Mr William Hague believes Britain's political identity is threatened by Labour's programme and yesterday set out his alternative ideas to address the issues facing the country. He spoke after a series of political setbacks in the Mandelson affair gave Mr Tony Blair the biggest fright of his prime ministerial career - on which many observers have said Mr Hague has failed to capitalise. But it is clear from this address that the Conservative leader intends to lay down a long-term plan to take on Labour, leading up to and beyond the next British election, which must be held by May 2002. It should not be assumed that the attractiveness of these ideas to the British electorate can be judged only by Mr Hague's lacklustre performance as party leader.
Labour are a threat to the country they are governing, Mr Hague insists. If they get their way the British people will end up with an alien voting system and parliament and an over-mighty State. European federalism is part and parcel of the threat, he says. Mr Blair's as yet undeclared intention to take Britain into the euro is seen by Mr Hague as particularly threatening, "holding a dagger" indeed, to the heart of Britishness. Britons could end up as "strangers in their own land".
This is colourful but dangerously overstated rhetoric. It prefigures arguments to come as Labour's programme of constitutional change is introduced. Since that includes devolution, reform of the House of Lords, electoral reform and a possible alliance or coalition between Labour and the Liberal Democrats (as well as substantial Europeanisation) it can easily be seen to offer a wide-ranging set of targets for Mr Hague's approach. He is keen to avoid the charge that this is merely traditionalist. He refers to the "outdated EU" and insists that Mr John Major's pastoral idea of Englishness are inappropriate for modern Britain. He also refers - unconvincingly in view of his rhetoric - to the need to avoid awakening the sleeping dog of English nationalism. He talks of Conservatives having won the battles for efficiency and economics and of the need to modernise the welfare state. He appeals to those who "do the right thing and work hard, save hard and try to be independent of the state". He attacks Labour's supposed indifference to the institution of marriage and the family.
It is an eclectic mix of critique and aspiration, quite short of concrete alternatives capable of catching the electoral imagination. One strong theme nonetheless shines through - a thoroughgoing hostility to Labour's programme of constitutional and European change. If that programme is mishandled it would be foolish to dismiss the potential appeal of such a Conservative agenda to disenchanted voters, especially in England. An election run on such themes as who has lost or is losing Scotland to an independence movement, sacrificing sterling possibly in the midst of a recession, could have much salience - especially if driven by a Conservative Party convinced that if Mr Blair succeeds they would lose power for a generation. This is sufficient reason not to dismiss Mr Hague's ideas simply because his party has failed to recover from its heavy defeat in 1997.