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Iain Watson, Today's political reporter pens this week's newsletter:
In the week that Saddam's trial finally got under way, I was immersed in dealing with the aftermath of a formerly formidable one party regime which had descended into leaderless, faction ridden chaos with no obvious plan for reconstruction.
Yes, it was my task to cover the Conservative leadership campaign.
Being an instinctive coward, I'm glad the only dangers I faced this week were an assault of hostile briefings from supporters of the various candidates, and a near-crush as MPs and journalists crowded into a narrow corridor of the House of Commons, outside Committee room 14 where the ballots of Tory MPs were being counted and the results announced last night.
I'm proud enough and indeed smug enough to admit that I won the office sweepstake and correctly predicted the number of votes David Cameron would get, and was just one out on the tally each notched up by Messrs Davis and Fox. Magnanimously, some of my Today colleagues suggested I should have been barred from having a flutter on the grounds of insider trading.
Certainly I did have the benefit - if that’s the word - of standing just outside that very room where the MPs voted for most of Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. I was joined by various newspaper journalists and representatives of the rival camps who were keeping the scores on the door as MPs came and went, and asking them how they voted.
Most were forthcoming but others were either fearful or bashful -especially if they were voting a different way from that which they'd pledged to do in public. Yesterday a former frontbencher told us that despite apparently signing up to the David Davis campaign, he had in fact voted for Ken Clarke in the first ballot and David Cameron in the second. I'm sure that did a lot to restore trust in politicians.
Ah, Ken Clarke. Politically, the Big Beast was finally laid to rest this week. Some MPs who are still suspicious of his pro-euro views voted tactically to get him out, though probably fewer did so than was claimed. It did seem ironic that the candidate who was seen as consistently the most popular of contenders by the wider public was so unceremoniously rejected for the third time by a party which had lost ..er, three elections. Some MPs used a similar phrase to describe him :'We like him, but he's just not a Tory'. Perhaps in the same way that Tony Blair wasn't really Labour and we all know what happened to his career, don't we?
Ken Clarke, though, was damaged for two reasons apart from his pro Euro baggage. Some polls suggested that while he was popular now, he'd be less effective than David Cameron in facing Labour's likely next leader, Gordon Brown.
Listen Again.
But more significantly, he was seen as a distant and historic figure by the vast majority of the new intake. Indeed one of the very few 'new' MPs who backed him was none other than Sir Malcolm Rifkind (once he withdrew his own leadership bid), a retread who returned to parliament to replace Michael Portillo in Kensington and Chelsea.
The trouble wasn't so much that the former Chancellor himself was eligible for his Bus Pass, but that too many of his supporters looked like they were getting on a bit too and this didn't convey the image of a party about to renew itself. Some MPs said that he didn't look hungry enough for power and that was perhaps characterised by the fact that he was amiably chatting to us hacks in the House of Commons when he should have been addressing his fellow MPs at a crucial hustings meeting on Monday and was summonsed in no uncertain terms by a senior member of the backbench 1922 committee.
Listen Again.
Although David Cameron became the clear winner amongst MPs yesterday, Dr Liam Fox must feel as chuffed as a vulpine namesake who's outrun the hounds (sorry for the anachronistic analogy as this activity is now clearly banned by Parliament).
Although he finished third, he displayed momentum and audacity and is now in a strong bargaining position when it comes to endorsing either David - Davis, or Cameron - both of whom now go through to the run off where members of the party, not members of Parliament, are sovereign.
Some MPs I spoke to are calling for a right wing, Thatcherite pact against the metropolitan modernisers, the 'Notting Hill' set, characterised by David Cameron.
But personalities often matter every bit as much as policy and there seems - for whatever reason - to be seething resentment between some Fox supporters and some David Davis supporters. For example, one Fox supporter described David Davis to me using a very rude four letter Anglo-Saxon anatomical term.
David Cameron is hoping to exploit this mood - if he can win Liam Fox's endorsement, it will look as though he can appeal to different wings of the party and further narrow David Davis's appeal, who enters the final phase of this contest as the underdog having started the race like a greyhound bristling to get out of the trap.
But David Cameron himself isn't free from attracting some resentment too - especially amongst MPs many years his senior. They may be a tad envious but many are also worried that he's risen without trace and may fall just as quickly in the face of Labour attacks. And after all the fuss over whether David Cameron's coke intake wasn't restricted to fizzy drinks, some of his fellow politicians fear that more negative stories -irrespective of their veracity - are on the way.
As for the ballot itself, it's been widely reported that 300,000 Conservative members would be able to vote but we've discovered that the franchise is far more restricted. Around one in six members - about 50,000 people - could be disenfranchised due to arcane rules involving length of membership and minimum subscriptions. But it also transpires that where a husband and wife have joint membership they are only entitled to one vote. So while both leadership candidates have stressed that they favour strong families, the party they seek to lead could be responsible for some bitter domestic disputes over the next six weeks while the ballot is carried out.
Listen Again.
The result will be known on December 6th -the whole process taking almost as long as formulating a new constitution for Iraq.
I'm happy to enter the sweepstake on that result but I'm keeping my predictions to myself in the interests of impartiality. Though having won the general election sweepstake too I'm tempted to set up a political tipsters' website. It's got to pay better than the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ….
Iain
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