POLITICS
Hague strikes with Mafia professionalism; and may face revenge
PETER OBORNE
Aan Clark was granted six final weeks last summer in which he knew that he was going to die. That short interval gave him time — amid other matters of yet deeper importance — to prepare with military pre- cision every last detail of the profoundly moving memorial service at St Margaret's, Westminster, at noon last Tuesday.
He used the occasion to deliver one last droll joke on the party he loved and despised in roughly equal measure. The injunction — delivered through the sardonic lips of his old comrade David Davis — to the 80-odd Tory MPs present to 'be fruitful and multiply' (Genesis i 28) brought barely suppressed tit- ters from a certain section of the audience.
But not even in his wildest dreams could Clark have hoped for the dramatic perfec- tion of last Tuesday's service. Of all the Tories present only William Hague and a few intimates were aware of the political assassination that was being planned — with a cold-hearted ruthlessness Clark would have enjoyed and richly approved — for later that day. The event bore an unmis- takable resemblance to those Mafia reli- gious services beloved of the film director Francis Ford Coppola, where solemn moments of worship and meditation are interposed with scenes of bloody murder.
Hague's clinical strike would have brought a nod of professional approbation from Mafia bosses. The element of surprise was total. Most reshuffles are preceded by weeks of leak and speculation and end up a messy shambles. Not this one. Even Nicholas Soames, not always a loyal follow- er of William Hague, was heard proclaim- ing in the lobbies that the way it was con- ducted 'makes William look good'.
Nor was there any quarrel with Hague's hard-headed decision to dispense with the services of John Maples, the shadow foreign secretary. Maples's promotion eight months ago caused widespread bemusement; not so his sacking. Often absent at important moments, frequently hard to get hold of, with a policy on Europe that bordered on the incomprehensible, Maples has a strong claim to be the worst shadow foreign secretary of all time. Not even Gerald Kaufman, who had to be hidden from the British public before the 1992 general election, runs him close.
Francis Maude cannot complain about being shunted from shadow chancellor to foreign affairs. Eighteen months ago Maude was being talked about as the coming force in the Tory party. He has failed to live up to that billing. But Hague is right to move rather than sack Maude. No chancellor in liv- ing memory has commanded the stage with the facility that Gordon Brown does at pre- sent. Not only does he possess formidable political skills, he also presides over the most formidably strong economy for half a centu- ry. It was probably impossible for Maude to score points off Brown. Maude is a reassur- ing politician, fair and square in the Tory tra- dition. He deserves another chance.
The sacking of John Redwood is more problematic. Hague is uncomfortable with Redwood, a legacy in part of the bitter 1997 party leadership campaign. But Redwood's loyalty ever since has been exemplary. So has his work-rate. He is the one Tory front- bencher to have claimed genuine scalps. Lord Simon — admittedly a soft target — was all but driven from office by Redwood. Lord Sainsbury barely survived. He wound- ed Margaret Beckett so badly that she had to be moved from the trade portfolio. Red- wood's posture of aloof integrity makes him just as awkward a customer for his own side as the opposition. Nevertheless he is a brave politician of high intellect and it would be a tragedy if, as seems likely, his career in British politics is over.
Archie Norman, Redwood's replacement, is an individual of the highest quality whose promotion to the shadow Cabinet is overdue. He is much sneered at in Parliament. That is a commentary on the parochialism of mod- ern career politicians rather than on Norman, who is a world-class businessman. Neverthe- less, shadowing John Prescott will make or break him, and it is impossible to be entirely confident that he will survive the ordeal.
Redwood's demise can only have provid- ed a moment of exquisite pleasure for Por- tillo. The Vulcan has been a standing reproach to the new shadow chancellor ever since the Tory leadership contest of 1995. Then Redwood displayed political courage of the highest class, while his rival equivo- Make me read Beowulf ' cated. Boldness in this case has not been rewarded. Five years on, it is the equivoca- tor who has won the day. Nevertheless, Por- tillo's pleasure at his new post of shadow chancellor will be less whole-hearted than his pleasure in John Redwood's departure. He would have preferred a job which tied him less closely to the fortunes of William Hague. He would have preferred an oppo- nent who bowled more loose deliveries than Gordon Brown. Hague's calculation is sim- ple. Either Portillo will succeed — in which case his own standing should rise too — or the same steamroller which squashed Maude will also obliterate Michael Portillo.
It is a calculation which might work. Hague desperately needed to do something. For his first two and a half years in office the Tory party has effectively abdicated its con- stitutional duty of providing an opposition to the government of the day. One of the conundrums of the last month is how New Labour has managed to make such a mess of things despite being handed a free run by the Tories. It is as if a car in excellent condi- tion had suddenly swerved off a straight and easy road with no other traffic in sight.
The formal Tory opposition has been so hopeless that the most vigorous activity in recent months has come not from the front bench but from freelance elements on the back benches, of whom the two most active are Eric Forth and David Maclean. It was these two former ministers who forced the all-night sitting which necessitated the aban- donment of Prime Minister's Questions last Wednesday. It is an alarming sign when the most effective disruption of the government's business comes from backbenchers acting in defiance of the instructions of the opposition whips: a matter which William Hague would do well to ponder. This reshuffle would have been better still if these two old hands had been brought on board. William Hague may have bound Portillo in, but the brutal truth of his precarious and exposed position is that a challenge to his leadership does not need to come from Portillo. If this week's reshuffle fails and the Conservative party continues to languish in the polls, a spontaneous eruption in the ranks, which neither Hague himself nor Portillo could do anything to arrest, can- not be entirely ruled out, even this side of the general election.
Peter Oborne is political columnist on the Express. Bruce Anderson returns next week
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