. (3) A combination of the two. I favour (3), with much more emphasis on (1) than (2).
So conceivably Mr Stothard and, during his absence, Ben Preston have been right to hammer the Tories and William Hague. It is what many of their readers may want to hear. But there remains the little issue of fairness. It is one thing to field a team of anti-Hague columnists and leader writers; another to twist or magnify the facts so as to wound Hague on every possible occasion. Oddly, there have been three recent articles which went out of their way to be fair to the Tory leader: an account by Ruth Gledhill of his address to evangelicals; an article by Chris Buckland celebrating Mr Hague's par- liamentary gifts; and a thoughtful piece by Anthony Howard about the Tories' electoral prospects. So there is clearly no conspiracy to expunge every word in the paper that is favourable to Mr Hague. But the two splash- es at the end of last week do seem to be part of a campaign to denigrate him. They cer- tainly weren't fair, and I doubt that even Mr Stothard would have published them.
If the Times has abandoned the Tories, and sees itself as a New Labour publication, let it continue on its present course. But it would be refreshing if some of these avowed- ly Conservative columnists and leader writers paused to consider what they are doing. It is easy, and can be quite enjoyable, to bash the Tories. But when they are so manifestly laid out, it seems a bit cheap and even cruel to continue to trample on the recumbent fig- ure. That is not something the old Times would have done to any political party. It would have proffered a helping hand, and tried to start a bit of a conversation. This Times keeps stamping away.
Last Saturday night a bomb went off outside the offices of the Daily News in Harare, fortunately causing little damage. It was almost certainly put there by pro- Mugabe forces.
Readers may be interested to learn about the fortunes of the Daily News, which I wrote about before its launch in March 1999. The paper had the most difficult birth imagin- able. There were huge distribution and tech- nical problems. Sales slumped to about 30,000, far below break-even, and the money soon ran out. One of the Soros foundations stepped in to save it from closure. Then, four or five months ago, circulation began to rise as the paper became a focus of opposi- tion to the Mugabe regime. It is now selling 70,000 to 80,000 copies a day, having proba- bly overtaken the government-controlled Herald, and its single press is struggling to meet demand. Local investors are putting in more money. Its influence can be judged by the attempt of its enemies to put it out of business. It is a good, honest paper, and I am overjoyed by its success.
On the subject of Zimbabwe, I would like to respond to a spirited letter to this maga- zine from Robert Jackson, the Tory MP. My respect for Mr Jackson knows no bounds and I am sorry if he was upset by my recall- ing what he said after Robert Mugabe's elec- tion victory in March 1980. Let me repeat it for readers who may have missed it. 'British constitutionalism has waved its magic wand over Rhodesia and it looks as though the pumpkin is turning into a carriage.' Mr Jack- son gets me wrong when he suggests that I favoured the Ian Smith/Bishop Abel Muzorewa 'internal settlement'. I simply think that, after Mugabe's victory, Christo- pher Soames and others, including Mr Jack- son, convinced themselves over their better judgment that Mugabe was a decent chap. He wasn't, and he isn't, and talk of magic wands was, and remains, ridiculous.
Previous page
