We're sorry William, but hair matters

Only a heartless hound could fail to feel a stab of pity for William Hague. To have Jeremy Paxman tell you, not once but twice, that no one seems to like you "very much at all" can't be good. To round every corner in England and see your poor, baby face topped by Morticia Thatcher's mountainous coiffe, pink lippy and pearls must be hell on earth.

The really devilish thing about the Morticia get-up is that for at least 10 seconds, I found myself thinking, not about the spectre of Thatcher reincarnate, but: "Ah, so that's what he'd look like with hair . . ."

Yes, yes, it's not fair but we shouldn't mince about on this one. Hair is an issue and Blair's boyos hit the pulse. Think of Clinton's iron-filings and try to imagine him without it. Why does Jackie Healy-Rae wear a cap? Summon up, if you will, a bald Bertie.

Addressing a Yale graduation class a few weeks ago, Hillary Clinton imparted one of the great political truths of our time : "I have learned, and this may be the most important thing I say to you today, that hair matters. Pay attention to your hair - because everyone else will." Say what you like, but she's now Senator Hillary Clinton.

Tony Blair has had bad, bad hair days. Last week's pictures of it standing on end in a passable copy of that other big election story - David Beckham's mohican - were cruel. But Tony knows the score. At the start of the campaign, he told an interviewer: "Y'know, if you're not careful, elections become about what tie you wear." We know. That's why his boys cooked up the coiffe for unhunky, hairless William. Crude, cruel, hypocritical, coming from a camp that claims to care only about real issues. As if poor William hadn't enough to beat himself up about, with every dog and duck analysing why exactly it is that he's the world's worst electoral liability. None the less, it's a question that must be tackled.

It's always a rather repellant spectacle to see such a question being worked through in the full public glare. We've been through the process here and we know that it's not about the politics, but about something so profoundly personal and human that you want to avert your gaze. So it's not just hair and ties, but looks, age, accent, offspring, school, drink, drug or nerve problems, personality disorders, too much or too little money, how you laugh and eat and everything you said since you were 12. All are hurled into the mix along with any simpering/mouthy/ mute/disappeared spouse.

And the trick is to emerge, not squeaky clean, but a bit rumpled; healthy, but attractively baggy-eyed; bright but not dorky; vulnerable but authoritative; dangerous, but only by vaguest association; and - most importantly - ambitious but not calculating.

Poor William. He fails heroically on all counts. In all the rabble-rousing guff he's been spouting in recent weeks, probably none of it damaged him as much as having the kind of life that allowed him to say: "I don't have any regrets or grudges. Nothing's ever gone wrong for me." (Except apparently the death of his granny and being a martyr to sinusitis. And, I'm guessing, this business about his hair.)

His right-hand man is spotless Sebastian Coe, who feeds him vitamins and oversees his judo workouts. His wife is the fair Ffion, who - apart from having more hair than Rapunzel - is gorgeous, sweet, smiling, silent as a tomb and pulls in a six-figure salary. And though he's 40, she hasn't spoiled the idyll with a snotty infant to spit on his sharp shoulder lines and wreck his sleep.

Ah, but is he happy, you ask. Well, what constitutes happiness for a fellow who was reading Hansard at 13, addressing party conferences at 15, becoming an MP at 28 and a cabinet minister at 34? Seb and Ffion are probably grand in their own way, but let's be serious here - what's the next logical step? And what's life worth if you miss your footing? Political ambition and power addiction can be a loathsome, fearsome thing.

COME tomorrow night, when the exit polls are in and the long knives await, will it be for William Hague the start of a lifetime's wondering where life finally went wrong for him? He's a gutsy fellow; a lesser man would be walking off a cliff by now. He played all the cards - the Pound, the Asylum, the Petrol. And the Ffion. Especially the Ffion, the suit of safe sexiness, silence and luxuriant hair.

But did he get even that wrong? He earned the title, Most Sexist Party Leader, after a mute Ffion was asked by a journalist: "Are you enjoying the campaign?", and he cut in, "She's enjoying it immensely." She seems to love him anyway; after all, she took three weeks holidays to be his gagged, relentlessly gooey partner. Then again, Carolyn Portillo, wife of probable long knife wielder Michael and a six-figure earner in her own right, opted to take a real three-week holiday, the one they had booked long ago on the assumption that the election would be in May. "Carolyn doesn't do PDAs," said a friend.

PDAs? Public displays of affection.

I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but I'm beginning to like the Portillos. Maybe by some extraordinary twist of fate, they have been ordained to lead the charge against simpering partners and tortured offspring everywhere and by extension, moronic election stunts of all kinds. And Morticia's coiffe wouldn't sit nearly as well over his bouffant.