LEADERSHIP 2003: Next time round
Does it have to be Davis?
It’s goodbye from me, and it’s goodbye from him
This is not the place for an audit of the leadership of Iain Duncan Smith — that can wait until it has stopped (so there’s not long to go now). Why, at last, is it about to come to an end? How, when the doom merchants have predicted it countless times in the past and been wrong (and when Matthew d’Ancona of The Sunday Telegraph is predicting that he’s safe), can one be so confident that this time he’s finished? It’s ever so simple, and the reason why it’s not widely appreciated as such is that the rest of the Tory commentariat never really appreciated how Mr Duncan Smith acquired the leadership in the first place, so it’s hardly surprising that they haven’t woken up yet to how he’s gone about losing it. Iain Duncan Smith is about to be removed as leader of the Conservative party by the threat of a motion of no-confidence being moved because he has contrived to lose his remaining, and original, supporters. During the course of his leadership he has progressively alienated that proportion of the parliamentary party that did not know him prior to 2001, and since the beginning of this year, he has been on his final chance with those who did. To quote a highly pertinent source: ‘he’s proven himself to be irredeemable . . . Iain’s got to go’. Which he will.
This contest that is about to start in May is going to happen despite the fact that, with the possible exception of Michael Howard, it suits no one who’s liable to succeed. In other words, it’s not going to happen because someone has plotted it, but because the last reason for it not to happen has been removed. That last reason, to elaborate, was that if previously a formal assault had been made on Mr Duncan Smith’s leadership, there would have been both genuine and self-interested right-wing resistance. It would have provoked the sort of reaction that wouldn’t have made victory much use, even had it been possible to achieve. With Mr Duncan Smith’s abandonment by the right of the party, him having comprehensively failed to deliver on their goals, the basis for keeping him in office has disappeared. There after all being no plausible grounds as to achievement, likely future success, or personal magnetism which will justify his retention in the absence of factional backing.
Quite how it will start is secondary. At some point after the local elections on Thursday but before the group hug scheduled to take place the following week the fact that a motion of no-confidence will be moved will become the dominant issue. Getting the requisite 25 names to present to Michael Spicer is hardly going to constitute a problem, all that remains at issue is whether the leader will resign in advance of the motion being put to the test (which will be scheduled to happen very quickly — my prediction: Tuesday 13th May or Wednesday 14th)? Most people seem to be believe that he’ll be a bitter-ender, but I’ve always been an ‘implodist’, holding that the regime will just suddenly fold. To extend this dangerous run of predictions, I reckon Mr Duncan Smith will contrive to be the first person to make the cliché come to life, and that in fact men in grey suits will take him to one side, explain that the motion’s going be a very one-sided affair indeed, and off he’ll trot. It won’t be pretty to watch, but if it’s not what happens, it’s very difficult to imagine quite who’s going to fight alongside him in that last ditch.
Whether there is or is not a contested motion of no-confidence, the end result will be the same: to merely move such a motion is to bring the current leadership to an end. That this has to happen, to engage in some cant of my own, for the good the party, I can’t contest. That it’s all a terrible pity I can’t also but think. For the thing is, it didn’t have to be this way. Perhaps at some point in the future there’s an entertaining counterfactual to be written in the manner of Jack Coward’s essay (that had Mr Duncan Smith becoming Prime Minister), setting out how Mr Duncan Smith’s leadership could have worked, but the incontestable fact is that it hasn’t, and now never will. Talking about what might have been will have to wait too for the assessments of what did happen; for now we should consider what’s about to happen. After the resignation announcement (and I wouldn’t rule out a chaotic complete departure from office — in which case, deputy leader Ancram will undoubtedly take the helm a la Margaret Beckett after John Smith’s death), the chances are that the week originally scheduled for the vote of no-confidence will be given over to at least one round of the parliamentary ballot (Thursday 15th possibly?), with the hope being that the remaining rounds necessary can be sorted out the following week before the House rises on the 22nd May.
This is where we come in. Who’s going to be in the race, and who’s going to make it through to the final two? Regardless of who is and who does, one final prediction (everything else is going to be speculation), the contest in the country will sensibly enough be scheduled to be finished by the end of June. For the two finalists, it’ll kick off during the recess at the end of May, and the Hustings this time will surely be arranged for more sensible dates earlier in the process. I’d say a new leader will be in place in time for the final PMQs before the House of Commons rises for the long Summer recess on 17th July. So who’s it going to be?
