POLITICS

A golden Prime Minister that never has been yet

SIMON HEFFER

John: Thou has made me giddy With these ill tidings. Now, what says the world To your proceedings? Do not seek to stuff My head with more ill news, for it is full. Bastard: But if you be afeard to hear the worst, Then let the worst unheard fall on your head.

King John, Act IV, Scene II Whatever certain ministers may feel about being stigmatised in this way, the whole episode of that nice Mr Major's video nasty may end up doing him a bit of good. He speaks a language his people can understand. The odd prude may complain about the Queen's First Minister using the B-word, not to mention the F-word. How- ever, to most of us it suggests that Mr Major may not be quite such a P-word as we have long thought him to be. To the public, salivating over their newspapers or even ringing the 'Those Bastards Tapes in Full' hotline, the episode provides circum- stantial evidence that Mr Major is not a robot. Also, it gives a rare insight into a fact some of us have been castigated for report- ing: that all is not sweetness and light at the top of the Conservative (and, as we must now apparently say again, Unionist) Party.

`What I don't understand, Michael,' says Mr Major on the famous tape, is why such a complete wimp like me keeps winning everything.' His interlocutor, Mr Michael Brunson of Independent Television News and one of the last practising gents in Her Majesty's Lobby, was far too well-man- nered in the presence of greatness to do anything other than agree. There was no disputation of the word 'everything', which presumably includes his great triumph over the ERM, his great triumph in the local government elections, not to mention all those triumphant by-election perfor- mances. But what is so psychologically fas- cinating about Mr Major's fantasy world is that he appears to have blocked out the two factors that have delivered him such victo- ries as he has had: the first is the moral cowardice of 90 per cent of the parliamen- tary Tory party; the second is Mr Kenneth Clarke, the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

It took a desperate measure — a vote of confidence — to exploit that moral cow- ardice and keep Mr Major limping on in office. But whose idea was the vote of con- fidence, something which (however morally suspect) was, at least, a decisive act? The newspapers reported that the Prime Minis- ter had reached this conclusion collegiately with three senior non-bastards, Messrs Hurd, Howard and Clarke. That is not, though, how others saw it. The common belief at Westminster was that Mr Clarke, who cannot pass by a leadership vacuum without feeling a pathological urge to fill it, devised and pushed through this plan. The other ministers' names were associated with the scheme either (a) to stop Mr Clarke getting all the glory or (b) to stop all other ministers looking complete W-words by comparison. One junior minister, briefed by bastards and non-bastards alike, told me, 'It looks as though Ken made the running all through.'

With Mr Clarke what you see is what you get. After nearly three years of governmen- tal prevarication, such talents are refresh- ing. Mr Clarke made his application for the job of Chancellor unashamedly in The Spectator in March. Later, he openly said that the British economy was 'in a hole', the first honest assessment of the subject in liv- ing memory. In the old days, cabinets would have a minister — Lord Tebbit was one such — who would go on television at his colleagues' bidding and make veiled threats about issues or people, just to test the water, or to scare recalcitrants back into line. Mr Clarke does such things quite naturally, quite sincerely, and without requiring prompting from anyone. No finer proof of this could be found than when, on the morning of the confidence vote and just as the vain attempt to establish unity was being launched, he called for the whip to be withdrawn from the disloyal. If you are

going to have bastards at all it makes sense to have serious ones, and Mr Clarke is cer- tainly in that category.

If Mr Clarke were Prime Minister there would be no alter ego to emerge in televi- sion interviews. It would be like this:

Clarke: Fancy a beer and a smoke?

Brunson: Er, no, Prime Minister, frightfully kind of you, but I wonder whether we could do the interview?

Clarke: Sure. Fire away.

Brunson: Off the record, Prime Minister, I wonder whether we might chat about these Euro-sceptics who are making life so trouble- some for you?

Clarke: I think they're a bunch of complete f—ers and if only I didn't have a majority of 17 I'd kick their f—ing heads in.

Brunson: Absolutely brilliant, sir . . . but I wonder whether we might find some way of alluding to this on the record?

Clarke: Sure. What about 'I think they're a bunch of complete f—ers and if only I didn't have a majority of 17 I'd kick their f—ing heads in'?

There is no campaign for Mr Clarke to become leader of. That is not because there is no vacancy. It is because there does not need to be one. With each day that passes he looks more and more prime ministerial — a point Mr Smith, the Leader of the Opposition, nervously made in the Com- mons last week. Mr Clarke needs no help to establish himself as the pre-eminent fig- ure in his party, just as Mr Smith needed none when he effortlessly shone above Mr Neil Kinnock in the last two parliaments. Mr Clarke knows that if the Tory party wants a job done properly; he is going to have to do it himself; as, indeed, he already appears to be doing. It is nothing to do with his quality as Chancellor, which is so far unproven and may turn out to be low. It is that he is just about the only natural leader in a party screaming out for one.

For the moment Mr Major claims credit for the little victories won for him by Mr Clarke's strength of character. He brands as 'bastards' ministers prepared to stand in the way of ratifying the Maastricht Treaty with the social chapter: for that, according to Mr Major, is what provoked his outburst. Mr Major may get away with it for a while longer; but fewer and fewer people are being fooled by him, least of all, one imag- ines, Mr Clarke. To adapt an Americanism not invented by Lyndon B. Johnson, the Euro-sceptics may be bastards, but at least they are Mr Major's bastards.