Telegraph pours cold water on Ken Clarke's leadership bid

Yesterday Ken Clarke was courting the Tory readership of The Daily Mail.  Today he’s after The Telegraph's readers.  The Chancellor of the Exchequer who bequeathed Labour ‘golden economic conditions’ believes that the heart of his appeal is his ability to restore the Conservative Party’s reputation for economic competence:

“We must challenge the very basis of Gordon Brown's claim to holding the top job - his boast of sound economic management. It will be a central issue in the election. And we must start doing it now. We must re-assert our own reputation for economic competence and demolish Labour's.  I believe that I am well equipped to lead this battle. I have a track record of economic success in government and credibility with the business and financial community which has been wooed so assiduously by Labour. Under my leadership we must recapture the central economic battleground.”

Mr Clarke lists his hinterland of outside interests as the top prop for his claim to be able to reach the under 35 age group who have most deserted the Conservative cause:

“I believe that I have an appeal that goes beyond the politically active parts of our communities. I maintain a vigorous and hugely enjoyable life outside politics. My love of motor sports, cricket, football, my love affair with jazz, my refusal to bow before the strictures of political correctness and fashion - I think these are things which give me what the political witch-doctors call "authenticity". We are told repeatedly that the voters - especially young voters - seek authenticity in their politicians.”

He also touches on foreign policy – downplaying his unpopular European views and puffing up his anti-Iraq war stance:

“Europe should no longer be a divisive issue within the party. The constitution is dead. I can see no circumstances in which British membership of the euro will be an issue in this parliament or the next. Europe should concentrate on building jobs, enterprise and competitiveness with a real attack on unnecessary regulation.  As far as Iraq is concerned I believe I was right and that events are proving me right. I accept that a majority of my colleagues differed from me at the time, but I know that a huge disquiet now exists in the Conservative ranks about the course events are taking and the failures of American policy once the statues of Saddam had been toppled.”

Opposite Mr Clarke’s article is a Telegraph leader that, while leaving the door open to the possibility of a Clarke-led Conservative Party, pours cold water on his leadership ambitions.  It says that it identifies three “serious anxieties which must be allayed if he is to become [Conservative] leader.”  I actually counted four in the leader and they are these:

1. The EU’s ‘ever closer union’ project hasn’t been stopped by the travails of the euro and rejection of the Constitutional Treaty – “but merely [been] driven… underground”.  What will Ken Clarke do about the essential integrationist bias of the EU project?  What powers will he restore to Britain?
2. Will he get past the "short-term trouble" and pain in Iraq and support the “great international project” of democratisation in the Middle East?
3. Will he reform the public services and reverse their centralisation?  The Telegraph alleges that the former Chancellor “is dismissive of calls for individual choice and control in the public services.”
4. And the fourth issue The Telegraph raises is the current attempts to disenfranchise rank-and-file Tory members.  It urges Clarke supporters to “think hard” before embarking upon “a completely anti-democratic step.”  [A partial anti-democratic step is obviously acceptable to The Telegraph!]

Comments

[Sam Coates]

Ed: the link at the top of Conservative News and Commentary, starting with "Times suggests" has a faulty link. (http:// is put in twice)

[EU Serf]

The Media like Clarke, he's interesting. That is the sole basis of all the column inches his every word gains.

Given the chance, they will do the same to him in a negative way.

[Wat Tyler]

You've got to love him, haven't you.

But as Anthony Wells points out, opinion polls suggest that Ken's roguish lovability won't translate into actual votes ( http://pollingreport.co.uk/blog/index.php?p=481 ). The public thinks he's too old and too Europhiliac- possibly even post-recantation.

[Jonathan Sheppard]

And Roger Helmer MEP in the East Midlands (which covers the Rushcliffe constituency) is equally damning in todays Telegraph:-

Sir - So it's official - Ken Clarke is standing for the Tory leadership.

Most of the Conservative activists I know simply will not work for a Clarke-led party. They will defect to Ukip. Or they will work for a non-party, anti-EU organisation, like the Democracy Movement. Or they will sit on their hands.

Neil Kinnock is right. A Clarke leadership would split the party from top to bottom, leaving it unelectable for a generation.

Roger Helmer MEP (Con), Lutterworth, Leics

[Oberon Houston]

So Roger Helmer is willing to leave the Party rather than serve under Clarke? Even if the rest of the Party (one way or another) decide they want him to be Leader and he was elected under that Conservative banner?

I'm sorry, but I have no time for these people, we would be much better off without them and I hope Roger is true to his word should Ken be elected.

[Jonathan Sheppard]

I think you will find Roger has already had the whip withdrawn for certain critical comments he has made about the EU.

[Selsdon Man]

Jonathan is right. Helmer had the Whip withdrawn for his role in a motion and debate in relation to the EU President's involvement with the` Latsis family.

The leader of the EPP publicly expelled Helmer during the debate. The Conservative Whip was then withdrawn. Helmer later supported his own expulsion when it was debated among the EPP-ED Group.

Helmer is no longer`listed as a Tory MEP on the Party web site.

[Disraeli]

I find people thinking that they can effectively hold a democratic election to ransom by threatening to quit if a certain candidate wins to be a pretty to curling spectacle. Helmer's threat is pretty similar to those made by a number of rich Hollywood stars to leave the US if Bush won in 2004 or those made by the likes of Phil Collins and Andrew Lloyd Webber that they would leave the country if Labour won in 1997. This kind of absurd fanaticism from the likes of Helmer has held the Tory Party back for too long.

[Derek Buxton]

Clarke claims that the EU constitution is dead, on what evidence? The things contained in it are still going ahead although not sanctioned. We have little enough liberty or sovereignty left as it is, with Clarke in charge we would be the N. Region of Europe, and fast. The trough beckons him.

[Simon C]

I don't think that you can read a personal threat to join UKIP into Roger Helmer's letter. He is simply making a prediction about how other people will respond to a Clarke leadership.

Roger has always been adamantly opposed to UKIP, & I don't see that changing. Personally I share his view that the party should never have been part of the EPP grouping. It is clear from his website that he still considers himself a Conservative & I would hope that our new leader will reinstate him in the party as soon as possible. He is immensely popular in the East Midlands, and is a great example of a politician who says precisely what he thinks without a care for personal advancement.

[Simon C]

Clarke's article in the Telegraph was as entirely about personality as it was devoid of policy ideas. "Vote ME because I love jazz". As to vision: it was all about Ken and nothing about Britain.

[Rob]

Simon C - If there was a shortage of policy detail in his Telegraph interview, I think he made up for it in his speech to the Foreign Press Association. It was fifty minutes of pretty detailed analysis of Iraq and the threat of Islamic terrorism. I look forward to similarly detailed speeches on other policy areas in the coming weeks!

[James Hellyer]

That's nice. I now know almost as much about Ken's hobbies as I do about David Davis's childhood.

Who said our leadership debate was shallow?

[Jonathan Sheppard]

I managed to find the link to my broadcast in which Michael Howard lists what he thinks he achieved under his premiership (on my blog).

I think it makes interesting listening. The new leader clearly needs to build on these foundations.

[Simon C]

Thanks Rob. I have read the speech & a link is at the end of this post. It's certainly a lot meatier than some of the speeches we have had from other leadership candidates. It was a pity that he had nothing to say about the democratisation of the Middle East, and Islamic States in particular - that ducks an important question as The Telegraph pointed out this morning.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4205256.stm