We hardly knew thee
One thing there won’t be this time is a ‘legatee’ candidate: last time Michael Ancram got chiefly the votes of those who would have voted for William Hague, if he’d been in the race. That he came joint last on this platform puts into perspective the depth of pro-Hague feeling supposedly staking the party. That said, the former leader looks a giant — in a way that current leader does not — in comparison to the list of names we’re about to run our eyes past. At any rate, there is not going to be an Iain-sympathy candidate, but what I suspect there will be, just as there was in both 1997 and 2001, is a total of 6 names declared, even if not all of them manage to get their candidacies (vide the awful Widdecombe) off the ground.
1997 saw Ken Clarke, Stephen Dorrell, William Hague, Peter Lilley, Michael Howard, and John Redwood stand. There were three rounds of voting, with Dorrell withdrawing before the first round in favour of Clarke, and Lilley and Howard (in favour Hague rather than Redwood) afterwards; Redwood being beaten into third place in the second round. William Hague soundly beat Ken Clarke in the final round. In 2001, Ann Widdecombe, Ken Clarke, Iain Duncan Smith, David Davis, Michael Ancram and Michael Portillo stood. Widdecombe failed to get enough support to even get onto the ballot paper, Davis and Ancram tied for last place during the first round (where, importantly, Michael Spicer made the rules up as he went along) and Duncan Smith came a telling second behind Portillo. In the second ballot, which was in essence, the first ballot all over again, neither Ancram, who came last, nor Davis, did well enough to warrant staying in, and both, as pre-arranged, switched their support to Duncan Smith (Davis delivered the bulk of his, Ancram virtually none of his). The third ballot saw Clarke come first, with Duncan Smith beating Portillo by one vote. Duncan Smith’s canvass returns had shown 60 votes in the bag for him, but 5 MPs, led by Roger Gale, voted for Clarke, so determined were they to keep Portillo out at all costs. Almost certainly, had they stayed on board, and both Clarke and Portillo therefore received the same number of votes, Sir Michael Spicer and the 1922 committee would have allowed them both to proceed to the mass membership round with Mr Duncan Smith. As it was, Duncan Smith won this, decisively beating Clarke with 61% of the vote.
Of those 11 names, all of whom are still in Parliament, I suspect only Michael Howard and David Davis will run again. Michael Ancram won’t wish to repeat what for him was not a uniformly congenial experience last time, and, as I say, is very likely to be busy running the party during the interregnum. Who do we think is going to join them (and already do they not have the appearance of, mass membership round front-runners)? Well we should quickly list who isn’t. As well as the nine outstanding casualties from the previous two contests (Clarke, Redwood, Dorrell, Lilley, Hague, Widdecombe, Duncan Smith, Portillo and Ancram) the following aren’t likely to trouble the scorers: Oliver Letwin, John Maples, Francis Maude, Michael Jack (remember the ‘Michael Jack moment’ c. May 1996? thought not), Tim Yeo and Gillian Shephard. All of whom have been tipped, at one time or another, as possible future leaders, but aren’t. Archie Norman has in addition been granted this status, but only by inordinately silly women, so we shall ignore his claims. Then there are the people who are in no way odder than the six who will end up declaring, but will deny themselves on the grounds of personal circumstances or stronger senses of shame. They include professional turn Eric Pickles, Peter Ainsworth, and, most regretably of all, Angela Browning.
The following four then are the people I think will declare along with Howard and Davis: Theresa May; Damian Green; Liam Fox; and, Andrew Lansley. There’s a case to be made for Andrew Tyrie, and I suspect Ken Clarke will be among those making it, but it would be surprising if he didn’t instead decide to do for Green what he did for Clarke last time, and serve as campaign manager. Clarke’s near-certain absence is, in truth, more a matter of sound political calculation than personal sadness, but it will have a seriously significant consequence for the Tory party. Absent Clarke and the Wet/Europhile/call it what will you vote is going to be reduced to a much more realistic figure. Damian Green’s candidature will be healthy enough (indeed, he stands a reasonable chance of making it to the final parliamentary ballot, though no further), but it will mark, in its failure to take with him much more than 20/25 MPs at very most, the historic rout of the Tory left: we’re all Thatcherites now.
