IT WAS THE TORY PRESS WOT LOST IT
Geoffrey Wheatcroft says that William Hague should never have followed the advice of right-wing newspapers
TWO comical sights can be seen today at the crossroads where politics and journalism meet. On the left-liberal side stand the baffled band of loyal Blairites. Butteredup, kept on-message, fed leaks (some more reliable than others — on the day after the election, Peter Kellner assured readers of the Evening Standard that 'Robin Cook will not be moved'), they stoutly maintain in return that the Blair government really is rather radical and enlightened, and that things really have got better. These loyalists have just received their final reward: no sooner was Mr Blair returned to office than he appointed a Eurosceptic Foreign Secretary, and a Home Secretary even more reactionary than the last.
But then look at the right-hand side of the crossroads, and the plight of an even more poignant group. For the Tory press — the remaining true-blue Tory papers — William Hague was exactly the leader they wanted. He did everything that they told
him to do. The Tories went into the election on the Daily Telegraph's very own platform: vehement hostility to the European Union, a vague suspicion of abroad, a tinge of authoritarian menace on social issues. A few ingredients from the Daily Mail completed William Hague's campaign, sullen, resentful and fearful.
To the delight of his journalistic cheerleaders, Hague warned us last autumn that if Blair won again we would be living in 'a foreign land' (anyone who has experienced French hospitals or German railways might call that one of the few really good arguments for voting Labour). This spring he tried to rally the country with 'Save the pound'. All this delighted the Daily and Sunday Telegraphs, the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday; the only trouble was, the voters saw it differently, as they had before.
In the small hours of 2 May 1997 there had been a wonderful moment in the offices of the Daily Mail. As the results came in, the editor's visage grew ever grimmer. Finally, when Margaret Thatcher's old seat in Finchiey fell to Labour, Paul Dacre shouted at the television screen, 'What the fuck is going on? These are fucking Mail readers!' This year there
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