Bruce Anderson: Telling lessons in how not to lead the Conservative Party

In one respect, the Tories were fortunate. If Osama bin Laden's men had not crashed their planes into the World Trade Centre on 11 September, Alastair Campbell would have launched his own, verbal attack on Conservative Central Office shortly after 5 o'clock on 12 September, within minutes of Iain Duncan Smith's election as Tory leader.

Mr Campbell had sleepers in place: disgruntled Tory councillors and parliamentary candidates who were ready to stage high-profile defections in exchange for 15 minutes of fame and hints of New Labour patronage. Alastair Campbell also had dossiers full of asinine extremist comments by minor Tory functionaries, who would also have been given their 15 minutes of fame, with Labour and the Liberals demanding that they be expelled forthwith.

Alastair Campbell did not expect a long campaign. This was to be a blitzkrieg, with the aim of destroying the Duncan Smith leadership before its first weekend. By then, the new leader and his party would have been indelibly branded as extremists, with the public forming the impression that the Tories had been taken over by the BNP. The IDS team was vaguely aware of Mr Campbell's plans, but there was no evidence that they had prepared counter measures. If it had not been for Mr bin Laden, Iain Duncan Smith would have been pinned on the defensive, where Alastair Campbell would have intended to keep him

As it is, the Tories are off the hook, though they are also off the radar. For the time being, Mr Duncan Smith can do little about this. His best hope is to have a good war, which he will, and use the partisan lull to think hard about the shape of British politics when it returns to normal.

He might even have time for some reading, and if so, it ought to include Tory Wars, a new book by the political journalist Simon Walters, which is published this week. A fascinating account of William Hague's leadership – or lack of leadership – it could also be subtitled "Notes towards a definition of Michael Portillo". It chronicles the way in which Mr Portillo made it impossible for Mr Hague to lead the party, while destroying his own hopes of doing so.

Much of the fault lay with William Hague himself. He never recovered from the misjudgements of his first few months, which had a simple explanation: over-confidence. Mr Hague knew that he was cleverer than Mr Blair, whom he dismissed as a mere opportunist charlatan. Buoyed up by being one of the youngest cabinet ministers of the 20th century and winning his party's leadership at the age of only 36 – he used to tell friends that he had never yet failed at anything – Mr Hague thought that it would be easy to lead the Tories to recovery, an impression confirmed by his own regular successes in the Commons.

As a result, there was no strategy. Mr Hague later conceded that he should have spent the first year consolidating his core vote, before moving on to the wider electorate. Instead, he spent four years oscillating between frantic attempts to find the core's erogenous zones and equally desperate lunges in the direction of a broader audience. The core-versus-country dispute remained unresolved right through the general election campaign.

This had one inevitable consequence. Four years on, few voters had any idea who Mr Hague was or what he believed in – and the minority who had formed a view were often unfavourable. He was seen as nerdish and obsessed with politics, in a period when most ordinary people held politics in increasing disdain. Because of this, William Hague's very debating skills worked against him. In the eyes of many voters, his parliamentary successes only heightened the impression of abnormality. Of course he would be a good debater; hadn't he started reading Hansard at the age of three?

But the most gripping passages in Mr Walters's book are not the ones about high strategy, or its absence. They arise in his description of the clash of egos, which regularly threatened to break up Mr Hague's Shadow Cabinet, even though many of the contending egos belonged merely to obscure camp-followers.

Michael Fraser, later Lord Fraser of Kilmorack, the Tory party's most important post-war official, had a dictum: "The back-room boys should stay in the back room." By 1997, that wise ruling had been forgotten. The back-room boys, – and girls – were all over the front pages. Simon Walters's text is interspersed with the resulting rows. One day, Michael Portillo and Francis Maude march into William Hague's office and demand that he sack his press team. The next day, half the rest of the Shadow Cabinet is complaining that Mr Portillo's youth wing was briefing against them. It was anarchy. According to Mr Walters, Mr Hague had decided to sack Messrs Portillo and Maude from his post-election Shadow Cabinet, which would have been a bold and hazardous decision. But Mr Hague was in no position to form a new Shadow Cabinet.

Mr Walters's account draws heavily on testimony from Amanda Platell. Miss Platell is a raven-haired Australian who wears fluorescent lipstick, loves cats, and has feline qualities, but also some understanding of British politics. She feels aggrieved. She believes that she displayed absolute loyalty to Mr Hague while several of his senior colleagues were only interested in the battle to succeed. She thinks that Michael Portillo should have concentrated on getting the better of Gordon Brown rather than on getting the better of William Hague.

There is some truth in this charge. Gordon Brown may be a formidable Commons performer, but Michael Portillo never seemed to have his heart in the conflict. When he returned to the Commons, the Tories were languishing in the polls, as usual. William Hague knew that he had to strengthen his front bench, and was sure that Michael Portillo could help. There was no strengthening. Instead, fanatical young men who claimed to be acting in Mr Portillo's name smeared parliamentary candidates who were not thought to be likely Portillo supporters in a future leadership contest, and intrigued against shadow ministers who were regarded as deficient in Portillo-worship. There is no evidence that Mr Portillo encouraged any of this, but the details were brought to his attention, yet he did nothing to prevent or disown such activities.

This was foolish, for it made him powerful enemies. Michael Ancram is an easy-going fellow; by the election, he had come as close to hating Michael Portillo as he had ever hated anyone. Robert Cranborne equalled Lord Ancram in detestation of the Portillistas, as did other senior figures who kept quiet. Mr Portillo fought a lamentable leadership campaign, but he had probably lost before it started.

So had William Hague. Simon Walter's book could also be subtitled "How not to lead the Conservative Party". If there is a repetition of the events Mr Walters describes, and if Mr Duncan Smith proves as unable to prevent them as Mr Hague was, the next such book might well be entitled "How to lead the Conservative Party into third place".