Iain Duncan Smith faces the damaging prospect of yet more speculation over his leadership if the Conservatives fare badly in tomorrow’s local elections.

So, not surprisingly, IDS has gone on the campaign trail with a vengeance to try to stir the Tory party faithful into turning out to vote.

On Monday the IDS bandwagon rolled into Guildford, once a Tory stronghold, which astonishingly the party lost at the last general election to the Liberal Democrats. Winning back the council, which has 18 Tories and 19 Liberal Democrats, is crucial if IDS is to show that the Tories are on the way back.

In a speech billed as “keynote”, the Tory leader said that the “gloves are now off” and that it was vital that the good burghers of Guildford vote Conservative.

The trouble is no one appears to have told IDS that for the first time Guildford is one of 32 boroughs pioneering an all-postal ballot. By Monday, when IDS made his memorable speech, just about everybody who was hoping to vote had already done so.

Still yesterday, with only 48 hours to go until the polling stations opened, IDS had a chance to make amends. Yesterday he was at Toynbee Hall in East London, where he met John Profumo, the former Cabinet minister who resigned from the Macmillan Government over his affair with Christine Keeler. Profumo has spent much of his time since his disgrace working at the charitable centre.

But the visit was another triumph for the IDS local election planning team. There are, of course, no local elections in London. Anywhere.

A leg to stand on: While Robin Cook was on the Scottish election campaign trail in Livingston, he went to a local kennels with his wife, Gaynor, and a local candidate. Cook, who has two terriers, was taken with one particular mutt and bent down to get him to offer a paw. A kennel hand whispered urgently in Cook’s ear that the said creature had only three legs. If he offered his paw, as requested, he would fall over.

Arnie wins over unlikely supporter

The prospect of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Hollywood action man turned Republican activist, running for the governorship of California in September has been welcomed by the Adam Smith Institute, the free-market think-tank.

Not least because in February 2000, Dr Madsen Pirie, the institute’s president, placed a bet on Arnie being the next elected governor.

Pirie, once an ardent Thatcherite, says: “I went into William Hill and asked to place a £100 bet. They did not have a clue what odds to give me in case I had inside knowledge. In the end they agreed to 25-1.”

As The Times reported yesterday, the former Mr Universe could run for office three years earlier than expected. A group of politicians are seeking to force the incumbent, Gray Davis, out of office early. “Schwarzenegger always gets what he wants,” said Pirie. “Whether it is pumping iron to win Mr Universe or taking acting lessons to become a good actor.”

Sorry. Did he say good actor?

PS

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