This morning's Daily Telegraph announces that it favours some sort of electoral college in which rank-and-file Tory Party members retain some kind of vote in the election of their next leader. Overall, however, it believes that MPs should have the dominant say:
"Most Tories want some kind of input into the procedure [of electing the party leader], not least because they suspect that their instincts are more robust than those of their parliamentarians...
The proposal before the party board... would allow any candidate with the support of 10 per cent of MPs to go before the party convention (the association chairmen, together with various Pooh-Bahs), who would rank them and hand the list back to MPs, with their own first choice being given a "by" to the final round. The most serious objection to this proposal is that it removes the votes of 300,000 party members and concentrates them in the hands of 900 activists.
We accept that the MPs should ultimately have the determining voice. But the ordinary members must be involved, not just their officers. This might take the form of activists presenting a shortlist to MPs or of an electoral college method, in which the MPs had a majority of the votes, and the members a minority. Either way, it would be wrong for members of the convention to hoard power for themselves. We urge them to be generous enough to give all paid-up members their say."
William Rees-Mogg uses his Times column to argue against centralisation of the party machinery and for the existing system of electing the leader. Listing a variety of contenders, he writes:
"The only way to find out which of these able candidates is the best is to put them before the largest possible mass electorate. In the Conservative Party that is the whole membership of the party. I would therefore hope to see an open election under the existing democratic rules. And let the best candidate win."
Well, the proposed system leaked in The Sunday Telegraph was awful, but not for the reasons they said.
Far from creating a situation where a losing candidate could lay claim to support from the grass roots, it would leave neither candidate was able to claim that support.
It's true that one candidate might have the support of the constituency chairmen, but that's very different from support by the grass roots.
In my opinion, The Daily Telegraph is almost as far from the mark with its insistence that the MPs have the final say (so the members could all vote one way and then be ignored - that would inspire their loyalty to the leadership).
William Rees-Mogg is right on the money. The judgment of out elected representatives, and indeed Michael Howard, is questionable. The fear must be that they will pick a candidate for whom they aren't (again) rather than for whom they are (as in with Major, Hague and Howard).
That means of selection didn't work out too well last time did it? Perhaps this time they should let the member choose who they want to lead them rather the antithesis of who they don't want (in best anyone but Clarke style).
Posted by: James Hellyer | 23 May 2005 at 12:39
I think the biggest problems last time were twofold. Firstly the grass roots were given a choice of just IDS and Clarke.
Secondly Conservative supporters are obsessed by Europe meaning that the best candidate was deemed unsuitable because of his stance on Europe, which is not really very important.
We may not be able to do anything about the second issue but we could solve the first one very simply. Any candidate with the support of 10% of the MPs goes on the ballot paper. Job done.
Posted by: Edward | 24 May 2005 at 13:45