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 hen
the British Conservative Party decides to make a mess of things,
it does so in style. Last night, Mrs. Thatcher's tatty successors
did it again. Battered, humiliated, and crushed in two successive
general elections, the Tories are now identified with precisely
one popular policy, their opposition to any attempt to abandon the
Pound in favor of the European Union's laughable single currency,
the Euro. So last night, when Conservative MPs had the task of narrowing
the shortlist of candidates for the party's leadership down to two
contenders, what did they do? Why, naturally they gave the most
votes to former finance minister Ken Clarke, who politically, at
least, is best known for one thing. He wants Britain to adopt the
Euro.
Now, that is
a perfectly respectable, if misguided, opinion, but it is a remarkable
viewpoint to be held by the challenger for the leadership of a profoundly
euroskeptical party, although that, in turn, is less strange than
the fact that, when the final vote is held this September, Mr. Clarke
is very likely to end up the winner.
In part, of
course, Ken Clarke's success is the product of desperation. The
Tories are patient folk, but, after two of the biggest defeats in
British electoral history, they would quite like to start winning
again. Opinion polls repeatedly show that Mr. Clarke is easily the
most popular Conservative in the country, despite the fact that
he rejects the Conservatives' most popular policy. He combines political
heft (Clarke is widely perceived as having enjoyed a successful
ministerial career, although no one can quite say why) with a likeable
public image. Untidy (the suits!), non-workaholic (the naps!) and
rather portly (the waistline!), Mr. Clarke has perfected the English
art of concealing a sharp intelligence, and no small amount of arrogance,
behind a façade of shabby bonhomie. He is known to enjoy
a few drinks and it is a fair guess that lean cuisine remains a
mystery to him. Spectacularly (he is also a former Health Minister)
Mr. Clarke also smokes, and, as Deputy Chairman of British American
Tobacco, he would probably like you to take up the habit as well.
Being a merchant
of death, however, is not enough, by itself, to make Ken Clarke
the best choice for the Tory party. When it comes to more conventionally
political matters, he has shown himself to be a very conventional
politician, with ideas that are very unlikely to prove much of a
challenge to the Labour Party's existing dominance. Mr. Clarke came
into politics in the 1960s and his attitudes stem from the orthodoxies
of the compromising and vaguely defeatist Conservative Party of
that era. This too is probably the source of his fixation with the
EU. Back then, "Europe" was seen as a relatively prosperous,
sunlit alternative to the gloom of Britain's decaying welfare state.
Indeed, in those days, that is just what it was, but times have
changed. Thinking in the EU has not, however, and its dirigiste
economic model has now clearly run out of steam. Post-Thatcher it
is the Continent that should look at the UK for economic inspiration,
not the other way round.
This is a change
that seems to have eluded Ken Clarke. He fails to grasp the fact
that, for Britain, deeper integration within the federal European
project can only mean one thing, an irrevocable return to the high-taxing,
bureaucratized ways of 30 or 40 years ago. Mr. Clarke may be the
most attractive of the candidates for the Tories' top job, but his
failure of imagination over Europe means that he is also the most
dangerous.
The GOP was
faced with a similar temptation last year. John McCain offered the
prospect of a landslide, but the price he asked, campaign "reform,"
was too much for a party that still had some principles. It was
a decision made easier, of course, by the fact that, in George W.
Bush, the Republicans had an alternative candidate with a reasonable
chance of victory. Looking at the potential opposition to Mr. Clarke,
in a party where the ranks of aspiring leaders had been thinned
by electoral carnage, it is by no means sure that Britain's Conservatives
have had the luxury of such a choice.
To prove this,
just look at the relative success of one of Mr. Clarke's supposed
rivals, the mysterious Michael Ancram, a man who had risen to obscurity
as Chairman of the Tory Party. Unelectable (as a member of the hereditary
aristocracy he is considered beyond the pale in Tony Blair's supposedly
classless new Britain), his campaign platform consisted of two pretty
daughters and one vague principle (something to do with "unity").
Nevertheless, in a sparse field it was enough. The great man got
some votes, and by the end of his campaign the London Times
could even talk about yet another Tory sect, the "Ancramites."
It was not
to last. Ancram and the Ancramites were defeated in an earlier round
of voting. Another challenger dropped out shortly thereafter, leaving
two other candidates. One, Michael Portillo, a former defense minister,
had been the early front-runner. Once viewed as Mrs. Thatcher's
heir, Portillo, an occasionally charismatic politician, who was
seen by some as a potentially exciting choice to take on Tony Blair,
has, over the past few years, compounded bad luck (he was out of
parliament at a crucial time) with worse tactics. A self-indulgent
and very public "journey" of self-discovery designed to
help him connect to a wider audience played poorly with a party
that, even these days, still prefers some degree of emotional reticence.
The wider audience was pretty startled too. Doubts as to what the
former Thatcherite stood for were intensified by the speed of his
departure from the Iron Lady's old certainties. British Conservatives
are a pragmatic bunch. They understand the reason for a strategic
retreat, but would, perhaps, have preferred that this one had been
carried out somewhat less enthusiastically.
Unfairly, Mr.
Portillo's admission a few years ago of some early homosexual relationships
may also have inflicted some lasting damage, but in the end it was
questions over his judgment and what he stood for that were to prove
fatal. Despite a strong start, his campaign was clumsy, and, in
the absence of any real evidence of his electoral pull, the old
doubts returned and he was done for. He was eliminated in last night's
ballot, passed on the one side by the popular appeal of Ken Clarke
and, on the other, by the ideological attraction of the other remaining
challenger, Iain Duncan-Smith, the most recent keeper of the Thatcherite
flame.
Iain Duncan-Smith,
or "IDS" as he has been dubbed by the egos of the Parliamentary
Conservative Party, is an amiable former army officer and the son
of a Battle of Britain hero. He is bright, well informed, and a
confirmed Euroskeptic. In fact, unlike Mr. Clarke, there is no doubt
that he actually supports Conservative policies. By rights, all
this should make IDS the favorite for the final ballot in September
(all Party members get to vote), except for one teeny-weeny problem.
Many Tories worry that the undeniably retro Mr. Duncan-Smith may
be completely unelectable. He is, they worry, too unknown, too old-fashioned,
too uptight, and perhaps the worst offense, too bald (a no-no, allegedly,
in politically sophisticated Britain). Over the next couple of months
IDS will have to show that these concerns have been overdone. If
he can do that, he will see off Mr. Clarke. If he cannot, Conservative
Party members will face a difficult dilemma. Do they vote for Mr.
Clarke, a proven vote-getter, who might win an election, but whose
policy preferences run the risk of splitting the party, and enmeshing
Britain in a federal Europe, or do they vote for IDS and run a high
risk of a third electoral disaster, a disaster that might give Mr.
Blair the mandate he needs to adopt the Euro?
IDS, I think,
needs to get a move on.
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