Back from the Brink: The Inside Story of the Tory Resurrection. Peter Snowdon
completely unravelled. After the Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Oliver Letwin, had suggested to the Financial Times that £20 billion of spending cuts could be found, rather than the official party figure of £8 billion,78 Gordon Brown raised the spectre of huge Conservative cuts to the public services. Labour’s relentless focus on its investment versus ‘Tory cuts’ struck a chord. Brown’s ‘dividing line’ on spending in 2001 had become the reverse of the Conservative attack on ‘Labour’s tax bombshell’ in 1992. Voters were prepared to give Blair a second term: the economy was prospering and the government had done little to alienate the moderate Conservative voters it had so successfully courted before 1997. In contrast, the opposition looked hopelessly lost, drifting towards another crushing defeat at the hands of New Labour.
Could William Hague have done more to avoid defeat? He admits that the party ‘sacrificed some long-term effort for some short-term victories. But we had to make sure that we survived in 2001: many people thought that the party would not make it through at all.’79 The furore surrounding Peter Lilley’s speech and the European elections in spring 1999 were vital turning points for Hague’s leadership and the Conservatives’ journey in opposition. After pursuing a course in which he sought to modernise the party’s decaying organisation and commissioning the ‘Kitchen Table’ research, Hague panicked, and found comfort in a more populist groove advocated by his new media aides. When Lilley confronted his colleagues with some home truths, they took fright and wrapped themselves in a cloak of complacency. Hague’s weakness was that he listened to those whose interests lay purely in propping him up, rather than considering the long-term future of the party. The leadership had steered the party to a relatively more settled position on the single currency, one of the burning issues immediately after the 1997 general election, and one which had plagued the Conservatives ever since the downfall of Mrs Thatcher. Like John Major, Hague had managed to find a way through, but his formula chimed much more with the weight of opinion within the party. Even so, the spectre of a split, which Major so feared, had continued to loom for a time. Although the party had just about survived in one piece, this did little to impress an electorate that had tuned out from what the Conservatives had to offer.
As voters went to the polls on Thursday, 7 June 2001, in fewer numbers than at any general election since 1918, there was a deep sense of foreboding in Central Office. Had they done enough to bring out even their most loyal supporters? Out on the stump, the mood was not promising. ‘Everyone knew it was going to be a bloodbath,’ recalls one of the party’s footsoldiers. ‘It was really a case of holding on to what we had and trying desperately hard to make some inroads.’80 Canvass returns on the eve of polling day suggested that the party might be left with just 120 MPs, adding to the losses of the landslide in 1997. Hague was braced for a devastating defeat: the only question was whether it would sound his party’s death knell.
THREE Staring Into the Abyss June 2001–October 2003
As the first results came in, it became clear that the Conservative Party was heading for another calamity. William Hague had hoped to make a few dozen gains and a modest increase in the party’s share of the vote, the measure of progress that would persuade him to continue as leader.1 In fact the party had gained just one seat, leaving it with 166 MPs, and increased its share of the vote by one point to 31.7 per cent. After 1997, it was the Conservatives’ second-worst result since 1832. Yet the nightmare of losing twenty or thirty more seats had not materialised. As Hague flew down to London from his count in Yorkshire, he began to write his resignation speech, despite pleas for him to stay in the name of stability. As after the landslide defeat in May 1997, the party struggled to compose itself following a crushing defeat. If ever there was a time for an inspired leader to lift the Tories out of the gloom, it was now.
Hague Falls
Standing outside Central Office in bright sunshine on Friday, 8 June, William Hague admitted defeat. ‘I believe strongly, passionately, in everything I’ve fought for. But it’s also vital for leaders to listen and parties to change. I believe it is vital the party be given the chance to choose a leader who can build on my work, but also take new initiatives and hopefully command a larger personal following in the country.’ He was painfully aware that he had become just the second Tory leader in over a century not to serve as Prime Minister. Many had believed after the Labour landslide in 1997 that victory four or five years later would be a near-impossibility, but past performance showed that the Conservatives were capable of staging impressive recoveries. In the general elections that followed the great landslide defeats of 1906 and 1945 the party made up enough ground to challenge for power next time round. In January 1910 the Conservatives gained 116 seats, while in 1950 they recovered eighty-eight. The gain of a solitary seat was a dismal performance by comparison.
Tony Blair had achieved what no other Labour leader had done: a large enough majority to ensure a second full term in office. Despite a sharp fall in turnout to only 59 per cent, a post-war low, he had received another huge overall majority of 167 seats. With increased majorities in almost all of the constituencies gained from the Conservatives in 1997, New Labour crushed the Tories in large swathes of the country – particularly in their heartland of the south-east. Although they won one seat back in Scotland, the Conservatives failed to recover in Wales, and had slipped into third place in Manchester, Liverpool and many other northern cities. The Liberal Democrats not only won seven more seats from the Conservatives, but came a close second in many of the Tory strongholds in the south and west of England.2 The Conservative Party’s woes were compounded by an electoral system that worked to Labour’s advantage. But the harsh reality was that almost one and a half million fewer people voted for the party than in 1997. Beneath the headline figures, the Conservatives were falling back even further.
The one consolation from the 2001 general election was the emergence of a handful of Tory MPs from a new generation. Elected in safe rural seats, they would be the future of the party, set apart from a parliamentary rump comprised of former ministers and backbenchers in the autumn of their political careers. Among them were David Cameron and George Osborne. After three years trying unsuccessfully to secure a winnable seat, Cameron finally persuaded the Witney Conservative Association to adopt him as their candidate in April 2000. Shaun Woodward, who had worked alongside Cameron at Central Office in the 1992 general election campaign, had represented the Cotswolds constituency since 1997. Woodward defected to Labour in December 1999 in protest at Hague’s stance on Section 28 and other social issues. ‘It’s not me who left my party. My party left me,’ he regretted at the time.3 While Woodward was parachuted into a safe Labour seat, Cameron found a new political home in true blue Oxfordshire. Victory in Witney was cold comfort for David Cameron: his party lay in tatters. The new MP had some sympathy with his outgoing leader. If Hague had continued with the ‘fresh start’ theme of 1997, the result in 2001 might have been even worse, Cameron contends, but at least he would have set out on the right path.
Hague had told only three people that he would resign if he failed to reach his desired target of seats for the election: his wife Ffion, Seb Coe, his chief of staff, and the Chief Whip, James Arbuthnot. When news of his intention to resign began to circulate among senior figures in the early hours of the morning of 8 June, colleagues were in a state of shock. Despite the infighting that had blighted his Shadow Cabinet, many hoped that Hague would remain in post for a while to ensure stability after the expected defeat. ‘Michael Portillo was very cross with me when I told him; that was the final straw for him,’ says Hague.4 Portillo was already on the way to the airport to fly to Morocco to consider his own future. After eighteen months of mistrust between them, their relationship had completely broken down; they would not even speak to each other for another seven years.
As Portillo headed for Morocco,