and First Secretary of State
. He served as Leader of the Conservative Party
from June 1997 to September 2001. In Parliament
, he has represented the constituency of Richmond (Yorks)
since 1989.
Educated at Wath-upon-Dearne Grammar School, a state grammar school, then the University of Oxford
(graduating with First Class Honours in Philosophy Politics and Economics) and INSEAD
, Hague was first elected to the House of Commons in a by-election in 1989.
I thank the Prime Minister for his remarks about me. Debating with him at the Dispatch Box has been exciting, fascinating, fun, an enormous challenge and, from my point of view, wholly unproductive in every sense. I am told that in my time at the Dispatch Box I have asked the Prime Minister 1,118 direct questions, but no one has counted the direct answers—it may not take long.
For the first time in history at Question Time, all three parties are represented by a stand-in for the real leader.
"Nothing is more absurd than a Prime Minister who has committed us in principle to joining the Euro saying last week that he was against it. He talks about his five tests; we know what they are: "Does Peter want it? Will Gordon let me? Will the French like it? Will Robin notice? Can I get away with it?"