POLITICS
Mr Hague has a problem with bestiality, and with the facts of life
BRUCE ANDERSON
The monkeys are chattering, the birds are screeching. The very undergrowth is tense; the bushes are alive with small crea- tures scurrying to safety. Some of them will scurry in vain. A big beast of the jungle is on the prowl, a journey that may end in blood.
The phrase 'big beast' is Douglas Hurd's, and it is a valuable tool for understanding politics. The big beasts are the politicians who make the weather. They that have power to hurt': leaders and premiers can only hope that they will do none. Govern- ments need their locomotive energy, but big beasts can he uncomfortable colleagues and difficult subordinates. They enhance governments; they also wreck them.
Think how different the history of the Labour party might have been if Jenkins, Healey and Crosland had managed to co- operate. Then again, Crosland was never quite a big beast: one reason why he was so jealous of the other two. Consider the career of David Owen, who deserves a mixed metaphor: big beast as fire-ship. Ponder on the fall of Margaret Thatcher; there were many causes, but a progressive failure in big-beast management —Hesel- tine, Lawson, Howe — was a crucial factor. Apropos of Lord Howe, big beasthood is not a permanent status. Tony Benn was only a big beast for about four years: it took the Labour party 14 years to recover. Geof- frey Howe spent 15 years at the summit of Cabinets and shadow Cabinets, yet seemed to qualify for the John Simon memorial prize awarded for longevity in high office without being elected to the bestiary. Then came that speech. The dead sheep became a lion; Margaret Thatcher, an ex-prime minister.
She had been the biggest beast of them all, and has not yet lost her teeth. But the genus is in no danger of extinction. The PM apart, this government has only two big beasts, Gordon Brown and John Prescott. They are also the only two serious ministers who do not buy Tony Blair's act. When the government runs into trouble, they will be the fault-lines.
High office alone does not turn a politi- cian into a beast. Michael Howard and Malcolm Rifkind never became one, nor have Robin Cook or Jack Straw. Office helps, but beasthood requires an extra dimension of electricity. Thus equipped, the beast can survive mistakes that would shatter lesser politicians: Jim Callaghan's chancellorship, Michael Heseltine's mace swinging; Michael Portillo's blunders over the SAS and the Royal Yacht.
There was a lot of excitement around Tory breakfast tables on Wednesday morn- ing. For many Tories, Michael Portillo brings politics alive in a way that no one has since Maggie. That is a problem for William HagUe, a man with every charismatic quali- ty, except charisma. His front bench desper- ately requires reinforcement, but that brings us back to the uncertainties of big beast- hood: Mr Portillo certainly has the troops, but whose side will they fight on? Not yet a big beast himself, Mr Hague already has a double beast problem in the shape of Hezza and Ken Clarke. He must wonder what sort of a colleague Michael Portillo will he.
In two respects, however, Mr Hague's task is easier than it might have seemed a few weeks ago. The first is that he has sud- denly improved his performance. It is hard to overstate the weakness of Tory morale on the eve of the party conference; dismay was on the point of turning into despair. Then Mr Hague raised his game, and his party has registered the fact, although the opinion polls have hardly noticed. Even before the conference, in an interview given while Alan Clark was still alive, Michael Portillo had alluded to some homosexual activities. Until that moment, it had seemed that he only had to close his hand to grasp the Tory leadership; after it, matters became more complicated.
If this country were as sophisticated as many people wish to believe. Michael Por- tillo's sexual past would not matter. But it is not. Barbara Cartland recalls that when she was told about the facts of life, she went around looking at all the grown-ups with horrified fascination, thinking to herself, 'did they do that?' Two thirds of thaBritish public still behaves like the newly enlight- ened Barbara Cartland: we suffer from a squalid mixture of licence and prurience. Mr Portillo, as genuine a cosmopolitan as he is a patriot, might ruefully acknowledge that they do order sonic matters better in France.
But if he were a party leader, he would have to face a British electorate, 30 per cent of whom, according to the pollsters, would rather that their premier had not had a homosexual past. There is also a danger that this figure is an understatement, with some voters reluctant to admit to politically incorrect sentiments. And there is a further problem. It is still hard to imagine the cir- cumstances in which any Tory leader could concede Tony Blair an advantage in the handicap, but what percentage of the popu- lation would be unhappy about a premier who is a happily married heterosexual.
So it may be that Mr Hague does not have to worry about a beastly challenge to his leadership. Hezza is now a lion in win- ter; Ken would be electable in any party except his own and, because of what he did 20 years ago, Michael is 20 years too early. But even if the beasts are not a problem with the Tory selectoratc, there remains the problem of the national electorate.
With the enthusiastic co-operation of Messrs Clarke and Heseltine, whose recent behaviour is barely compatible with their retention of the Tory whip, Mr Blair is try- ing to ensure that Mr Hague's prime minis- terial aspirations are drowned out by what, in another context, Geoffrey Howe described as 'background noise'. We know exactly how the PM will respond to the Por- tillo selection. He will try to portray Mr Hague as simultaneously hapless and weird. We will be assured that having alienated all the decent people in his party, William has cleared the way for the vampires now being resurrected in the Thatcherite outre-tombs. Ken Clarke has already been reported as denying that the Tory party is being led by the equivalent of Michael Foot. According to Mr Clarke, that will not happen until Mr Portillo becomes leader. Mr Blair will do everything he can to encourage the analogy between the Tory party now and the Labour party in the early Eighties, and he can rely on his Tory fifth column to assist him.
If he is successful, the Tories will have only themselves to blame. There is one crucial difference between Benncry and Haguery. There was no way in which Ben- nery could ever have been made popular; no aspect of the Hague programme need ever be unpopular. The Tories' problem is not their policies, especially on Europe. It is trust. They have to find a tone of voice which can reassure the British people that, in a brilliant phrase which Chris Patten invented for Margaret Thatcher: 'The facts of life are Tory.' These days, unfortu- nately, the Tory party is not good, on the facts of life.
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