Will Cameron or Clarke be frontrunner Davis' main opponent?

A 'who's supporting who?' analysis in today's Telegraph appears to confirm four levels of candidate:

1. David Davis with the support of up to 74 MPs remains the frontrunner.  He may not have inspired over the last few months and the character of his lieutenants worries some MPs - but his handling of the 7/7 episode was assured and he, personally, hasn't really put a foot wrong.
2. David Cameron (with up to 23 parliamentary supporters) and Ken Clarke (with up to 22) are in a race to come second.   Each will hope that when it's a two-horse race the surviving candidate will be able to unite an 'anti-Davis vote' behind their candidacy and BBCi yesterday speculated that the two men might even unite themselves on a 'dream ticket'.  The Davis camp also knows, however, that there is a very powerful anti-Clarke vote and something of an anti-Cameron vote so neither halves of BBCi's 'dream ticket' can be confident of uniting the parliamentary party against Mr Davis.  The Times reports that Tory MPs expect Mr Clarke to quickly muscle his way into second position.  A leading article in today's Telegraph suggested that a Clarke leadership would be unacceptable because of the former Chancellor's opposition "to the British alliance with America against Islamic terrorism".
3. Liam Fox is in fourth-place.  The Telegraph gives him up to 12 backers but unless he can pull something out of the hat soon he will not be able to stop MPs from coalescing around the leading three candidates.
4. Andrew Lansley, Theresa May, Malcolm Rifkind, David Willetts and the other possible candidates do not have enough supporters to give them much hope at all.  An endorsement by David Willetts of another candidate will be one of the most important moments of the autumn campaign but earlier talk of twenty parliamentary backers appears exaggerated.

PS I'll update this blog's 'who's backing who?' list over the weekend.  Yesterday brought a number of new public declarations and I'll also need to incorporate The Telegraph's analysis.

Comments

[Simon C]

Still all to play for, although I would admit that it might soon be time for Fox to bring his campaign out of the undergrowth and start to chase the early hares.

The Telegraph editorial concluded:

"...it is possible to describe the ideal candidate, in policy terms at least. He or she would favour significantly reduced taxation, direct support for married couples, the wholesale withdrawal of powers from Brussels and the localisation of power within Britain...If only such a candidate combined these principles with the charm of Mr Clarke."

Liam's USP is that he shows that you can come from the right of the Party and still be a nice guy. Not all of his parliamentary colleagues achieve that.

I would guess that he would have a better chance of leading a united parliamentary party than any of the other 3 leading candidates, all of who seem to command hostility as much as they do support.

[AnotherNick]

If we take the Telegraph article to be fairly accurate I was wondering do we know which candidates the 'unlikely group' have backed in recent leadership elections? I believe Lansley backed Clarke, but not sure about May, Willets or whether Rifkind (albeit from outside Westminster. Anyone know?

[James Hellyer]

Try here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/1437395.stm

[malcolm]

Don't have a problem with Camerons 'modernisation' agenda but have very deep problems with the Europhilia of Ken Clarke.
If they form a 'dream team' Cameron loses my vote (if I have one!)

[AnotherNick]

Thanks James. The list of supporters from the last leadership election makes interesting reading.

In response to Malcolm's post, while I understand your point of view, I'm in somewhat of the opposite position. I'm backing Cameron and not keen on Ken, but I'm also very keen the new leader isn't David Davis, so if Cameron doesn't feel be can beat Davis on his own but that teaming up with Clarke he can, then I'll probably back the 'dynamic duo'!

Liam is acceptable to me, I'm just not sure I see him as a future PM, which personally I can see for Cameron.

Shame Theresa hasn't gained more backers, but I like the idea of her as Shadow Home Secretary, I think her style of politics could do well against Charles Clarke.

[Blue2win]

I think there has been a lot of press spin about the Cameron interview on Today on Thursday. I don't think there is anyway it can be interpreted as feeling he cannot win or beat Ken Clarke. He simply said if KC has people who want him to stand then he should do so as he will if people want him to stand. And at this stage he will (sensibly) rule nothing out as the business at the moment is discussing the party’s future direction.

Pity really, because as usual it allowed the BBC to smother the attractive things Cameron was saying about education and A levels in particular.

[Wat Tyler]

Somewhat astonishing myself, I agree with Blue2win (partially anyway).

Cameron certainly didn't sound like he was about to join Ken. All he said about that was "I certainly don't rule anything out."

And he'd be mad to jump before 27 September, because if the Convention rejects the MPs' voting power grab, there's no way Ken will actually stand.