William Hague knows all about being the clever young pretender who is meant to
save his party from oblivion. As he looks across the dispatch box at David
Miliband during Foreign Office questions, he cannot help being reminded of
himself ten years ago.
Like Mr Miliband, Mr Hague developed an interest in politics during his teens.
He was educated at a comprehensive, got a first in PPE from Oxford, then
took a post-graduate degree abroad. Both men have been compared to the
Thunderbirds puppet Brains, as well as with Pitt the Younger. Both, the
Shadow Foreign Secretary thinks, are a little bit nerdy.
“People want normal politicians and David Miliband is more geeky, more like
me,” he said. “David Cameron could wear a baseball cap, whereas Miliband
would find it harder to appear normal. I must have a word with him and give
him some advice - don't try to be normal when you aren't. As I never want to
be leader of my party again, I don't have to try to be normal any more.”
Many people thought Mr Hague got the top job too soon when he became leader,
at the age of 36, in 1997. Now he thinks this is the wrong moment for Mr
Miliband, who is 43, to challenge Gordon Brown. “He is very clever, there is
no doubt about that, but he has not yet developed the weight that is
necessary, and cleverness cannot make up for that,” he said. “I respect him,
but he's an unknown quantity. On the basis of my experience, the best thing
for him to do would be to sit it out for a decade.”
The Foreign Secretary has, he thinks, miscalculated by revealing his ambition
so soon. “Miliband has forgotten the basic truth about succession to
leadership, which is that it normally goes to people who have tried to be
loyal to the existing leader.”
The breakdown in relations between two of the most senior men in the
Government is now, in Mr Hague's view, a threat to national security. “It is
clear that the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary are at loggerheads;
they are actively plotting against each other. What happens if there is an
international disaster in the next few months? Either Miliband needs to come
up with the courage to challenge Brown or Brown needs to move him. A poor
working relationship between the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary is
not just undesirable, it is positively dangerous.”
Labour plotters mutter about Mr Brown's personality issues but Mr Hague thinks
that most politicians are a little bit mad. “David Cameron is the sanest
person I have ever worked with at the top level of politics in terms of
freedom from paranoia, obsessions and being a properly balanced person,” he
said. “Normally there is something rather peculiar about us politicians. We
are hooked on a particular subject or terrified that somebody is plotting
against us. Most of us have psychological flaws. You have to be very driven,
you have to be prepared to put all sorts of things to one side, which most
people are not prepared to do.”
He will not say which of his parliamentary colleagues are weirdest. “Tony
Blair was good at seeming like a normal person but he is such a brilliant
actor that none of us will ever know whether that was an act.” He admits
that each of the Tory leaders he has served - Margaret Thatcher, John Major,
Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Howard - had their issues. “We all have our
little foibles. The flaws are well known. David Cameron is remarkably free
of those flaws. He does very normal things like rushing down to Tesco and
having his bike stolen.” Even Barack Obama did not wow Mr Hague. “I have met
enough politicians never to be overexcited about meeting anyone.”
It is not, however, Mr Brown's personality that is the real problem for
Labour, he said. “The reason Gordon Brown is in such trouble is because of
his policies. People are not stupid, they can spot a Government that has run
out of steam. We were like that in the 1990s. If we had been re-elected in
1997 even we would have wondered what we were going to do. Labour just need
to get out of Government.”
Mr Hague is standing in this week for Mr Cameron, who is building sandcastles
in Cornwall, but he has no desire to be leader again. “I would prefer many
things to being leader of the Conservative Party: writing books, being
Shadow Foreign Secretary, learning the piano.”
As leader, Mr Hague was vilified for steering his go-kart to the right but Mr
Cameron can get away with talking about immigration and moralising about the
poor and the fat. “He is getting a lot of respect for addressing issues
clearly in this way,” the MP for Richmond, Yorkshire, said. “I couldn't say
anything at all really, but somebody had to be the sacrificial lamb.”
That has all changed. Mr Hague has started enjoying by-elections again. “You
meet people who want to vote for us, we actually have a popular leader,” he
said, sounding astonished. “People only started being nice to me when I
stopped being leader of the Conservative Party.” Now Mr Hague is seriously
preparing to become Foreign Secretary, the only job that would, he thinks,
be better than the one he has. “We need a more confident Foreign Office. It
has been sidelined for 11 years in a sofa-style diplomacy,” he said. In the
autumn he plans to appoint a panel of retired mandarins to advise on how the
department can be improved. “Ambassadors keep coming to me and saying
everything is not as it should be. Skills and expertise are being lost: the
Foreign Office language school has been axed, embassies and consulates have
been shut, funding for defence attachés has been cut. The whole diplomatic
footprint is shrinking.”
