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The Renaissance of Ken Clarke

Sunday Post - 4.09.05

Ken Clarke is enjoying himself. Victory at Trent Bridge, local to Clarke’s Nottinghamshire constituency, has lit up this year’s late summer and is a good sign too for this cricket loving politician who seemed in the autumn of his career. Suddenly the idea that Clarke, erstwhile arch euro-enthusiast and anachronistic straight talker, might actually claim the Tory leadership on his third attempt isn’t quite as easy to dismiss as it once was. So what has changed?

At last Clarke has made a vital move towards the Party, rather than, as in previous leadership elections, expecting it to accept his vision without compromise. No longer proselytising for the euro or the European constitution makes his latest leadership bid viable as never before. At worst cynically opportunistic, Clarke’s concession can also be spun positively as the act of a man prepared to admit when he’s wrong. So maybe the bombastic Ken does have hidden reserves of modesty. But if not modesty it certainly shows that Clarke hungers for that most unenviable of jobs, to lead the Conservative Party.

This is not the first time that Clarke has tried to neutralise his pro Europeanism. Seasoned observers of Tory leadership elections will remember his bizarre pact with John Redwood in 1997. But although Clarke was by far the more popular man it was Redwood’s hardcore Euroscepticism that more truly represented the views of the party at large. Faced with the very real prospect that newly elected PM Tony Blair would take Britain into the Euro Clarke’s stunt looked like a gimmick and he was doomed. Later in 2001, when William Hague bailed, the image of Ken Clarke’s platform appearances promoting the European cause along side first-term Blair still loomed large. He was, by his own account, more enthusiastic about further integration than even his new found New Labour friends. At his generally impressive leadership launch Clarke berated the press for concentrating on Europe and then went straight ahead and concentrated on Europe.

Now though, even Ken Clarke, ‘big beast’ that he is, can’t dismiss the exposed weaknesses in the Euro, or the millions of continentals who recently voted ‘no’ to the constitution. So the time is right for Clarke to move towards his Party. And just as importantly it can also move towards him. This year’s general election result was actually dreadful but somehow, given an injection of new talent into the Commons, the Tories gave an impression of some success for the first time in 8 years. With unrivalled experience Clarke has the capacity to capitalise on that much needed sense of momentum. He is, as he happily boasts, a popular and well known figure, unlike the anonymous and relatively anodyne ‘Davids’ he faces. The Tories have become primarily an English and a rural party, but people elsewhere in those huge bits of the country they must win back have at least heard of Clarke. And they may be receptive too to his newly oppositionist agenda. Where there recently seemed little to distinguish a self proclaimed moderate and Euro friendly Clarke from Tony Blair, now in reclaiming the mantle of a traditionally sceptic Tory Clarke has taken the battle to Blair over Iraq.

So Clarke wants the job and his party desperately want a winner. Whether he faces a vote of all the members or just the MPs he has to prove himself more than just a beer drinking, jazz loving, cigar puffing guy. He and the party are more in step than at any time since his chancellorship but euro scepticism runs deep and many will doubt the credibility of a man who’s ditched his principles and says he got it wrong on such a major constitutional and economic issue. They may also remember that he was a combative cabinet minister who made enemies in the public services. Now he pays lip service to reforming them but has yet to say what that means. Is he too old? Is his job at BAT a problem? They don’t help but the un-politically correct Tories will excuse him those if they think he is their longed for saviour. In truth there is no obvious prince across the water and if Clarke is the solution it’s only in a short term one, but at least all Conservatives can applaud him for injecting some excitement into an important but thus far dull leadership contest.

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