On February 6 I went to a television reception at the Reform Club. On the way in, I met Michael Portillo, whom I have known for the past 15 years or so. In 2001 I supported him, though with some reservations, for the Conservative leadership, and still think he could have won it with a more positive campaign. We had a brief discussion about the proposed European Constitution. A little later in the evening there was a buzz of conversation, with people saying that Michael had been openly briefing against Iain Duncan Smith, and in favour of Ken Clarke.
In the last week of January there was much talk among Tory MPs about an imminent push against Iain Duncan Smith’s leadership by supporters of Portillo and Clarke. It was said that they intended to operate the mechanism for removing the leader, which initially requires the signatures of 25 Conservative MPs. If that process succeeded in removing the old leader, Ken Clarke would have the support of the Portillo forces in the ensuing election by the national membership.
In January there was some doubt whether the attempted coup against Iain Duncan Smith would be tried after the May elections or would be brought forward to March.
Recent public opinion polls have been moving against Labour in favour of the Conservatives, and strongly in favour of the Liberal Democrats. The Labour lead in Great Britain is down to 1 or 2 per cent. This means that the Conservatives must be ahead in England. As a low local government turnout will favour the Conservatives, the May results are likely to be good, and could be excellent. The co-conspirators have therefore every motive to accelerate the attack on the leader.
This was the situation which faced Iain Duncan Smith at the beginning of the second week of February. No doubt he knew better than anyone what Michael Portillo had been saying at the Reform Club and elsewhere, and what disaffected MPs were saying at Westminster.
By that time, he had serious doubts about the loyalties of some members of Conservative Central Office. The chief executive, Mark MacGregor, had been very close to Portillo in previous campaigns, apparently including efforts before the 2001 general election to fill Conservative seats with Portillo supporters. It is also alleged that MacGregor briefed against the previous chairman of the party, David Davis, and influenced Duncan Smith in the serious blunder of sacking Davis, thereby making a martyr of him.
Although there are some differences between modernisers and traditionalists, the challenge to Duncan Smith is not primarily about policy. Portillo is a long-term Eurosceptic, critical of the Maastricht Treaty, though he was a member of the Cabinet which signed it, and opposed Britain joining the single currency. He is now trying to make Clarke the leader of the party, although Clarke was pro-Maastricht and against a referendum, and is now in favour of joining the euro and of the proposed federalist Constitution for Europe. The Clarke-Portillo axis is a marriage of convenience between a Euro-fanatic and a Eurosceptic. On the other side of the coin, Clarke, until a few weeks ago, had never shown much interest in the gay rights issues which have preoccupied Portillo.
Duncan Smith decided that he had to get rid of the people in Central Office he had come to distrust. In at least one case, his suspicions are generally thought to have been unfounded. Stephen Gilbert was the director of field operations, and is regarded as a loyal and efficient professional. However, Iain Duncan Smith was plainly acting in self-defence. There had been far too much leaking from Central Office; there certainly was a plot to remove the leader, which had the support of Clarke, in his laid-back way, and of Portillo, in his more obsessive way. There is still a real possibility that the 25 signatures will be found; and that could be followed by a majority vote in the parliamentary party to remove the leader. Duncan Smith decided to circle the wagons; he was right to do so.
The initial reaction in the constituencies has been one of fury against the conspirators; they are now the most unpopular plotters since Guy Fawkes. This may well save Duncan Smith. Because he is a genial chap, who is well liked in the party, Clarke is spared some of the blame. But Michael Portillo is amazingly unpopular; he is widely regarded as a traitor to his party. He has, indeed, been disloyal to three successive Conservative leaders; he plotted against John Major while in his Cabinet, against William Hague while in his Shadow Cabinet, and is now plotting against Iain Duncan Smith while in his parliamentary party. I do not believe there is a single Conservative constituency for which he could now secure the nomination; even in his own seat of Kensington and Chelsea there are growing protests.
I do not myself expect that Iain Duncan Smith is ever going to be Prime Minister. Even if the Conservatives do extraordinarily well at the next election, and deprive Labour of their overall majority, that would lead only to some form of Lib-Lab administration. Duncan Smith should probably be regarded as an interim figure, like Neil Kinnock in the Labour Party.
The question that Conservative MPs have to face is whether an early leadership election would help or harm the party’s recovery. At the present moment it would probably produce a David Davis victory. Clarke is unelectable, because his European views are too rigid and too extreme; if he became leader, a queue of lesser mortals would follow the Dukes of Devonshire, Somerset and Rutland into the embrace of the United Kingdom Independence Party. For every extra vote Clarke could win, the split on Europe would lose five.
David Davis would, in my view, make rather a good leader, but he too would probably be an interim figure. Why should Clarkeites and Portillistas want to get rid of Duncan Smith in order to make Davis king? Davis would be more ruthless than Duncan Smith.
The other plausible future leaders belong to the next generation, and to the target of a Conservative victory in 2009. No one who leads in the election of 2005 is likely still to be leader four years later. There is a surprisingly good choice of able Conservatives for the election after next.
The leader could be Theresa May. In 2009 she will be only 53; she has come well out of this imbroglio, not of her making. It could be the gifted intellectual Oliver Letwin, who will also be 53; William Hague himself, a resilient man and an excellent speaker, will be only 48. It could be Bernard Jenkin or John Whittingdale, who will be 50; Liam Fox, 48; David Ruffley, 47; Tim Collins or Boris Johnson, 45; Andrew Rosindell or David Cameron, 43; or George Osborne, whom some think the ablest of them all; he will still be a mere babe of 38. Most of these are still little-known names, but the Conservatives actually have a lot of parliamentary talent, which Duncan Smith has helped to encourage.
The problem of the Conservative Party is not lack of talent. That is coming along nicely, though some of the once promising horses, such as John Bercow, have proved in training not to be stayers.
The threats to the Conservative future are disunity and disloyalty. These vices have deep roots. They can be traced back through the period of the Duncan Smith leadership, through William Hague’s, though Hague did a surprisingly good job of reuniting the party on European policy, through John Major and the disaster of Maastricht. Behind that there is the political assassination of Margaret Thatcher, the Heseltine resignation, and the long, proud sulk of Ted Heath. Through it all there has been the underlying and honourable disagreement about European policy.
The Conservatives need a leader who can unite them. That will be the test. The failures of the Labour Party will help over time. It would also help if Iain Duncan Smith were more charismatic, but it is hard to be charismatic if one is repeatedly undermined by disloyal colleagues. If Duncan Smith finally proves unable to do the job, the Tories will have to move on to a more skilful politician, better on television, better in the House. However, Iain Duncan Smith will not quit before he is convinced that he, personally, cannot unite the party. Nor should he. The overwhelming message from ordinary Conservatives, who do not see themselves as particularly right-wing or left-wing, as “trads” or “mods”, is “Give loyalty a chance”.
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