POLITICS
Never glad confident morning again, again
SIMON HEFFER
The level of dissent being broadcast pub- licly makes it seem there is little point using coded language. Mrs Shephard, the decent Norfolk housewife who finds herself as Minister of Agriculture, chides two of her colleagues for allowing campaigns to be run on their behalf in an undeclared leadership contest (I am writing before this week's elections). One of those colleagues, Mr Portillo, the Chief Secretary, swears undy- ing loyalty to Mr Major. However, in almost the same breath he announces (to the delight of one half of the parliamentary Conservative Party and to the outrage of the other) views on a single European cur- rency that conflict directly with those of his boss, Mr Clarke, the Chancellor. Mr Clarke has tartly rebuked his deputy, claiming that Government policy is, as Mr Portillo knows, quite different. Mr George Walden, a journalist and Tory MP who unintention- ally entertains readers of the Daily Tele- graph by swaying for and against ever closer European union depending on which way the wind is blowing at the time, alleges Mr Portillo (a Spaniard) has been practising `neurotic nationalism'. Mr David Evans, a notoriously sensible backbench MP now further dignified by his membership of the executive of the 1922 Committee, demands, with mandarin restraint, that six members of the Cabinet be sacked.
In private, though, the tone is worse. Mrs Shephard publicly remarked (in an aston- ishing admission by a Cabinet minister) that Mr Major had forfeited the support of 20 per cent of his parliamentary party. If that is what a senior, sensible minister is prepared to admit to, the reality must be far graver. Nothing new has happened to provoke this erosion of Mr Major's posi- tion. His personal debacle over qualified majority voting in the European Council of Ministers was the last straw for many Tory MPs, many of whom have been privately making plans ever since. The local and European elections could prove the trigger many of them have been looking for to start a leadership campaign. Meanwhile, when the likes of Mr Howard, the Home Secretary, protest wide-eyed that there is no split in the Tory party, they look not just silly but irrelevant.
`The real question,' one senior minister told me, 'is not about the leadership, but whether there will be a party as we know it left to lead.' If the reaction from the left of the Tory party to Mr Portillo's candid eco- nomic observations is any guide, neither he nor Mr Heseltine could unite their party, though (thanks to his cunning as opposed to Mr Portillo's transparent honesty) Mr Heseltine might stand the bptter chance. Most of Mr Portillo's faction regarded his remarks about the single currency as won- derful, and an act of long-overdue leader- ship. Those who do not love him, however, thought they simply displayed his immaturi- ty and unfitness for the highest office.
Mr Portillo is no fool. He has had his head well below the parapet for months. Sadly, he has had one or two problems on the rare occasions he has ventured into view. His speech last January attacking the cynics who run down our institutions was intellectually piddling, and surprisingly so, since he is one of the few Cabinet ministers who can do joined-up thinking. Stating the self-evident truth that a single currency is not a sensible option was, however jejune some might think it, a highly courageous thing for the Cabinet's most junior member to do. However, it has undeniably exposed the truth about the current state of the Tory party — that it is riven on several fun- damental issues — at a time when the party can least do with such candour.
Mr Portillo is not only subject to collec- tive responsibility (as it has, in the past, been understood). He is also in charge of the Tories' local election campaign in Lon- don. Magnifying dissent may not bother his supporters, most of whom want the party to do badly in order to help them be rid of Mr Major. However, his remarks have given Mr Portillo's enemies a chance to blame him, not Mr Major, if the party does badly. Yet that Mr Portillo felt able to say what he did at such a time reveals not just the split in the party, but also the true feelings of those at the summit of the parliamentary party about Mr Major, who himself has lamentably failed to show any clarity of thought, let alone leadership, on the vital, long-running issue of our future in Europe.
There are people standing by to organise for Mr Portillo, but he is keeping them at arm's length. Mr Heseltine, his likely rival, seems to observe no such decencies. The campaign for him is roaring at such a pitch that even senior ministers admit to having been canvassed by his supporters, a relent- less group led by Colonel Michael Mates, Dr Keith Hampson and the President's par- liamentary private secretary, Mr Richard Ottaway. Mr Portillo has no need to call his dogs off because they are merely salivating; Mr Heseltine's are barking and frothing, and he is making no visible effort to keep them under control.
Behind this chaos, Mr Major and his advisers are said to be trying to make plans for yet another last-ditch attempt to save his job. 'They're planning something big. He won't go without a fight,' one of the Prime Minister's most dedicated Tory opponents told me. 'Something big' might have been the plan, revealed in the Sun last week, to pull out of the EC if it continues on its federal path, but that was always implausible. It might well be a reshuffle on a scale not seen since July 1962, the 'Night of the Long Knives', though if Mr Major puts any of Messrs Portillo, Lilley or Howard on the back benches pour encour- ager les autres, he might as well resign him- self for the damage they would do him; he acknowledged in his celebrated 'bastards' interview, that it was better to have them inside pissing out. 'What I think,' said a prominent MP, 'is that he'll ask for a loyal- ty test from the Cabinet. And if he doesn't get it, it's not necessarily his resignation we're talking about, because he will ask who else they can find to unite the party. At that point we go off the map.'
If there is a map it dates from 1846, when Peel split his party over the Corn Laws. The Tories then spent much of the next 20 years in opposition. The idea that the party may, in its present form, be unleadable is a radical one, but it seems to be gaining cre- dence. It may yet prove to be the trump card Mr Major plays when, and if, his loyal colleagues finally bring out their daggers.
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