Theresa May will run because of her lack of political nous, because The Times will tell her to (to continue the revolution), because it’s compulsory to have a women in these things in some way, and just possibly, because she’ll have been sacked (or quit) by the time the no-confidence motion is due to start. She will do very badly. Andrew Lansley will run because he is unprincipled and ambitious, yet, despite those excellent credentials for leading the party, will do surprisingly badly. Although he’s certain to be more than well aware of how his candidature’s going to perform, his incentive to run will be with an eye to being in the race next time round. And Liam Fox will run because enough people will say to him that this would be a good idea. Which it will be, and if Damian Green’s campaign is as limp as it’s liable to be, Fox stands a reasonable chance of squeezing into the final round of the parliamentary ballot, where he will of course meet Mr Davis and Mr Howard. This is where the potential moment of interest will come, for there is liable by this stage to be a strong ‘stop Davis’ campaign. The chief opportunity to do this, to stop him from reaching the mass membership stage (where his victory will be pretty much locked-in), will present itself in the shape of whoever comes third. He, whether it’s Green, Fox, or even Lansley, is likely to get a lot of anti-Davis votes.
Why is David Davis unpopular with a substantial, though not fatal, number of his parliamentary colleagues? Why, you may as well ask, is the moon made of green cheese? He just is. That it’s the unpopularity that stems from abrasive strength of character rather than, say, from repulsion at sub-literate, oedipal complex-afflicted, hysteria, will turn out to be one of his main selling points. There is, after the last two years, going to be a strong demand for leadership — for some, the tarter the better. The other reason why some people will work their cotton socks off to stop ‘DD’ is that they’ll be inclined to Mr Howard. This particular class of person will be inclined towards him because, in his opposition to a tax-cutting profile for the party, he stands for a signature Portilloite policy, and, because he isn’t Mr Davis, who wasn’t at all a helpful party chairman. Unless Liam Fox’s campaign catches fire — which would be no bad thing, as he is, in the narrowest sense, the ‘best’ of the six candidates — it’s unlikely that anything is going to stop the progression of Mr Davis and Mr Howard to the mass membership round (with Michael Howard topping the parliamentary poll). The Telegraph will hesitantly back the former, The Times, the BBC, and the rest of respectable opinion, the latter. Obviously Mr Davis will win; however, the platform Mr Howard takes to the country will be canny and free from Portilloite excess, so the shakedown’s liable to be only 55%/45% in Mr Davis’s favour. It’ll do, and thus we’ll start July with him as leader.
No one’s walking away from this unhurt
In its heart of hearts, the Telegraph will doubtless hanker after Charles Moore’s Eton and Trinity coeval, Oliver Letwin, but he’s not going to run. Failing that, you suspect there will even be some rhetorical side-betting on David Trimble (who’s set to be in receipt of the Tory whip at some point this year, though not in time to stand, thank God). Which, by degrees, leaves little choice but doing what the paper ought to, and backing the winner. The paper won’t enjoy this leadership election as much as it did the last one, whereas The Times, once Ms. May has departed the scene, won’t make such a hames of things, being in possession of such a more plausible candidate than in 2001. Yet in the wake of the Duncan Smith leadership few people benefit: the party’s traditional right lacks a candidate (unless, again, Liam Fox astonishes us with his manifesto); the very fact of the no-confidence motion will be a parliamentary challenge to the grass roots that, whether justified or not, will do nothing to encourage amity within the party; and most of all, the modernising project has been completely discredited. Which is a perverse result, but then it’s been a perverse leadership.
I should, perhaps, make clear that there is no truth to the rumour that I’m departing the stage here in order to run John Hayes’s bid for the leadership. All of Bill, Bernard, Owen and John are too upset by the recent fallings out to even contemplate being engaged again in a leadership election. I am, in fact, merely going to offer (what was the Norris formulation for this sort of thing?) informal, unpaid advice. But here no longer: that’s over to Muldrew. Though what (after the above) there’s left for him to do this summer, I’m not entirely sure. All I know is that last time we killed Portilloism, this time we’re burying the body at a crossroads by midnight. Bring your shovels, I’m off.
Kit Kildare, April 26, 2003 07:16 PM