If you follow my example and log in to the Tory homepage, you will come across the "Listening To Britain" section. There is a helpful "What is listening to Britain?" link, immediately followed by "What listening to Britain is not".The answer to which is: "what we're doing right now". Because the one thing everybody has heard this week is about how the Tory membership ballot has "resolved" the single currency question in such a way as to institutionalise opposition on the part of those Tories still most widely respected by the public This one will run and run, to smaller and smaller audiences. Alas, it is 16 years too late for Mrs Thatcher to deliver her "spirit of the Falklands" speech, while wearing a Spice Girls T-shirt and lounging on a pink, padded sofa. All the stuff too, about renewal and party reform, sounds like whistling in the dark - something to do when the alternative is simply to die. The decision to purchase or hire a job lot of cheap Swedish armchairs, in order that party bigwigs might commune comfortably with conference delegates, has attracted more interest than has the agenda. No one knows who they are or what they stand for, and no one seems to care (indeed, if it weren't party conference season I almost certainly wouldn't have written this article).

So little return from so much time! It is wonderfully easy to be nasty about the Tories. Their poll figures show no sign of revival, with even their most significant Shadow Cabinet members rating lower levels of recognition than a Durex display in a convent. Against a black background, revealed slowly from the top down, it shows us a lonely wisp or two of thin hair, and then, agonisingly - pixel by pixel - a seemingly endless and empty expanse of shiny forehead. Eventually, after what seems like an eternity, the weeny eyes and teeny features of William Jefferson Hague, Leader of the Conservative Party, emerge from the darkness. Taking the views of unrepresentative and xenophobic party activists as the voice of Middle England may prove to be the most arrogant, and harmful, of Mr Hague's mistakes.. THE CONSERVATIVE Party website declares itself in a characteristically unfortunate way.

Mr Hague has abandoned that pragmatism.His efforts will be in vain: Conservative arguments on the euro will continue. Even worse, opinion polls show the public warming to the idea of the single currency. He has failed to appreciate that his party is nothing like New Labour in 1996, when it had long been exiled from power, and was desperate to win it back. Tories today are still exhausted from their long stint in government. Senior figures, such as Michael Heseltine, are more concerned with their place in history than they are about their relations with the leadership, or their chances of holding power again. Mr Hague was unwise to sting such grandees into the inevitable angry responses, especially when there was no need for this debate over a decision five years or more away. He has behaved with un-Conservative dogmatism, which a man leading such a small and unpopular parliamentary party is in no position to adopt.

The strength of British Conservatives has been their ability to adapt, and to occupy the centre ground of politics: only a divided opposition, and a huge majority, allowed Mrs Thatcher to behave in the way she did. The ballot has only served to highlight party differences, and to expose alarming gaps in Mr Hague's judgement. Foremost among these has been the lack of civility shown to opponents, in whose ranks may be found figures who possess the stature and popularity that elude Mr Hague. His victory in the ballot confirming his policy on the euro - no British entry in this Parliament, or the next - has turned out to be a Pyrrhic one. This was most evident yesterday, when Mr Hague must have thought he would emulate Tony Blair's 1996 triumph in abandoning Clause IV's call for public ownership.

It is time that their chiefs, Michel Camdessus and James Wolfensohn, were called to account, and, in the former's case, replaced.. IT SEEMS that whatever William Hague does, nothing will go right for him. Equally, the most effective response by governments should be a reduction in interest rates in the Western countries. The US has now led the way, albeit with too small a reduction, and very directed to its own domestic needs Britain should follow.