Guardian:Humanising Howard just won't work

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Endpiece
Humanising Howard just won't work

The more the public see of him the less likely they are to vote for him
Roy Hattersley
Monday February 14, 2005
The Guardian

According to Anne Robinson, the young Michael Howard was a "courteous and kind and rather dashing lover". Perhaps. But, whether or not the commendation was justified - and Robinson was careful to make clear that she did not speak from personal experience - one thing is certain. The woman who has achieved fame and fortune by humiliating contestants on The Weakest Link was not an ideal character witness for a politician who is desperate to appear less unpleasant than his public image suggests. Robinson's endorsement came at the end of a week in which the British public had been subject to an unremitting barrage of Howard publicity. His policy initiatives had included proposals to build an additional 20,000 prison places, obliging convicted criminals to serve their full sentences without parole or remission and electing chief constables in the way in which sheriffs were elected in the Wild West.

Each regurgitated idea confirms that the Conservatives have lost hope of doing more than solidify their hardcore support. The personal publicity by which they were accompanied must have driven the party's media advisers to despair.

The drug raid (on which Howard, in flak jacket, accompanied the police) and the visit to the Granada television studios (to meet the cast of Coronation Street) were meant to reveal the contrasting, tough and tender, sides of his character. However, they had one feature in common. In both photo-opportunities the leader of the opposition looked as though he would rather be somewhere else.

The embarrassed anxiety that he obviously felt was so infectious that it was painful to watch him hamming it up for the benefit of the cameras. And it would be a harder heart than mine that did not flutter with compassion at the sight of Howard, in Saturday night's Michael Cockerell profile, bravely smiling his way through a re-run of Rory Bremner's Dracula sketch.

The Conservative party has to face the hard truth that the more the public see of Howard, the less likely they are to vote for him. That applies to the Tory leader in all his moods - real or counterfeit.

Howard the hard man makes flesh creep, but Howard the laughing cavalier creates the impression that he is being worked from behind by Lord Saatchi. It is a terrible liability for a party leader to bear and makes his unanimous election all the more difficult to understand. Did nobody realise what a public relations disaster he would be?

In Howard's defence, it must be admitted that, in part, he is the victim of modern democracy's least attractive characteristic - the ascendancy of personality over policy. Those who aspire to high office have to take politics as they find them and play to their strengths rather than their weaknesses.

Humanising the Tory leader was likely to be an unrewarding enterprise in any circumstances. In a contest in which Howard plays Bela Lugosi while Tony Blair takes the part of Hugh Grant it becomes mission impossible. The prime minister's talent for looking at ease, when he should be covered in shame, is a major political asset that Labour will exploit for all it is worth. And, on the rare occasions when Blair does show embarrassment, it is always of the sort which endears him to ladies of a certain age. I suspect that he does it on purpose.

He looked at home in Coronation Street - though it is not the type of place in which he spends his holidays. And he even managed to be a guest on the Richard and Judy show without appearing completely ridiculous. Future constitutional historians will not believe that it was from the sofa of a daytime chat show that the prime minister congratulated the Prince of Wales on his forthcoming marriage.

The best advice that anyone can give Howard is to stick to policy. But even there he suffers from a grave disadvantage. In an attempt to dispel his hard-man image, he wants to portray himself as the heir to Disraeli. But the prime minister is a far better One Nation Conservative than he can ever be. Blair believes in the unequal society in which the rich get richer, he imagines that the market can solve the problems of economic efficiency and resource allocation and wants to be a little kinder to the deserving poor. That does not leave room for Howard to be much except a stern unbending Tory. And, these days, they do not win elections.

So in the months to come we can look forward to Howard in many human disguises. It will be like those old Abbott and Costello films - Michael Howard Goes to the Circus, Michael Howard at the Races, Michael Howard Learns to Cook. It may not be the dirtiest election in history, but it will almost certainly be the most toe-curling.

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