If Yorkshire is God's own county, as the locals proudly boast, then the picturesque town of Richmond must be specially blessed; complete with beautiful countryside and ruined castle, it is supremely tranquil, a rural idyll. Which makes it even more surprising that, in 1989, it saw one of the nastiest by-elections of modern British politics. The Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher was suffering from plummeting popularity when the MP for Richmond headed off for Brussels to become an EEC Commissioner. But this was a rock solid Tory seat, and the party had a dream candidate in the form of William Hague, who as a 16 year old had wowed the party conference with his now famous performance. Labour hadn't a hope in hell of winning the seat. What could possibly go wrong?
Enter the new Social and Liberal Democrats, recently formed from the merger of the once mighty Liberal party and the SDP, a group of Labour breakaways. However, the merger of the two parties was not a smooth one, and a 'Continuing SDP' rump under party founder David Owen also put up a candidate in Richmond, local farmer Mike Potter. Polling evidence was clear; the Tories would hold the seat unless either the SLD or the SDP withdrew. And so, after much soul searching, the SLD leader, Paddy Ashdown, ordered his candidate to stand aside. The result; Potter easily won, with 56% of the vote to Hague's 33%. However, Potter's political career was not destined to be long. The SDP collapsed in 1990 after coming behind the Monster Raving Loony Party in another by-election, and then all the former MPs failed to be returned at the 1992 general election. Hague narrowly ousted Potter in Richmond, despite the Liberal Democrats (as the rebranded SLD was calling itself) backing Potter again. Under John Major, the Conservatives were given a record fourth term in office.
Once an MP, Hague's ability and intelligence, not to mention his oratory skill and wit, helped to propel him through the ranks of government, until by 1997 he was the Minister of State for Social Security. He was proving a rare star in a government which was floundering badly, and many had him tipped for Cabinet rank. However it was not to be. Tony Blair's 'New Labour' unleashed an electoral hurricane on John Major's government, which was shattered in the 1997 general election, with Blair leading Labour to an unheard of majority of 179. Major's position as party leader, never very secure, was now totally untenable, so he duly resigned. But who to replace him? many of the heir's apparent had been buried beneath the Labour landslide. The obvious survivor was Ken Clarke. Flamboyant, liked by the public and with a tendency to speak his mind, Clarke had been Major's Chancellor of the Exchequer, and was widely praised for helping to engineer Britain's recovery from the early 90s recession into some of the best economic conditions seen in years. But he was openly pro-European, and for the rump of Tory MPs left in 1997, that was one heresy too far. Some spoke up Hague's chances, or urged backbenchers to stand down for Michael Portillo, the king over the water. Instead, the MPs chose Michael Howard. Major's Home Secretary, famous for his tough stance on law and order, Howard was helped by the endorsement of Mrs Thatcher. Clarke, bitterly disappointed, returned to the backbenches.
Howard was very unfortunate. No Tory leader in the 1997-2001 Parliament would have been able to outwit Blair and return the Conservatives to government. Yet that did not stop him from trying, and for that he needed the best team around him. A mere 165 Tory MPs had been elected, virtually guaranteeing William Hague a seat in the Shadow Cabinet. But even he was surprised with the reward he was given; Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, tasked with taking the fight to Gordon Brown. However, Brown proved a highly successful Chancellor, and, aside from blips such as the fuel crisis of 2000 or the 2001 foot and mouth outbreak, New Labour's popularity remained remarkably intact. Although Howard was able to make some inroads into the Labour vote, the 2001 election produced another massive Labour landslide. Once again, the Conservatives were left with fewer than 200 seats, at 174. Howard resigned, but not before he had ushered in a new method of electing the Conservative leader. The MPs only ballots saw the parliamentary party despatch Clarke and former Maastricht rebel Iain Duncan Smith, leaving Hague and Portillo to face ordinary party members. But, while many MPs felt that Portillo's hour had come, and would successfully appeal to the country at large, out in the Shires his Damascene conversion to modernisation did not go down well. Instead, Hague's more Thatcherite agenda carried the day. Once tipped as a future Prime Minister, Portillo drifted away from mainstream politics, until he defected to the Liberal Democrats, where he now argues for causes such as rail renationalisation.
For Tony Blair, the 2001-2005 Parliament was one dominated by foreign affairs. The security crackdown after 9/11 and the subsequent invasion of Afghanistan were justified by the enormous well of sympathy, both domestic and international, for the United States, not to mention the fear of further attacks. But it was over Iraq that things became unstuck. Britain joined the Americans in invading amidst howls of protest from the UN, much of the EU, and many across the domestic political spectrum. Once it became clear that there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction, even the previously supportive Tories joined the chorus. Blair's domestic agenda of 'public sector reform' stalled throughout 2004 and 2005, as discontent Labour backbenchers made common cause with the Tories and the Lib Dems. Still, the 1997 and 2001 landslides had left the Conservatives with a long, hard road to power, and it was only by the narrowest of margins, a majority of 14, that Hague squeezed to victory in May 2005.
As per their campaign pledges, the new Conservative government began an immediate programme of targeted spending cuts. They also began to scrap some of the more draconian anti-terror legislation brought in by Blair. In the early years, Labour, now led by Gordon Brown, was able to score some notable victories, as the NHS, schools and universities began to feel the squeeze. Labour confidently assumed Hague's focus on cutting the size of the state would trip him up come the next election. But they'd reckoned without the financial crisis which dominated policy from 2007 onwards. The government was able to make the case that the hugely expensive bank recapitalisation rescues were only possible because they had balanced the books in the good years. They also pointed to Brown, who had been the architect of the light touch regulation which many blamed for allowing the crisis to develop. Brown found his attempt to fight the 2009 election on a theme of 'Tory cuts vs. Labour investment' was hopelessly undermined, and he was badly outclassed by Hague on the campaign trail. The Conservatives saw their majority increase to 88. Labour, unable to win even when the government had let the economy go into a severe recession, slid into civil war between Brownites and Blairites.
But from 2009 onwards the problems began for Hague too. Public debt rose on the backs of bank recapitalisation and the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, struggled to find a way to engineer growth in a flat economy whilst further cutting spending. Iain Duncan Smith's welfare reforms, praised at the planning stage, were bitterly criticised as they were actually implemented. Polling showed that the public were increasingly concerned with the excessive use of private companies in the state sector. And one of the Conservative party's biggest backers, News International, was dragged into disgrace through the phone hacking scandal, which also cut short the promising career of former Culture Secretary David Cameron. But William Hague doesn't appear too worried. Labour's civil war saw off one leader, with the popular Alan Johnson throwing in the towel in 2011 as his personal life suffered; few are convinced by his replacement, Harriet Harman. The Liberal Democrats are on shaky ground too, with Nick Clegg struggling to shrug off the disastrous impact of seeing the previous leader thrown in jail for perjury. With polling day for the 2013 election barely a week away, it looks as if Hague is set to emulate his hero, the recently deceased Mrs Thatcher, and win three elections back to back.
