William Hague began his talk by quoting a letter he had once received from a Yorkshireman. It read:
"I hope you can take some constructive criticism of your speech. It was rubbish."
Holding a packed tent rapt for an hour's talk on Pitt the Younger, the subject of the former Tory leader's biography, Hague is unlikely to be getting hatemail after this speech.
He built a rapport with the crowd right from the start by shamelessly establishing his Welsh credentials ("when Major made me secretary of state for Wales he ordered me to 'take Wales to your heart'. And so I married Ffion") and wooed the audience with a self-deprecating wit.
He painted a vivid picture of the man who was chancellor of the exchequer at 23 and prime minister at 24 and who, in the 19 years that he was PM (and held the office of chancellor of the exchequer at the same time), restored the fortunes of Britain after the US war of independence, was the longest-serving war leader, dealt with a troubled period of royalty, saw off attempted invasions of Britain, plotted naval strategy with Nelson and saw off Napoleon.
Hague was quite clear about the reasons behind Pitt's extraordinary rise to the top of the political ladder. The influence of the elder Pitt, who schooled his son from a young age in the ways of politics and oratory was undeniable; he was helped by an external event – the failure of the US war of independence – which wiped out the careers of the previous crop of politicians; politics was a younger man's game then with youthful success more widely accepted; he benefited from patronage – his first constituency was the rotten borough of Appleby; and he was simply a brilliant individual who used the power of the press to present himself as "honest Billy" and then acted consistently with that image.
The former child star of politics – Hague reminisced ruefully about being told by Margaret Thatcher, in front of a press conference, to "go and telephone your mother" after his now infamous speech as a 16-year-old - was insightful on the dangers of early political success. The still-youthful-looking Tory noted that those who enter the political arena at an early age tend to stay frozen as the people they are on the day they enter politics as they find it difficult to make new friends – not knowing who they can trust – and have no time for new interests. Pitt, for all his success, remained a naïve 24-year-old.
And Hague? He claimed to have enjoyed "departing from the Pitt trajectory".
