Clarke ponders Tory leader race via BBC News
In a move that has surprised several people, including myself, Kenneth Clarke has announced that he is considering the possibility of putting his name forward in the upcoming race for the leadership of the Conservative Party. As someone who has been defeated by both William Hague and Iain Duncan Smith (who, it is fair to say, haven’t exactly been the strongest leaders in the party’s history), I would have thought Clarke had realised that the party doesn’t want him to lead them, but there are a few reasons why he might get the job.
First of all, Clarke is a well-known politician with a long and varied career in the Commons. He’s been the MP for his Rushcliffe constituency for 35 years now, with a huge majority (23% and nearly 13,000 votes more than the nearest contender in the recent general election), so I don’t think anyone could say that he hasn’t got the experience to lead one of the three main parties. He’s also held most of the top jobs during 1979-1997, including Home Secretary and Chancellor as well as Health and Education. Put bluntly, he knows what he’s doing when it comes to Parliamentary business.
Another reason for Clarke being a good choice is that he is fairly moderate, at least compared to the other potential candidates. He doesn’t tend to come out with extreme opinions like some of the Old Guard (Tebbit, Heseltine, Howard etc.), such as “let’s get out of Europe”, “immigration controls are a good thing” and the infamous “get on your bike”. He’s probably reasonably popular amongst the general public because of this, which might not help his chances of being elected leader that much but if he was to win then I think he’d be an asset to the party in later elections.
Although Clarke has lost his previous two leadership bids, one of those was down to the changes in the way a leader is elected in the party. It used to be the case that the Tory MPs voted on who they wanted, cutting down the list of candidates through a series of ballots until one was eventually declared the winner. However, Hague changed the rules during his leadership such that whilst the party’s MPs still decided who were the final two candidates on the list, the actual decision of which of these two was elected was given to the national party membership – i.e. people like myself.
You might think such a system is fair, as it gives the membership a say in who leads the party—surely that’s the right thing to do? Well, it might be more democratic but to quote Sir Humphrey, “you don’t give people what they want!”. Unfortunately the grassroots are not just Eurosceptics, many of them are actually anti-Europe and would probably be happy if we pulled out of the EU altogether. As a result, when given the choice between Iain Duncan Smith (a virtually unknown figure to most people and not really a hard hitter in the Commons) and Kenneth Clarke (reasonably charismatic, plenty of political weight but pro-European) they of course elected for IDS. I sincerely doubt that the party would have got into power this time round regardless of who was the leader, but I honestly think we would have done better under Clarke, although of course there would have been the potential issue of a split in the party over Europe.
It’s unlikely that any of the potential candidates will seriously throw their hats into the leadership ring for a while yet, given that the Parliamentary summer recess is coming up soon and political news tends to take a slump over the holidays until the build up to the autumn return. Clarke’s chances will, I imagine, depend mainly on the selection process—if it’s down to the grassroots to decide then he will probably lose, but the decision is left to the party’s MPs then he stands a reasonable chance of landing the job.
Ken Clarke’s odds are currently 25/1. I think that’s unrealistic myself: Having failed to win both in ‘97 and 2001 he doesn’t stand a chance now.
Not only has Howard scuppered his chances by making this a contest for the young (which is probably no bad thing, truth be told) but his pro-European stance will always write him off for the reasons you mention.
He’s missed the boat, which is a shame; I have a lot of time for him. Which is probably why the party don’t!
The bookies rarely if ever get things right when it comes to politics though—for a start they nearly always lose money overall on bets placed on general election results. At the moment the odds on Hague coming back as leader are 11/2, personally I think that’s extremely generous as I can’t see him returning given that he’s got himself setup with dinner speeches, writing (he won an award for his biography of Pitt the Younger if I’m not mistaken) and other things.
Actually, according to that link Clarke’s odds are between 12/1 and 15/1, which isn’t unreasonable given that the odds on the Conservatives winning the recent election were about 30/1 I think. He’s certainly not the most likely candidate but I wouldn’t write him off yet.
I must admit that I’m glad to see Howard finally getting some sense and putting “young” people at the forefront of the party (although even Osborne is 33, which is still 12 years older than me).
I don’t know much about politics (because it’s boring) but I’ve always thought that K. Clarke is a decent bloke. He’s the only Tory I know that I’d vote for.
What about the master of confusion, the one and only Boris Johnson? 🙂
“The bookies rarely if ever get things right when it comes to politics though – for a start they nearly always lose money overall on bets placed on general election results.”
I’m not so sure about that. Bookies are pretty savvy when it comes to money and only rarely get caught out — gambling being a mug’s game, etc. They were certainly pretty accurate in their prediction for last thursday’s outcome.
“Actually, according to that link Clarke’s odds are between 12/1 and 15/1”
Well the site gives the best online odds it can find at the time, which were 25/1 when I referred to the page. I still think he doesn’t stand a chance: I’d have made him leader back in 1997 (certainly instead of IDS — what were they thinking?!?) but if he appeals to me it’s highly unlikely the party faithful will want him. That’s a pity, as I reckon he could have won this election.
I think you’re right about Hague not making a comeback. He’d be stupid to try and the party would be daft to take him. He’s better off where he is. As for Boris… Well, I thought he handled the issue superbly on Question Time!
“They were certainly pretty accurate in their prediction for last thursday’s outcome.”
Well, to be fair last week’s election result was pretty much known to everyone beforehand—the only potential for the bookies to be wildly wrong was the size of Labour’s majority. Had the Tories won the bookies would have been absolutely screwed. However, in previous elections they’ve rarely got close to the actual result, and in 1992 they were even predicting a Labour victory for Neil Kinnock who then promptly lost to John Major.
I agree that Clarke should have been made the leader in 1997, or even 2001, but that’s what you get when you let the party faithful vote for who they want as the leader. I don’t think he would have won this election, unless he had been in charge since the late 90’s, although of course we’ll never know either way unfortunately.
To be honest I’m surprised Hague hasn’t stepped down from the Commons completely at this election, then he could have got kicked upstairs into the Lords by Howard and continued his political “career” whilst having fewer obligations and pursuing other interests.
Hehe, its a shame I never really have heard him say anything serious enough 🙂
Did you see him on election night with paxman? That was good.
I saw bits of him on election night, unfortunately the BBC cut to somewhere else just after he’d stood up for his speech so we didn’t get to see that.
Yeah, Boris is great but I wouldn’t want him running the country! 🙂
Although I’m in NZ now, I still have a vote in the UK. Clarke would have brought me back to the Tory party. As it is, I voted LibDem in my LibDem seat (Argyll).
I am very much a Heathite kind of Tory. I would love to see the return of the gentler, less doctrinaire, less extreme Tory Party of the pre-Thatcher era. The Tories need to become the One Nation party they were—especially if they are to grow in Scotland again.
Rob
In some ways I’m surprised Clarke hasn’t defected to the Lib Dems, you’d think he’d be more at home there, although I guess he’s loyal to the Tories given how long he’s been a member.
I certainly agree with you on the One Nation stuff, and from the noises coming from Central Office it sounds like they might be at least thinking about possibly making moves in that direction. 🙂