Who should lead the Tories next?

[David Cochrane]

Britain's Conservative Party today will eliminate one of four candidates vying to lead the main opposition group, with the youngest, David Cameron, favored in opinion polls to win.

The party's 196 lawmakers will choose between Cameron, 39, the education spokesman; former Chancellor of the Exchequer Kenneth Clarke, 65; home affairs spokesman David Davis, 56; and foreign affairs spokesman Liam Fox, 44. The candidate with the least votes will be eliminated, and a second ballot scheduled for Oct. 20. The remaining two will go to a vote among the 300,000 party supporters around the country.

[FutureTaoiseach]

David Davis should win so that the Tories will lose next time.

[FFrCRAP]

If they had any sense they'd vote for Ken Clarke, he is with the rest of the country on most of the issues, like most of Britain he was against the Iraq war and believes in the provision of excellent public services, he believes that the EU is a reasonably benevolent thing... he is a centrist politicion who is popular and has decades of experience..

Cameron has little or no experience and can't take on heavyweights like Brown or Blair, and he can't go into a general election campaign without resolving the Drugs issue.. He has garnered a lot of publicity because of it but he should have done a mea culpla and moved on..

But the tories will probably vote for Davis, an IDS Mark II who makes Gordon Brown look charasmatic...

[KingKane]

Ken Clarke makes the most sense in being able to return them to the centre and while grooming Cameron to take over about 2009. Make him Shadow Chancellor and see how he does about Brown between now and the end of Blair.

If Clarke got the Tories to 250, (which would leave Labour close to 320) you could look at Cameron completing the final push within 2/3 years.

[tralee1]

Bring bask Maggie she knew how to handle the porvo's

[Pidge]

Bring bask Maggie she knew how to handle the porvo's

Yes, a both sensible and highly entertaining notion.

I'd be in favour of Cameron to be honest. While Clarke has got charisma, his age is a big problem. Realistically the Tories won't win the next election - that would mean that it would be time for yet another leadership competition (Clarke would be too old for another election).

Clarke's work with BA Tobacco could also cast him in a negative light.

What the Tories need now is someone young and charismatic - someone who can make reasonable gains in the next election and even stay on for the next one.

[Macchiavelli]

Bring back William Hague, I say. For all his baldness, he was the most intelligent and politically savvy of them all.

[CJH]

I still think Clarke is the best, with Cameron as his deputy and then taking over next time round. They need a John Smith before they get theirheir to Blair.

But of course that won't happen. I really have a sneaking suspicion that Fox will get it. He has to get past Clarke first, which we'll find out about soon, but assuming he does, he will take a lot of right wing votes off Davis. He's also a lot more personable than his rival, and I think he could give Cameron a big fright in the overall vote. Apparently, both the Davis and Cameron camps are very frightened that he'll get into the run-off

[BarryW]

It has to be Clarke. He would gve them a sporting chance of power after the next election. If not, then the Conservatives are dooming themselves to defeat by heavy margin.

I am completely dismayed by the cheerleading for Cameron. It amuses me that the arguements in his favour ("He'll bring the young voters aboard";"He has his finger on the pulse of modern Britain") were EXACTLY the same arguements put about in favour of William Hague in 1997........and look where that ended up!!

And Hague was younger then than Cameron is now! (35 vs 38) And the sad thing is that in terms of raw talent, and concrete political ideas, Hague is/was light years ahead of Cameron.

Cameron's refusal to speak on the drugs issue is bizarre, and will finish him among Tory members if he gets onto the ballot.

The image they need to put in their mind is: Who do we want to put standing toe to toe with Gordon Brown? Who is most likely to intimidate him? Anyone who answers this question by saying "David Cameron" is living on another planet.

One thing is clear from the British election last May: the British people are sick of spin, sick of schmoozing, sick of being lied to, molly-coddled, and well and truly tired of their country being run as some huge slick media-driven publicity machine. The electorate voted for Brown, and not Blair because of this.

So what is some Tories answer to this: To come up with their own version of Tony Blair in David Cameron! The only difference is that Cameron seems even more vaccuous, more greasy, and more luvvy-duvvy than Blair himself (which is some achievement)

Clarke is unique, in that he is the only surviving figure from the Thatcher era (although Davis had a very minor involvement.....), and he is one of the few who is not carrying any baggage from her legacy, and indeed he does not have any baggage from the disastrous 1992-97 government. In fact, he was the only Tory figure who managed to distinguish himself in any way during that time.

Incredibly, even David Cameron has baggage from this time. Rory Bremner replayed Norman Lamont's (then Chancellor of the Excequer) infamous "mea culpa" statement from outside Whitehall on the evening of the Black Wednesday crash. And who was waslking about in the backound?!........none other than David Cameron.

It turns out that David Cameron was, up until Black Wednesday, Special Adviser to the Chancellor of the Exchecquer!!! If he doesn't mind me saying so, it doesn't look like he was doing a very good job!
And now he wants to be party leader.

If MPs put Davis and Cameron onto the ballot, then they will have guaranteed continuous Labour Government until 2013.
With Clarke on the ballot, at least they will have a chance of saving themselves

[matthewbruton]

ken clarke gone! I cant believe it. it truly seems that the tories have , as Eamon dunphy described it, a death wish.