Don't be Vague,

Count on Hague

How did William Jefferson Hague, hardly out of short trousers, end up as our Leader of the Opposition and potential Prime Minister?
Roy Stone goes back to his roots.

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I hope you've all got a lump in your throats. Thirty years after Harold Wilson, eighty five years after Herbert Asquith and two hundred and twenty after the Marquis of Rockingham, Britain is close to having another Yorkshireman at the helm. Repeat after me. The Right Honourable William Hague, Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Stop giggling at the back, I'm serious! All it takes is a cross on that ballot paper and the lad from Wath-on-Dearne Comprehensive will be leading the entire country. Brings a tear to the eye, doesn't it.

I mentioned the Earl of Rockingham because the man was not only one of Britain's most ineffectual Prime Ministers, he happens to loom large in the childhood of both William Hague and myself. Both of us grew up within a stroll of the man's immense estate north of Rotherham, his Wentworth Woodhouse, his palladian follies, his model village, and what was left of all his aristocratic enterprise. For the old Earl and his son had a passion for industry. Around his estate he cut some of the earliest canals, sank coal mines, set up foundries and railway lines. Two hundred years later, in Greasbrough and Elsecar, the industry was still there and still worked. The old Tory's vision was more or less intact.

William was born in Wentworth to a family who ran a thriving business over the eastern side of the vast estate in Greasebrough village. He grew up alongside coal miners and steelworkers and labourers, but the family firm was unconnected with the old Earl's affairs. Hague's Soft Drinks was a local institution and young William grew up knowing industry secrets that any child would have treasured. Lime and Lemon, Cherry. Orange. Dandelion and Burdock. Much more magical than Anthracite, Bitumen, Coke and Ironstone.

Wentworth Village was an oasis in the dust and tundra of the vast South Yorkshire coalfields. It was a legacy of benign capitalism where a Tory patriarch would provide cheap housing, schools and healthcare for his workforce. The big house was now a PE college but the place was still an exclusive place. Still owned by the Fitzwilliam Estate. But to those of us the other side of the moonscape of waste matter north of the place, where pit buzzers cut through filthy air, Wentworth was a world away.

TORY BOY WONDER

"...They do not want to go to Callaghan's promised land, which must surely rank as the most miserable and abhorrent land that has ever been promised to the people of a nation. Most of all they want to be free from the Government, the government they think should get out of the way, not interfere with their lives, and I trust that Mrs Thatcher's government will indeed get out of the way..." WILLIAM HAGUE aged 15 Conservative Party Conference 1976 _____________________

The only thing we proles had to hold onto was the prospect of a mining job at Cortonwood, or Elsecar, or Wombwell Main. If we got real lucky with the 11 plus there was Wath Grammar School . And this is how William Hague can swan around the corridors of power saying he went comprehensive. Wath Grammar, the best - Sorry, I'll rephrase that - the ONLY school in the area became a Comprehensive in '72. Eleven plus abandoned, and catchments invented. I got Wombwell High. William got Wath Grammar.

The '74 pit strike came and went. Family savings were spent on necessities. Gym pumps worn to school, and powercuts plunged the landscape into darkness. There was Ted Heath, the Three Day Week, and the Winter of Discontent. Sunny Jim Callaghan came along to get labour back to work. But, as Saatchi and Saatchis famous posters pointed out, he failed miserably.

Meanwhile, over the far side of the slagheaps, Young Will was turning his back on the cricket his Dad loved so much. He was developing a fascination for high politics. Not for him the minutiae of Leeds United league positions or Geoff Boycott test centuries. Will had eyes on higher things. He studied Churchill speeches, memorised cabinet teams and charted election results. In True Blue Wentworth tradition he became a Conservative and the 200 year old ghost of the Earl of Rockingham smiled down and laid plans.

In the summer of Punk Rock, when the rest of us were basking in the uncommonly hot weather and getting our water from standpipes in the street, William prepared a speech for that years Conservative Party Conference. It was the cheek of this little kid, barely able to see over the lectern, that enchanted the party's new leader Margaret Thatcher, not yet Prime Minister, and set young William on the road to legend. His northern accent added to the novelty.

