Comment: Ann Widdecombe's demise
"H
ey, hey, the witch is dead..."' This chorus greeted gay icon Dorothy after her house came crashing through the air to land on the Wicked Witch of the East. And it came to mind when news of Ann Widdecombe's withdrawal from the Tory leadership bid emerged last week. My own defection from the Tory party last summer, following as it did in the wake of Shaun Woodward, was part of an exodus of protest.
The chasm that divided the party was illustrated by the last Conservative conference's centring on the issue of social inclusivity. The main speaker on the subject was Michael Portillo, even though this role should by rights have been carried out by the shadow home secretary. Unwisely, Widdecombe herself decided to lecture on the antiquated concept of prohibition and paid the price.
Her departing tirade now against Portillo is no more than the bleating of the vanquished. For the sake of the Tory party the best thing it could do would be to click its ruby heels and wish those ugly, cancerous warts - intolerance, negativity, and other "traditional" values, away.
Widdecombe, the suspiciously cat-loving queer-hunter has finally stopped deep veining publicity, and admitted that no one in her parliamentary party feels that she is any more than an amusing, albeit clever, spectacle. The chief exponent of Addams' family values has finally gone.
Yet, defiant to the last, the self-styled captain of morality, in her dying gasps, reaches out to pass on her thorny baton, seemingly, to anyone (providing they weren't the anti-Christ who'd notched up a homosexual experience at uni). Armed with a shield of newly fashioned "inclusivity", she redefines the word, as she fondles her rosary beads each night. Portillo's inclusivity, she explains, is "spin", Duncan Smith's, she continues, is "traditional" and "meaningful".
An adviser close to Hague, smarting over the list of possible runners for his boss's job, described Duncan Smith as someone who "looks like William, but without the brains". While some may wish he would make a visit to the wizard for both a brain and a heart, he would be the last to accept any need for change, epitomising as he does the noble last stand of the do-or-die Tory dinosaurs.
In much the same way that Hague's "Listening to Britain" campaign came out saying what Hague's cronies wanted to hear (you know who you are), Duncan Smith's definition of "inclusivity" continues to read: "Some are more included than others".
Widdecombe's display of loyalty to Kenneth Clarke is also a little suspicious. Knowing how unpopular she is, one can't help wondering whether this is a ruse to boost support for Duncan Smith as the champion of "decency". Ken Clarke may well find a way to reconcile his views on the euro, but could he really go into office knowing that he might owe Ann Widdecombe a place on his shadow cabinet?
William Hague, oddly, never identified himself clearly as a man of the right or the left. He was in many respects a contradiction and quite deserving of the nickname "William Vague" before advisers pushed him to assert himself, albeit their way.
His plan to broaden the Tory party's appeal, illustrated by his attendance at the Notting Hill carnival and voting for the legalisation of gay sex at 16, had failed. He'd watched party faithfuls slide away at almost the same rate that they were dying off.
Despite being told that the word "common" in an election slogan was bad marketing and that "sense" is a quality we delegate to our accountants, he was persuaded that they needed to establish a channel of "clear blue water" between him and the government. Consolidating his position towards the right must have seemed his only option. But on the premise that oppositions don't win elections but that governments lose them, a "better late than never" move to the centre in the second term might well have seen him emerging as prime minister. All he had to do was survive the election. After all, the next leader only has to repeat the word "delivery". It's the luxury of opposition.
The rightwing of the party, like the militant tendency before Blair got tough, was the arrowhead stuck in Hague's side. Unfortunately he lacked the support to do anything about it. His only strategy was to limp on with it festering under the skin.
The word from the top is that Hague now knows where he went wrong. Despite the bulldog-walking, union flag-sporting thug that captured Romford, most Tory grandees are wise enough to chalk this up to an accident of democratic birth. Had Hague followed his earlier instincts, and pursued a more centralised, issue led and inclusive agenda, he would certainly have won many more seats.
Ivan Massow is a former Hague adviser