THREE QUARTERS of Tory supporters believe that the contest to succeed Michael Howard has shown the Conservative Party to be desperately short of strong leaders, a Populus poll for The Times suggests today.

As the five declared contenders begin trawling for votes at the Blackpool conference, the poll gives them the dispiriting verdict that voters, and particularly Tory supporters, have a distinctly low opinion of them.

Amid pressure for a nationwide run-off between David Davis and Kenneth Clarke, the Times poll finds that 22 per cent of voters think that the Tories have a good team of leaders, compared with more than 50 per cent for each of the other main parties. Four out of five voters believe that the party is lacking in good leaders.

The poll underlines the huge scale of the task facing whoever is declared victor on December 6. It comes as the manoeuvring begins in earnest to determine who will join Mr Davis in the final run-off when the voting moves later this month from the MPs to the party membership.

Mr Davis, who was said to need just one more vote to be certain of going through to the final stage, made plain that he would have nothing to do with any machinations designed to keep Mr Clarke out of the final ballot.

It has been suggested that because Mr Davis is ahead among the MPs some of his supporters could afford to desert temporarily to another candidate to stop Mr Clarke.

But the Shadow Home Secretary hinted that he hoped the run-off would be with Mr Clarke. Some Davis supporters are keen to avoid a run-off with Liam Fox, the dark horse candidate, who has been gaining support and yesterday won the backing of Stuart Wheeler, the spread-betting tycoon.

Andrew Mitchell, a leading Davis supporter, said: “In the end this will come down to a contest between Ken Clarke and David Davis, two big beasts.”

Mr Davis insisted that he would not sanction a tactical voting strategy designed to undermine Mr Clarke.

“I’m not going to do that. I don’t believe in that nonsense,” he said. “I’m told it has happened in previous leadership elections but I don’t really believe in that.”

He again insisted that he would not do deals with individuals or groups. The traditionalist right-wing Cornerstone group has challenged all the contenders to sign up to its manifesto.

A poll published last night suggested that Mr Clarke and Mr Davis were running neck and neck for the leadership. They each had 30 per cent of Tory members wanting them to succeed Michael Howard as leader, according to a YouGov poll for The Daily Telegraph.

When the general public was asked, the poll put Mr Clarke on 28 per cent and Mr Davis on 9 per cent.

Although the contenders were insisting that they intend to avoid personal attacks, the strains were beginning to show. David Cameron suggested that he was the only leadership candidate who could be trusted to modernise the party. In remarks aimed at Mr Davis, he said: “I started this campaign by saying that I am a modern, compassionate Conservative. That is me. David Davis has definitely moved in that direction, but I would say buy Coca-Cola. If you like Coke, get the real thing.”

But Mr Davis insisted that he had always been a moderniser and said: “I’m Mr Heineken. I mean it when I say Heineken because what I want to do is [have] a Tory party that reaches the parts of Britain it never reached before.”

Mr Clarke arrived in Blackpool last night to declare that his priority was to make his party electable. “This week I hope to demonstrate that our party does not need a Blair or a Brown. It needs an experienced figure that can take them on and restore the trust of the country in British politics. I believe I am the man to win the next general election and lead the Conservative Party back into government.”

Mr Clarke was last night accused of misleading a Commons select committee about BAT’s involvement in cigarette smuggling. An article in The Guardian claimed that Mr Clarke, who is vice-chairman of the tobacco company, denied the charges despite secret legal documents acknowledging that BAT was aware of the smuggling, which gave it a foothold in the Latin America market.

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