Over the other side of the slag-heaps it felt like a sell-out and an act of treason. The area was still smarting from the 1974 miners' strike and the mood was still sombre. The sight of a local kid at the heart of a blue-rinsed ruling class jamboree was galling then, and is galling now. It showed the working people of South Yorkshire that you couldn't take the next generation's loyalty to Labour for granted. Here was proof that a good education bred nowt but tiny class traitors.

William went up to Oxford in the days when the dons there still looked down on northern prodigies. He proved to be quite brilliant. A First in Politics, Economics and Philosophy. President of the Union. Within seconds he was political advisor to the likes of Geoffrey Howe and Leon Brittain at the heart of the new Thatcher government. By '87 he'd taken his first step into the hustings back home in Wentworth, and took a sound beating in a strong Labour mining constituency. At the age of 27 he was elected MP for Richmond and soon the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Rt Hon Norman Lamont, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. Under Major's government he became the Secretary of State for Wales (the youngest Cabinet Minister since Harold Wilson) and won a local reputation for his hard work and fair nature. A Yorkshireman after all.

Then came the Labour Landslide of May 1997. John Major resigned as party leader. The man widely expected to replace him, Michael Portillo, had been famously beaten in that election and made the party nervous of a right wing candidate. As one of the last centre-right men standing, William Hague stepped forward on a Euro-skeptic platform and got the job. Leader of the Conservative Party. At his age.

BYE BYE ELECTION

"The voters of Romsey were not beguiled by William Hague's personal brand of politics - those based on fear and division. His is the Britain of the twitching curtain and the locked door, where every refugee is an economic migrant, every gay man a pervert waiting to prey on your children and every creak in the floorboards an intruder in your home. By concentrating on the negative, and pandering to the small-minded, he insulted the electorate." CHARLES KENNEDY Leader of the Liberal Democrat Party writing in The Independent 4/5/00 _____________________

Today William Hague is smarting from the recent Romsey By-election result, and once again seems to be wondering about his public image. Romsey was supposed to be a huge step back into the limelight for Hague and his Conservatives as they attempt to claw back the grass roots Tories who defected to labour in the last two elections. Romsey was a safe safe seat and Hague personally led the baby-kissing. But the Liberal Democrats demolished an 8,585 majority in the Hampshire constituency and achieved a massive 12.5per cent swing from the Tories. In short a massive disaster.

Hague leads a party where position on Europe can make or break careers. And where he owes his own position to a guarded anti-Europe stance. Elders and betters with a more pragmatic and modern approach to the subject (Kenneth Clarke take a last bow) have fallen by the wayside. But the electorate is still under the Blair spell, and education and health remain the big issues. Not Europe. So he played hardball, latching onto Little England prejudices and failed badly.

Young William, try as he might, still comes across as nerdy and naive. His 'hip to be square' geniality draws no votes in the aftermath of Blair's 'Cool Britannia'. He seems as out of touch with his contemporaries now as he did back in '76 when his Tory Conference grandstanding clashed with punk expletives, and left him damned as an anachronism.

All that's left for him is to take a leaf out of Thatcher's book and counter the Tony Blair nice guy stuff with a bit of punk style nastiness. It didn't suit then and it doesn't suit now. His public image, even after wife Ffion's 'Project Hague' re-brand, and his baseball-hatted visit to the Notting Hill Carnival, remains awkward. He looks like the first man up on karaoke night, trying gamely to rabble rouse a bored audience whilst trying to keep his dignity.

Back in the Wentworth Woodhouse the ghost of the Marquis of Rockingham still hopes for another Prime Minister to return in triumph to the old Yorkshire pile. But Horace Walpole saw Rockingham as a "weak, childish and ignorant man, not fit as the head of an administration". He indeed only took the position because of his connections with Tory giants like Edmund Burke, Charles Fox, the Duke of Cumberland (who he fought alongside at Culloden against the Jacobites ) and Lord John Cavendish. In the event he "dissolved in his own weakness" as King George III had William Pitt replace him. History did the rest.

