LEAVE WILL ALONE
Petronella Wyatt on the
secret sex appeal of Mr Hague
POOR William Hague. His spin doctor, Amanda Platell, is at it again. Having slipped up earlier in the summer over the diamond-pound-sign affair, she has come up with yet another wheeze (this woman has more wheezes than a chronic asthmat- ic). The unfortunate Mr Hague, we are informed, is about to be rebranded as the Incredible Tory Hunk.
It is commendable that Miss Platell feels obliged to justify her salary, but the idea fills me with grey horror. Mr Hague as a sort of people's Action Man, an anglicised mélange of Brad Pitt, John Glenn and General MacArthur? It would be a rash person indeed who would put an optimistic spin on this one — unless of course they were Miss Platell.
Attempts to make Mr Hague look overt- ly sexy and he-mannish would be like dressing the Princess Royal in a Spice Girl's outfit. The aim would be to make him seem romantic but he would end up being ridiculous. We have already estab- lished, to Mr Hague's cost and our own, how ill-suited he is to the type of Ameri- can-style casual clothing that is the stan- dard uniform of the Hunk — a good example being the late John F. Kennedy Jnr. The physical type which best suits such a get-up is one of bland good looks. The rolled shirtsleeves work with Mr Blair, to a certain extent, because the Prime Minister, with his smarmy grin, resembles an actor in a minor B-movie. Mr Hague merely resembles a miner.
In any case, physical glamour is not as important in a politician as Miss Platell imagines. The electorate soon tires of it if there is little evidence of much else. Just look at Al Gore. If Miss Platell hopes to improve Mr Hague's popularity with women in this way, she is flogging a dead horse. Except to a few sex-crazed teenagers and a psychotic old maid or two, the film- star type has only the superficial appeal of a prancing animal. Sensible women quickly penetrate the imposture. They come to see such males as intrinsically untrustworthy, self-centred and vain. What of Mr Blair? you ask. He retains his popularity, doesn't he? Well, up to a gender, Lord Copper. According to a recent poll in an Italian magazine, women across Europe have become more quickly disenchanted with the Prime Minister than have men.
Another point is that posturing in mod- ish clothes smacks of the politics of dicta- torship. Indeed, the nastier the politician or ruler, the ritzier his apparel. Nor does the 'man of action' hold out great allure. There is a lot to be said for inaction — espe- cially today. The trouble with most modern politicians is that they do too much. They are continually announcing some daft initia- tive or expensive programme and interven- ing in disastrous foreign wars that are none of their concern. They act without reflec- tion. They are Macbeth and Othello when they should be Hamlet. They indulge in the kind of pointless activity for its own sake that Dr Johnson likened derisively to 'get- ting on horseback on a ship'.
Yes, I agree, William Hague is not in the cliched heroic mould. It was indu- bitably the case that when one looked at him after his ascension to the leadership one did not immediately think either of dynamism or of what Thomas More used to refer to as 'filthy fleshy things'. He was — and still is for the present, at least slight, balding and with a quiet aura, the trouble with quiet auras being that it is impossible to hear what they are saying.
The effect of this was both startling and immediate, on me at any rate It was in that instant, as he stood on the steps of Central Office, that I decided he was the right man to lead the Tory party. Every indicator pointed in this direction. For one thing, such an unprepossessing man must, by the natural laws of compensation, have the most remarkable brain. Second, I inferred from the obvious fact that he had not made `We're seeking asylum from asylum seekers.' himself over that he had a quiet self-confi- dence which warmed like a woolly glove. Then, as I looked some more, I began to find him, by his very unhunkiness, a sexy proposition.
I think it was the baldness which awak- ened the first stirrings in my heart. As one grows older, baldness in men becomes increasingly attractive. Think of Yul Brynner in The King and I. The Orientals see a lack of hair on the head as a sign of great virility. There is nothing quite like running one's fin- gers over a bald pate with a few tufts of hair at its base. It is like feeling a beautifully smooth pebble with an underside of moss.
Accentuate the fogeyness, I say. The answer to Mr Hague's lack of popularity with the electorate is not to gild the Willie. Rather his advisers should emphasise his comforting, slightly rural conservativeness. Mr Hague would look best in a brown tweed jacket and a reassuring pair of olive-green or beige corduroys. Show off what he has, not what he hasn't. After all, if a woman has a magnificent pair of legs and a flat chest, one doesn't put her in a low-cut dress that hides her thighs, calves and ankles.
Trouble is, these people never take a dekko at history. Historically, the most suc- cessful Tory party leaders have been without the more obvious attributes of the Hunk. Take Pitt the Younger. One wonders what on earth Amanda Platell would do with him today. For a start his appearance was less glamorous even than Hague's. His nose appeared to be yanked upwards with a gar- den hoe. His cake-batter complexion and rail-thin arms and legs would prompt a cam- paign against Westminster 'heroin chic'. Worse still, his sole attempt at a heterosexu- al relationship, with Lord Auckland's eldest daughter, Eleanor Eden, ended abruptlY and mysteriously. Pitt wrote to her father a letter in which he would only say that the obstacles to matrimony were 'decisive and insurmountable'. For most of his life he sur- rounded himself with younger men. His wardrobe made him the original grey man.
One can visualise an interview between some advertising mogul and Miss Platell to discuss what might be done about 'this hopeless William Pitt'. Advertising mogul (mopping his brow): 'Good God, Amanda, what can one do with a loser like that? He looks like a child-killer. As for people skills, he hasn't any. He may be good in the House of Commons but he told Paxman, on air, that he was a poltroon. Talking of which, why does he always go to the opera with men? And what about this Eleanor Eden business? What were these "decisive and insurmountable obstacles" to their marriage? Can't he do it, or doesn't he want to? One thing's certain: he really is the pits.' Yet this unattractive man turned out to be the pilot who weathered the Napoleonic storm and became one of our best-loved leaders. As Anita Loos didn't quite say, a kiss on the hand may be charming and con- tinental but the little grey cells last for ever. It helps if you're bald, too.
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