Politics is a Darwinian game, and you know you’ve reached somewhere near the top when you earn the epithet “big beast”. Some of these mighty power brokers are on the prowl at the moment, with the Tory leadership contest now underway. But they’re also in short supply. The Mirror counted no fewer than 23 “Tory big beasts” who were culled at the election, while the Telegraph questioned how many of the voracious predators who once stalked the plains of Westminster will end up on Strictly, presumably as dancing bears.
Do all those “big beasts” vacating the zoo that is Westminster truly earn the title? Are there really two dozen who qualify? Any definition that includes Grant Shapps must be flawed. So what distinguishes a big beast from all the other animals in the Cabinet?
While there have always been prominent ministers, Conservative official Michael Fraser first referred to the “great beasts of the jungle” in the 1960s, and Douglas Hurd then adopted the expression. However, Jon Davis, director of the Strand Group, believes certain ministers could be identified as big beasts before the phrase existed. Clement Attlee always saw himself as primus inter pares in his Cabinet, lifted by the wartime ministerial experience of such giants as Ernest Bevin, Stafford Cripps and Herbert Morrison.
And perhaps what marks out the most powerful in the herd is their relationship with the chief. A party leader will always, by definition, be ahead of the pack, yet academics assess that a politician has ascended to big beast status when their following amongst public and party is such that “the possibility they might resign is something a party leader has to take into account”. One need only recall Geoffrey Howe’s resignation toppling Margaret Thatcher.
Former minister for Europe Sir Alan Duncan defines it slightly differently: “You need to be able to make a stand on something where there are many forces ranged against you,” he says. “You’ve got to be known for a long-term view or some sort of moral stand.” Essentially: “a big beast is someone you have to take notice of and who, despite disagreeing with them, you can’t just dismiss as an irrelevant nutter.”
However, many of the politicians who might qualify tend to dismiss the term. Former deputy prime minister Michael Heseltine attracted a host of bestial nicknames over the years, from “Tarzan” to “King of the Jungle”. But he wears his crown lightly. On being the archetypal “big beast”, Heseltine says: “It’s not a subject that I have taken any interest in. It’s a matter of complete indifference.” He takes issue with the entire concept, telling me there is “no measurement” to indicate a beast and the idea is “purely journalistic perception”. “No journalist wants to write about insignificant people”, he says. “They create the concept of the ‘big beast’ so that people think they’re talking to someone who matters.”
Heseltine is not the only one to distance himself. Tony McNulty, a minister under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, says New Labour colleagues like John Prescott and Robin Cook “did not really take the label with anything other than a pinch of salt” and went “out of their way to assure people they were not ‘larger than life’”. And the title can easily be lost; McNulty notes that Conservative MP John Moore slipped into obscurity from having been tipped as a successor to Thatcher, while scandal cost Cecil Parkinson his status.
If tamed, a big beast can make a useful leader’s pet – David Cameron used Kenneth Clarke to add experience to an otherwise youthful team. Problems emerge, however, when the beast tugs on its leash. Davis describes Major as being “held to ransom” by Clarke and Heseltine over Europe, as their status was such that he could not afford to lose them. And former Labour leader Neil Kinnock tells me that difficulties arise particularly when “individuals start to think of themselves as big beasts, because if that happens, arrogance sets in, packs form around them and divisions deepen”.
It is not just beasts’ influence that tends to be oversized, and the role has often been accompanied by spectacles of physical display. An on-the-make Boris Johnson always had a knack for an eye-catching stunt; Heseltine had the might to brandish a mace. This requirement for physical brawn has traditionally excluded women from the definition. As such, McNulty considers the concept “a little macho” because of “the implication that the world of politics is a ‘jungle’ where only the fittest survive”. And former home secretary David Blunkett tells me that “we need to get off this concept” since “it has been traditionally used about male domination”. But there have been examples of imposing female big beasts in recent years – Penny Mordaunt reaches a statuesque 5ft 9in, and that’s before you count the additional six inches of mane.
Personality-driven politics attracts ego-driven candidates – whose attempts at gravitas often don’t land. For every Michael Heseltine, there’s a Matt Hancock with his pathetic parkour. Gavin Williamson kept a pet tarantula in the whips’ office, creating an unparalleled situation where there was a small beast on his desk and another sat behind it. And Blunkett urges that we move away from the politics of “characters”. “What we need is a bit more collaboration and mutuality. Politics is about broadening participation and making democracy for everyone, not just for those with the confidence or chutzpah to give them the clout and dominance in the upper echelons of government.”
For all the term’s drawbacks, can this generation occupy the same hallowed menagerie as Heseltine, Clarke, et al.? “The tragedy of the last few years is there have not been any big beasts,” says Duncan. “It’s been a generation of pygmies… To be termed a big beast, you need longevity, integrity and intellectual courage. There’s not much of any of that around these days.” McNulty agrees, saying that the rapid turnover of senior ministers since 2010 has prevented them gaining the long service necessary for the title, while the penetrating glare of the press and social media have further detracted from the mystique. Matthew Parris recently suggested that the electorate no longer has the deference necessary to revere politicians.
Freshly hatched members of Keir Starmer’s cabinet may still grow big and beastly, though. “My latest candidate for big beast status is Angela Rayner,” confides Duncan. “She’s fabulous. She has courage, integrity, pizzazz… She’s so much more brainy than John Prescott and a much better foil to Starmer than Prescott was to Blair.” But even if this generation simultaneously has too many big beasts and not enough, perhaps a decline would be no bad thing. “We have far too many beasts in politics,” sighs Blunkett.
[See also: Harold Wilson’s lessons for Labour]
Content from our partners
Related
