And yet Hague is not the joke he’s of-ten made out to be. As leader of the opposition, he can justly be accused of being ineffective: Prime Minister Blair’s popularity has remained steadily high (64 percent) and Hague’s steadily low (24 percent). But Hague’s poor numbers have more to do with awful timing than with his personal failings. The Tories were in power for 18 years; Hague has to contend with the good-riddance factor as well as the most popular government in half a century. Hague himself is a capable if not charismatic politician, a bright 37-year-old who launched his political career with a dazzling schoolboy speech at a party conference in 1977 and rose to serve in the cabinet of the last Tory prime minister, John Major. Having successfully crawled through the debris of the Tories’ election debacle and past four other candidates for the leadership, Hague is realistic about his failure to make much headway so far. ““There’s a lot of good will behind a new government after a change of government,’’ he told NEWSWEEK. Britons ““want a new government to succeed, and they’re giving it a chance.''

In the meantime, Hague chips away. He relishes his weekly ““question time’’ face-off with Blair in the House of Commons. He was a skillful debater at Oxford (which was also Blair’s university) and knows how to score with sarcasm–especially when it comes to Blair’s sometimes sanctimonious manner. Last week he zinged Blair, who was trying to wriggle out from under a flap over questionable arms exports, as ““the world’s top moral and spiritual leader.’’ But the public doesn’t seem to notice or care. ““Hague may have impressed those who hear him at the dispatch box in Commons,’’ says the pollster Robert Worcester. ““But he hasn’t impressed the electorate.''

Hague says he doesn’t find that surprising. So far, he’s concentrating on rebuilding his party, hoping that the Tories have ““been through the trough and are coming up again.’’ The end product, he says, will look rather different from the Margaret Thatcher model of the 1980s. ““We’re developing more of a social-values agenda, not just an economic agenda,’’ he said in an interview. He maintained that the party will be ““much more open and inclusive,’’ that it will promote local decision making over the London-knows-best variety and that on major issues, such as the party’s opposition to Britain’s participation in Europe’s single-currency scheme, the Tories will have to ““come back [to power] on a forward-looking agenda, not a nostalgic one.''

That’s an ambitious agenda for a leader whose personal popularity ratings are even lower than his party’s. The real test of the Conservatives’ ability to come back will be the next general election, which will probably not be called before 2002. No major Tory figures seem eager to enter the fray while Blair is riding so high. If he were challenged, Hague would be hard-pressed to hold on to his job. And yet if he does succeed in revitalizing the party, he will become something of a hero among the European right, which a decade ago was such a dominant force. Of the 15 European Union governments, only two (Spain and Ireland) are now run by center-right governments.

Which brings us back to Hague’s American sojourn. Hague wants to tap into what he sees as ““a regeneration of ideas from the right’’ in the United States. Last week he was less interested in the discredited party Brahmins he encountered in Washington than in some fresher Republican faces outside the Beltway. In New York he met with Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, whose zero-tolerance approach to law and order is credited with making the city more livable. In Texas he spent time with the architect of ““compassionate conservatism,’’ Gov. George W. Bush, son of the former president and himself a possible presidential candidate next year. ““There are many lessons to be learned,’’ Hague said before he left London. The same could be said for Giuliani and Bush, to be sure. When Bush first heard that Hague was coming to see him, he said, ““Who? Alexander?’’ Bush was confusing Hague with Alexander Haig, secretary of State under Ronald Reagan–proving that ““Hapless’’ Hague jokes will be around for a while longer.