Hague is trying to look like a prime minister, when he should concentrate on being leader of the opposition. Simon Hefferoffers advice

Before we come on to the question of how William Hague best goes about trying to improve his disastrous leadership of the Conservative Party, one important point needs to be settled. How were last week's absurd events, with an unelected member of the shadow cabinet engaging in elevated freelance operations without the knowledge of Hague, ever allowed to happen?

The answer to that second question is helpful in settling the first. The Cranborne fiasco happened because of two of the fundamental mistakes Hague has made as leader. First, he moved his private office to Conservative Central Office in Smith Square and therefore lost touch with events at the Palace of Westminster, and with some of his closest colleagues. Second, he failed to realise that the modus vivendi of the management consultant is no substitute for the hardened experience and nous of the true politician.

That Lord Cranborne felt able to act as he did has been portrayed by the 11 year olds who surround Hague as an act of almost 19th-century arrogance by a "toff" against an "oik". If it were so simple as that it would be a good thing for the Conservative Party. In fact, Cranborne did what he did because he, and many of his Conservative colleagues in the upper house, despaired of Hague's ever getting a grip on the issue of Lords reform. They regarded the appointment of the breathtakingly unimpressive Liam Fox as constitutional affairs spokesman as final proof that Hague had disengaged on the issue. What Cranborne did was certainly motivated by contempt for Hague; however, the contempt was not social.

That Cranborne could behave in such a way towards his leader also suggests something more than contempt for Hague; it shows a general despair about the Conservative Party. Once upon a time a Cecil would have been mortified to be cast into outer darkness by a leader of his party; now, with the Tories improving by the day their impersonation of the Liberal Party of the 1930s, it could hardly matter less. Cranborne, like many other formerly serious Tory politicians, has simply given up, and seems hardly to care any more whether he is in or out. We have not, I suspect, seen or heard the last of him.

Against that background Hague, who has always had the most almighty struggle to pilot his party back into contention, now has an apparently impossible job. His problem is that he hasn't achieved anything in his political career. Because of the shortage of trophies on his mantelpiece and medals on his chest, he does not command the respect of the Tory officer class.

The last Conservative leader of the opposition, Margaret Thatcher, had eight years' experience in real and shadow cabinets, including four gruelling years as education secretary (she pressed hard for money but also had to bear the "milk snatcher" taunts), before she took control. The leader before her, Ted Heath, had been chief whip, lord privy seal and president of the Board of Trade before succeeding Alec Douglas-Home. All Hague had done was give money to the Welsh and avoid having too many opinions - and then, thanks to the premature political death of Michael Portillo and the failure of Michael Howard's public relations, he finds himself leader of his party.

One senses that even Hague himself knows he is not up to it by his preposterous tough-talking over the past few days; the political equivalent of willy-waving, and every bit as impressive. Heath, who on occasion had cause to sack one or two ministers who went out of control, never resorted to bragging about his virility afterwards.

One begins to wonder what some of Hague's closest lieutenants think of him. On Wednesday night last week they were ringing round Fleet Street telling editors how the kicking of Cranborne was the unmistakable sign of Hague, Man of Courage, and Hague, Man of Principle. The next morning they seemed to detect no contradictions in their going around saying that it was quite consistent for Hague to have accepted the concession Cranborne engineered. One of the reasons the last government was so deservedly punished in May 1997 was that it treated the British public as though it had the intelligence of a tangerine; Hague and those who run around helping in his personal rebranding have learnt nothing.

So perhaps the first thing they ought to do is admit that they are fallible and have a lot to learn. They should also drop their obsession with image - an inevitable consequence of being caught in Alastair Campbell's dazzling headlights - and start to cultivate a few policies. Hague himself symbolises the absence of gravitas and credibility in his party. One senses that there is a sizeable section of the public that longs to turn against the Labour government but that they have nothing to turn to. Apart from the metaphysical departure of giving his troops and potential followers something to believe in, Hague then has to organise himself and his strategy differently if he is to have any chance of survival.

Leaving Central Office to be run by his party chairman, Michael Ancram, would be a useful start. It seems as though Hague moved in there because he wanted to have something to do - as if leading his party in the Commons were not enough. Tony Blair had the country; he had the Conservative Party. It was a poor substitute, but it was a start. In fact, any opposition leader worth his salt would hardly ever dirty his hands on party matters. He would get stuck in to the political fray. Hague, however, seems to disdain doing this because Blair leaves that sort of thing to his underlings, and Hague most definitely wants to be like Blair.

Many of the older and wiser heads in the party suggest that, for example, it would not be a bad idea for Hague to take business questions on a Thursday afternoon, as Neil Kinnock used to do in his first few years as leader, and as opposition leaders always used to do.

It would get him in the House more, it would allow him another opportunity to interrogate the Labour Treasury bench and allow him to do more of what he is undeniably good at - performing in the Commons. But Tory MPs believe Hague won't even consider doing it because Blair is not on the other side of the chamber, and it is therefore somehow demeaning to Hague's status.

This is a serious problem; Hague has to drop his fixation that he is somehow of prime ministerial rank or he will never connect with his party in opposition. The long absences from the Palace of Westminster, the separate power base in Smith Square, the pink curtain of cronies drawn around him all suggest that he is more interested in playing at being prime minister than in actually getting down to the job for which he is paid. He has to get real, or he has no chance.

In the past few days it has been easy to find Tories on both wings of the party who have had enough of Hague.

For the left, his recent embarrassments provide another opportunity to beat him over the head, and they make a change from European issues. For a growing number on the right, it confirms the view they have tried to suppress since they put Hague in as the least bad option last year: that he is a boy doing a man's job. He will disabuse his critics of these notions not by any construction of a tough guy image, but by coming up with the goods.

That, in plain language, means showing good judgement and stopping appearing to be such a prat. The problem for him, but not necessarily for his party, is that it may be too late.

Simon Heffer, our Conservative Party correspondent, is a "Daily Mail" columnist. Ian Aitken reviews his biography of Enoch Powell in Book Reviews

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