The young Marquis from Wentworth had to wait sixteen years to get back into No.10 Downing Street and would die within days of the shock. A young Wentworth folly is again on the verge of greatness. Time will tell how closely history repeats.

 

Frank Dobson Reviews the Situation

He ran for London Mayor as a legal, decent, honest, and truthful candidate. But Frank Dobson discovered that Londoners prefer the Artful Dodger and an Oliver Twist in the tale.
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Poor Frank. What a pickle he found himself in. The lad from York, MP for Holborn and St Pancras, had led an honest political life. Done the right thing. Ended up in Tony Blairs cabinet and running a big Ministry. A straight up old Labour man in a dizzy, spin doctored government. He looked happy and content with life. Then someone said why don't you run for Mayor of London.

Poor Frank. If he was half the Londoner he thinks he is he would have known that he was on a hiding to nothing. Because for all it's Cappucchio bars, it's mosques and delis, and it's fancy foreign footie stars, London still likes it's Knees-Up-Mother-Brown Pearly-King-And-Queen Spirit-of-The-Blitz mythology . If you're going to go round shouting 'Vote for Me' then you've got to have a bit of barrow boy about you.

Poor Frank. He just didn't fit the profile. A sweet little bearded man with a funny voice and a nice smile. That's not' London's idea of a mayor. Cor Blimey, mate, where you been? He needs to have walked down from York with his belongings in a bundle at the end of a stick. Frank never looked like he'd ever had a second thought. Never looked like he'd worn a pair of green tights or a jaunty feather in his cap. Never looked like he was down here for fame and fortune. Never even had a cat.

He should have learned from Oliver Twist. That lad was a social chameleon by the time Dickens moved on to greater expectations. He'd gotten in with the lowlife on the street, leaned a few choice Lionel Bart homilies, how to review the situation, how to pick a pocket or two. Then hob nobbed with the Covent Garden theatregoers, the Hansom Cabbers, the smart set up west. Fitted in and looked cute wherever he went. The artful dodgers down at Labour Party headquarters should have told him all this straight off, before he made a fool of himself.

Poor Frank. He could have donned a Del Boy sheepskin, got himself a dodgy motor, and added a cockney swagger to his gait. Trouble is though he left it too late. Londoners love a dodgy geezer off the back of a lorry. They like a bit of street smart. A bit of savvy. Why else does Ronnie and Reggie still get the crowds flocking to a good funeral, or Eastenders get so many viewing figures. They like a bit of rags to riches. A bit of reformed rogue. A bit of a jellied eel.

And yet for all this they have a knack of knowing a good fake when they see one. Like the old Leather Lane jewellers, Londoners know true gems from diamante . They can tell when it's kosher or when it's kobold. Know right away the knockoff from the kushtie. Even the sons and daughters of post war immigration have slipped easily into the London thing. All these little Ali Gs out in Southall on a friday. The Inner London dearies out shopping for yam and plantains and roti. The Brick Lane balti kings polishing their Porsches. Folks born in Karachi or Kingston with the sound of Bow Bells ringing in the ears. They all vote.

Poor Frank was swept away by a freak Thames tide and Ken Livingston floated into power again after fifteen years. The New Labour control freaks lost it spectacularly and by the time the count was in progress Frank looked a beaten man. Beaten by a an electorate long looking for revenge after Margaret Thatcher turfed the old Greater London Council bathwater, along with a baby Ken, into the river. Londoners were given their vote back and used it. They made our Frank glad he is still MP for St Pancras where there's a railway station handy with trains heading back up north.

I suppose we should worry a bit about poor Frank. He's a nice bloke by all accounts, though the accent has long worn away. A Camden councillor since '71, MP since '79, he should be well used to the ups and downs of political life. At least he's still got a back bench down at the House of Commons to keep warm, with a nice view of the back of Tony Blairs head. Maybe one day he'll be back in the Cabinet telling those famous dirty jokes and putting the world to rights. He's one of ours and we wish him well.

But not so poor next time Frank.