HAVING in his 22 months as leader done damn all for a Tory comeback, William Hague - whose principal achievement is to have become even less popular than that disaster Michael Foot was when he led Labour - is looking at oblivion.

Tomorrow's council elections and the voting for the Scottish and Welsh assemblies, the biggest mid-term test any government has faced , will be a killer for him.

For even if the opinion polls have exaggerated his and the Tories' unpopularity by twice as much as reality, his number will still be up after the results.

But, first, we are to have the sacking of his deputy, Peter Lilley, in the reshuffle of the Shadow Cabinet that will follow the disaster that next month's European elections will be for the Conservatives.

That will be followed later in the summer by cries for Mr Hague's scalp. (One of the contenders for his job will be Ann Widdecombe. Please! - it is rude to laugh.)

Yet, what will have plunged the Tories into this fresh crisis -and the prospect of still more years in the wilderness - is the amazing spectacle of the party under Mr Hague stooping to apologise for its greatest success - Thatcherism.

Mr Lilley is being made the scapegoat for this disastrous departure, through his launching of the Tory pledge to match Labour spending on schools and the NHS, together with the rejection of using private sector resources for health and education - in short, the dumping of Thatcherite championing of the free market - a policy switch which must have been blessed by Hague. What, of course, all this is about is not a sudden realisation that Thatcherism was bad.

Rather, it is a cynical attempt to restore the Tories' fortunes because the leadership has got the idea that the party is suffering from the "uncaring" image that was a side-effect of the resolute no-gain-without-pain approach that Maggie took to putting this country back on its feet.

But if suddenly becoming "caring" means aping Labour, why on earth has Tony Blair won power and lasting popularity by adopting Thatcherite policies left, right and centre - he's even talking of privatising the holy socialist welfare state, for heavens sake?

Tory fools who apologise for success and let it be stolen from under their noses deserve oblivion.

Come in, Kenneth Clarke, for heaven's sake - even if he is as wet on Europe as Maggie was dry. The Tories and the Opposition have been without a real leader for too long.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.