The Armed Forces have also, he believes, been neglected. They cannot continue
fighting on so many fronts indefinitely. “There is going to have to be a
match between resources and commitments. You can see in Iraq that the
equipment is being pushed beyond what it was meant to do, the troops are
being pushed too. Clearly this cannot go on.”
Although he supported the war in Iraq, he thought Tony Blair's philosophy of
liberal interventionism went too far. “In foreign policy idealism always has
to be tempered with realism,” he said. “We need to learn the lessons of
what's happened in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's not possible just to drop
democracy out of a plane at 40,000ft.” There may, he believes, be times when
it is appropriate to deal with extremists. “Northern Ireland shows there can
come a time when it's right to talk to people who have previously pursued
violence but they have to be ready to make some big moves themselves.
Clearly we're not in that situation with al-Qaeda.”
Iran is one of his biggest worries. “It will be a calamity if they get nuclear
capability but it would probably be calamitous if military action were taken
against them,” he said. “Foreign policy is usually a choice between the
lesser of two evils.”
Nuclear proliferation will, he thinks, be a bigger threat than terrorism in
five years. “If Iran gets nuclear weapons then the leaders of other
countries in the Middle East will say, 'Why not us?' They've told me so.”
Mr Hague could be Foreign Secretary during the 2012 Olympics. “I am a strong
supporter of having the Olympics here in London. It is the main
international event that brings together virtually all the countries of the
world. We should have it once in a generation.” As the next host, Britain
must, he thinks, hold China to its promises on human rights. Earlier this
year he and Mr Cameron met the Dalai Lama. “There will be a very sanitised
version of China on display at the Olympics. I am worried that there will be
a clampdown on human rights afterwards. This should not be the end but the
beginning of opening up. We expect progress from China. We don't have a fit
of concern just before the Olympics then forget about it.”
His former aide, Lord Coe, is too busy preparing for the Olympics to practise
judo with him these days, although Mr Hague says he does more sport now than
ever. “My judo's a bit rusty but I run, I go to the gym. In lots of ways
I've got younger as I've got older. I started off as an old fogey, now I
enjoy music and sport. It's important for a politician to keep fit. Politics
is a test of stamina as much as anything.”
Quick quiz
Lager or bitter? Bitter
Terry’s chocolate orange or Kendal mint cake? Kendal mint cake
West Wing or Yes Minister? Yes Minister
Batman or Superman? Batman
CV
Age 47
Education Magdalen College, Oxford; Insead Business School, France
Political career MP for Richmond, Yorkshire since 1989; Parliamentary
private secretary to Norman Lamont 1990-93; Parliamentary UnderSecretary of
State at the Department of Social Security 1993-94; Minister of State, DSS
1994-95; Secretary of State for Wales 1995-97; Leader of the Opposition
1997-2001
Family Married to Ffion
The most important thing in deciding whether to try to become party leader is the moment in the political cycle. For the next few years, whoever replaces Brown will fail. An aspirant should wait until people are once again fed up with the Tories, and time his challenge accordingly.
Peter Cressall, La Lucila, Argentina
What better strategy than to have your adversaries think you are no threat to them. Is Mr Hague is biding his time? having learned his own lesson - possibly.
I think he always comes across well across the media range.
Cliff, Melbourne, Australia
All politicians are normal until they take power. Then they start reading the script and become just like the ones in Yes Minister.
Alan Lewis, Bangkok, Thailand
Garth - Perhaps because this is an interview presented as a personal profile, and edited as such? Even so, he raises a substantive issue - the sidelining of the foreign office and the diminishing capacity of British diplomacy in the Blair "foreign relations by cult of personality" era.
Matthew Adams, Cambridge, UK
How can an aspiring foreign Secretary give an in-depth interview without once mentioning the most important question of all - our relationship with our real government, the one in Brussels, which makes over 70% of all our laws?
Many would-be Tories cannot support the party with this ambiguity
christina Speight, london, uk
What a great and intelligent guy! He would be an excellent foreign secretary!
Karoly, Budapest
Karoly, Budapest, Hungary
How come these politicos NEVER talk about BRITAIN...and what THE BRITISH PEOPLE need? They ONLY EVER TALK ABOUT THEMSELVES...and what THEY want!
Garth Strong, Houston, USA