|
William Hague's former PPS (and Director of CCF), David Lidington MP, looks back on the Hague years, reflects on some of his achievements, and looks at what more needs to be done.
*****
William himself commented that people had said such nice things about him since his decision to resign that it felt a bit as if he had died! This is not an obituary. William Hague is a man of great talent and energy who deserves a place in the front rank of the next Conservative Government.
Hague's inheritance
Working as William's PPS, I learned the truth of the adage that to be Leader of the Opposition is the most difficult job in politics. For the Conservative Party, the 1997 Election was a political cataclysm. More than half the Parliamentary Party lost their seats.
Only a handful of Conservative MPs had previous experience of Opposition. The Party was bankrupt and bitterly divided. Losing office laid bare the extent to which CCO had become dependent on Whitehall for both its political thinking and its media relations. Some pundits cheerfully predicted the Party's imminent demise.
For a year and more, we had nothing to cheer except William's performance at Prime Minister's Questions every Wednesday. The courage, vigour, integrity and good humour that marked his appearances at the despatch box were (and are) typical of the man. I cannot remember him ever losing his temper or his sense of proportion despite the worst assaults from the press or the grimmest Party crises. He never resented honest advice, even if its content were unwelcome.
Under William's leadership, Conservative MPs started to work as a cohesive team. The quality of Central Office campaigning has been vastly improved. We have re-established the Party as a powerful force in local government, we have gained footholds in the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly and won the elections to the European Parliament.
Broadening the base
Sadly, the General Election this year showed how much more we still have to do. William Hague has always known that for the Conservative Party to win elections again, it has to reach out to those millions of people who share our values and principles but who do not now actually vote Conservative.
Listening to Britain was the first step towards reconnecting with the nation beyond the Party and Listening to Britain's Churches an important part of that exercise. Many church leaders and church members had come to believe that our Party was just not interested in issues to do with poverty, social exclusion and international development.
Thanks in large measure to William's efforts, that view is changing. I believe that there is now a recognition that our Party is about more than free market economics, that, to use William's own words, "for Conservatives, politics does not stop at the shop counter".
William Hague saw for himself how centre-right leaders in Australia, Canada and the United States had found that voluntary, including faith-based, organisations could often be far better than government agencies at helping people who were poor or excluded.
Through his speeches and through policy initiatives like the commitment to an Office of Civil Society, he encouraged British Conservatives to find ways to adopt such an approach here. One of the great challenges for our Party now is to build on that work to develop a social policy that will be both effective and popular.
Related links
David Lidington MP's homepage
| |
