Every Tory leader needs a William

20 May 2006

William Hague tells Fraser Nelson that the Tory party has changed completely since he led it — and that the best advice he has given David Cameron is dietary

He says little about this intriguing ‘H-Plan diet’, save that it involves vegetable soup. But isn’t that fattening? ‘Not if you exercise,’ he grins, drumming his stomach. And has Cameron followed the advice? ‘I think so, because he’s bearing up very well. He doesn’t look tired.’ Further inquiries show that Hague has been spreading his lifestyle gospel to shadow Cabinet colleagues. ‘He told me, “You should manage your stress, let Seb put something together for you,”’ laughs one. ‘I told him I liked stress and didn’t need any of his namby-pamby nonsense.’

But what they do need — and are hugely grateful for — is Hague’s expertise. He comes not with Heseltine-style nostalgia but as a man who recently fought Blair and lost. The motto from his old News of the World column — ‘He knows; he’s been there’ — holds good for his regular meetings with Cameron’s inner circle. And his future ambition is literary, not political. His biography of William Wilberforce comes out next year, and he plans to turn to Pitt the Elder next.

He says that such writing is done ‘at dead of night’ and the rest of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 14 will have to wait for another era. ‘I now don’t have time. I’ll have to go back and finish it in the event of political disaster.’ Then he corrects himself; that was the old, pessimistic Hague talking. The new one has a different outlook. ‘I’ll finish it at the end of the next Conservative government, many years in the future.’

Fraser Nelson is political editor of The Spectator.