A good week for democracy (and cold water for the hot favourite)

GOOD WEEK, BAD WEEK

The big winner this week has been party democracy (+10).  More than 40% of grassroots members rejected the party establishment’s attempts to rollback democracy.  I condemned those attempts on Tuesday morning and hinted at the political and financial damage that they had caused.  In any half-decent business the architects of such a damaging exercise would have had the decency to resign – or they would have been sacked.  Following its manifest failure to represent voluntary party opinion the next leader must reform the Conservative Party Board.  A large proportion of party members will always support the leadership out of loyalty and the fact that such a decisive number rebelled (undeterred by unfounded threats) has demonstrated the Board’s illegitimacy.

In our ‘democratic victory’ special tribute must be paid to:

1. Iain Duncan Smith and John Hayes who got the campaign rolling in its earliest stages;
2. Theresa May who didn’t just oppose the disenfranchisement but made an intelligent and passionate case for an extended franchise through open primaries (an idea that received the surprising interest of Francis Maude last week);
3. The twenty MPs who signed two attention-grabbing pro-democracy letters to The Telegraph;
4. Barry Legg, Christopher Montgomery and the whole Better Choice campaign;
5. Robin Hodgson and the other previous heads of the voluntary party who opposed Howard-Maude-Monbiot.

This blog salutes you all!

And what of the leadership candidates’ week?

David Davis (-1) didn’t really have a good week but through no fault of his own.  He had attracted so many MPs to his colours – not least last week (including rising star Greg Clark and the respected David Lidington) - that his surest route to the leadership was an MPs-only election.  Although a late supporter of party democracy DD could be forgiven for being a little disappointed at the failure of Michael Howard’s reforms.  A slam dunk (you can tell I’m writing this in the USA) elevation to the Tory throne if MPs had had the decisive say now looks much less certain.  David Davis is best on TV (today’s most important medium by a long chalk) but he is not an accomplished public speaker.  DD’s aides fear he may perform poorly in comparison with, for example, the charismatic Dr Fox and Ken Clarke during grassroots hustings.

Brushing off an unnecessarily personalised attack from John Bercow, David Cameron (+3) enjoyed a better week.  Three new endorsements put him narrowly back in second place.  More importantly; after weeks of campaign malaise he has finally found a theme for his leadership bid and it’s the one we all expected him to use from the very beginning – change.  The young, handsome Mr Cameron is finally presenting himself as the change candidate – and in a powerful statement of this site’s And Theory Of Conservatism – he’s blending bold core positions (on, for example, tax relief) with an adventurous form of compassionate conservatism.  Over last weekend he also showed a willingness to face up to threat posed by the LibDems.

Liam Fox (+1) is struggling to win the explicit backing of Conservative MPs for his ambition to be Tory leader but his pledge to take Tory MEPs out of the European Peoples’ Party has won the support of five new Tory MPs.  The five are Douglas Carswell, Robert Goodwill, Philip Hollobone, Theresa Villiers (herself a former MEP) and Robert Wilson.  Although this support will be welcomed by Team Fox it desperately needs real leadership race endorsements.  Dr Fox is doing better amongst the newspapers, however.  The Sun is already shining on him and on the day that Max Hastings identified The Telegraph as crucial to the race, a Telegraph leading article (perhaps written by Daniel Hannan MEP) welcomed his EPP policy.  Whatever happens to his leadership bid – and rumours of a Blackpool endorsement from William Hague next week could yet make it fly – Dr Fox has established himself as a standard-bearer for the Tory Party’s national security hawks, Eurosceptics and social conservatives.  This week’s speech on mental health problems has also underlined the Good Doctor’s ‘extra mile compassion credentials’.

Ken Clarke (+2) moved briefly into second place amongst MPs and he fancies his chances against David Davis amongst the increasingly hungry-for-office rank-and-file.  Although he has made substantial speeches the message of his new look website focuses on his popularity.  Up until now that reputation has been based on static polling – the weaknesses of which were exposed by Mark Steyn in The Telegraph (and this site’s most prolific commentator, James Hellyer).  YouGov’s analysis for The Spectator shows that KC’s ‘polling advantage’ does not appear to survive a dynamic appraisal of the other candidates’ potential appeal.

Sir Malcolm Rifkind (-1) doesn’t yet have a website and that failure can only fuel the rumours of an imminent endorsement of Ken Clarke.  He may be waiting until he gives the best speech of Blackpool’s party conference (as predicted by Bruce Anderson)?  If insufficient MPs have declared their faith in Sir Malcolm the enthusiasm of Crispin Blunt, his campaign manager, is undimmed.  He still thinks his hero is the man David Davis fears and wrote to this blog telling us why.

Comments

[James Hellyer]

Brickbats to the Davids Davis and Cameron. Despite Davis having recognised that there was a principle at stake in keeping member's voting rights, in an amazing display of non-leadership neither used their vote.

[Bristol]

Clarke is still in second place amongst MPs.

Quentin Davies and Nigel Waterson have still not been added to the list of "Who is backing who".

This website reported Davies' support for Clarke in the letter to The Times on Wednseday but he has still not been added to the list.

Please can someone inform the editor of this site so that the list can now be corrected.

[Editor]

I missed QD "Bristol" - sorry. Where/ when did Nigel Waterson declare?

[Mark Fulford]

Bristol, Davis is claiming both Philip and David Davies as supporters. Am I missing something?

[Mark Fulford]

Doh! Sorry...

[Selsdon Man]

Hollobone previously declared for Davis and is listed as one of his supporters on Who's Backing Who. The article now says that he is supporting Fox. Clarification please.

[Editor]

Hollobone and the four others are backing Fox's policy pledge - not his leadership bid. I apologise if my wording is unclear.

[Selsdon Man]

To be fair, it was my fault for not reading it carefully. I was expecting the other 4 to back Fox (even though Carswell and Goodwill are Cornerstone members) and was surprised to see Hollobone's name associated with the good doctor.

[Nelson, Norfolk]

Surely the time has come for all the Candidates to think carefully in terms of who is best to lead the Party to victory at the next general election.

My own view is that the time has now come for MPs to support a dream ticket.

That dream team as far as I am concerned can only be DC as leader and DD as his deputy.

The above combination is the only one that will guarantee us victory at the next election.

Ken Clarke the fag pusher should now withdraw from the race. He did not perform well in last nights Q/Time. He let Labour get away again with their usual untruths. For Gods sake and for the sake of the Party Ken go and go now.

[Daniel Vince-Archer]

"Max Hastings identified The Telegraph as crucial to the race"

Having read the article, I'm perturbed at the information that Simon Heffer has joined the Telegraph. Whilst being a possible explanation for the Mail's friendliness to Ken, I'm concerned that the Telegraph, which has been going relatively easy on Ken compared to the almost hysterical tone earlier on in the contest, will step up the anti-Ken rhetoric again.