Final Rounds

By ANTHEE CARASSAVA Monday, June 11, 2001

It was a weird ending: five Tory heavyweights standing on a television game show set, an audience of fans laughing, clapping and cheering, a "Labour Witch" complete with a broom and black hat who roused party leader William Hague to a rowdy rant about Labour's unkept promises. It was Hague's final campaign speech for an election he's doomed to lose. But will he lose his job as party boss, too? "That's not an issue now," says Francis Maude, a senior conservative parliamentarian. "We're focused on the election fight."

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Maude, the shadow Foreign Secretary, was one of the four Tory heavyweights flanking Hague, who called on Brits to vote Conservative for "a proud again Britain." Pride was a big theme. So much so, in fact, that Hague's remarks of being "proud of the campaign we fought" and "proud of what my colleagues have said and done" stirred an uneasy silence rather than spontaneous applause. Hague also spoke of "the iron in the soul of a political party that can see it through bad times as well as good." The Conservatives are likely to need all the iron they can get if they lose as badly as some polls predict.

When approached by TIME, Hague refused to discuss his post-election plans. "I've got to make the final rounds," he said, boarding a burgundy Vauxhall sedan, avoiding a trio of protestors masked as John Major, Margaret Thatcher and "Marionette" Hague. During his final campaign pitch, he had warned that a Labour victory would destroy British sovereignty. The voters "know the stakes are too high to risk another term of Labour Government," he said. "They know that above all because of Mr. Blair's plan to scrap the pound and surrender to Brussels. This could be the last general election in Britain when we can still run our own affairs in this country."

Maude, shadow Chancellor Michael Portillo, shadow Home Secretary Ann Widdecombe and party chairman Michael Ancram made separate speeches, each standing on separate round platforms, as if castaways stranded on a cluster of outcroppings. Maude spoke of the need for "British internationalism;" Portillo talked of "compassionate" conservatism; Ancram warned of the "creeping growth of nationalism;" and Widdecombe spoke, somewhat incongruously, of why she "changed Church, but never the party." As one Tory media advisor put it, the line-up reflected "the four diverse faces of the party, united in its sense of purpose and mission." How long that unity lasts may depend on how badly the Tories lose.