LET HIM BE THE TONY I KNEW

James Hughes-Onslow is for the real Mr Blair. But he's also for the real Mr Major

TO DROP a name, I first met Tony Blair 23 years ago when he shared a house at Oxford with some friends of mine. He had very long hair and used to complain that Mr Wilson and his team were too far to the Right. When he came down from Oxford, he astonished his friends by get- ting a haircut and a suit and acquiring a liking for the Gay Hussar, the Soho restau- rant favoured by Michael Foot.

I helped him a little by introducing him to The Spectator's then editor, Alexander Chancellor, and getting his first two arti- cles published in The Spectator in 1979. But Mr Chancellor turned down a third one, saying it was too boring. This was the subject of some gentle teasing in a speech by Derry Irvine (later Lord Irvine) at Tony's wedding to Cherie in 198th Then head of their chambers, now shadow Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine told young Tony he should be more careful whom he con- sorted with. Standing at the back of the room at the reception in St John's College, I had to own up as the guilty party.

During the 1982 Beaconsfield by-elec- tion, at which he was Labour candidate, I asked Tony if he would come round and see my sister and brother-in-law, who lived in the constituency. As they had a dozen `high Sloane' friends to dinner, all some- where to the Right of Mrs T, we knew there were no votes in it, but Tony turned up anyway and charmed them all. It was a very jolly evening for everyone except the Labour agent, who nearly succumbed to high blood pressure.

In 1983 I was on the terrace of the House of Commons with the new MP for Sedgefield and his friend Geoff Gallop (now a Labour MP in Australia) when he told me he had just been approached by Edward du Cann, chairman of the 1922 Committee. 'I'm sorry I haven't had a chance to speak to you,' du Cann had said to Blair, mistaking him for a young Tory, `but there are so many of us now.' It's a pity there are so few of us,' Blair replied. I wrote this in a paragraph in the Evening Standard diary, the first Fleet Street men- tion of Tony Blair MP, subsequently to be included in all his hagiographies.

It was my mother-in-law from Australia, and apparently from the Campbell- Mandelson school of image-making, who spotted the danger of the Tony Blair smile. She met him when he came to din- ner one evening and thought he was a very nice young man. Without realising he was a politician, she said he wouldn't get far in politics with a smile like that because no one would take him seriously. Rotten advice, surely.

My wife believes Tony is an exemplary `new man', having seen him cook lunch, in Islington and in Sedgefieid, for his family and ours while Cherie was working, at the same time changing nappies and taking calls on economic matters from Gordon Brown. It put a scribbler like me to shame.

A few months ago, I telephoned Tony Blair to suggest various things I might write about him which might cast him in a more favourable light than his spin doctors seem to manage. He said he thought this was a good idea. 'Why don't you ask Alastair?' he said.

Next time I saw Alastair Campbell, his press secretary, I passed on this message: `When Tony says, "Ask Alastair",' he explained, 'he means no.'

And did you see the smile that Mr Blair gave his conference delegates as he sent them on their way to the general election? Chin up, jaw set, lower lip rather tense he has the look of a slightly harassed man pulling himself together, as he did last year and the year before. It is the grin of confi- dence rather than friendliness, the facial equivalent of the Thatcher husky voice, designed to show he can be tough when he wants to be. It is not really our congenial old Tony, but we all understand. And poor Cherie, having to emulate Hillary Clinton. Not many of us have to endure a standing ovation, especially one that is not of our making. Swiftly following this observation comes the ghastly thought that this might be exactly the way Mr Campbell and Peter Mandelson wish to present New Labour to the voters. Yet how much more appealing Tony would seem if he would let his natu- ral good humour take over, just be himself and tell these persuasive manipulators to leave him alone. We might find the prod- uct is better than the packaging.

John Major and Tony Blair have much in common. They are both good, hon- ourable men with the highest principles of public service. In private they are sponta- neous, generous and witty. They are a long way from bearing out the cynical expecta- tions we have of politicians. Their wives are also well-adjusted, intelligent people with sound Christian values trying to live their lives in very difficult circumstances.

To drop a further name, I have also met Mr Major in relaxed family situations in which politics has never been mentioned. Perhaps more importantly, on these occa- sions there has not been a spin doctor or a press officer in sight. Anyone who says John Major is grey or Tony Blair is calcu- lating has quite simply got them all wrong. I have met them when they have had their advisers in tow and I know how inhibiting these people can be. If everyone had the chance to meet John Major or Tony Blair for a quiet talk, they'd probably want to vote for both of them. If the spin doctors can't make their leaders seem like attrac- tive human beings when presented with such promising material, maybe they should go somewhere where their desire to be in control of events does less harm. John and Tony might make a better fist of it without them.

We are fortunate to have such people in public life, and perhaps it is time someone said so. It has not always been like this. All too often power for politicians seems to be a mask for deep emotional instability. If politicians seem stiff and manipulated, it may be because they no longer have time to think. They go from an early morning interview at the Today studios where John Humphrys is trying to catch them out on the single currency, to a Cabinet or shad- ow Cabinet meeting where everyone deliv- ers a set piece, to lunches and factories and dinners and speeches, all the time accompanied by special advisers whisper- ing in their ear. Have you noticed how for- mer party leaders such as Macmillan, Heath, Callaghan, Thatcher and Kinnock, having seemed rather dreary at the time, become quite colourful and endearing and possibly quite mad the moment they are

no longer constrained by the job? It is hardly surprising.

I met John Major comparatively recently through his charmingly eccentric brother Terry, who is an example to us all when it comes to old-fashioned honesty and loyal- ty. Seeing the two men together at Terry's daughter's house in Sutton and watching John Major take individual members of his family by the arm down the garden for long confidential chats left me in no doubt that the Prime Minister is genuine when he speaks of family values. He becomes quite sentimental when he speaks of the debt he owes Terry and his sister Pat for keeping the family business going while he was still at school.

According to my wife, both Major and Blair are attentive and flirtatious in a non- threatening way — if Emma Nicholson will forgive the expression — while being proud of their wives and their wives' achieve- ments. They don't seem to have ego prob- lems, she says. The Majors and the Blairs are the sort of people whom, if they were lucky enough to lead a normal life, you'd like to have as neighbours.

`Tony Blair — we love him as much as we love John Major,' they said on last Sat- urday's satirical Radio Four programme, Weekending, amidst uproarious laughter, `no more and no less.' In our household we mean it. The problem is who to vote for.