How will individual papers line up on the Tory leadership?
October 5th, 2005-
How will editors be influenced by the events in Blackpool?
With the final decision over the next Tory leader being in the hands of the party’s grass-roots a key dimension will be how the press, particularly the traditional Tory-backers, line up behind the different candidates.
The media views and endorsements could be critical this weekend as Tory MPs go back to their constituencies and get feedback ahead of the parliamentary party’s shortlisting election at Westminster.
In 2001 it is generally acknowledged that the Daily Telegraph’s endorsement of IDS played a critical role. Will the paper be so forthright again and if so which way will it go? We quoted one of their journalists here earleir but clearly this is a decision that will be made at the very highest level
The Daily Mail has been backing Ken Clarke - is that going to stick or might it jump on the Cameron band-wagon?
What about the Murdoch Times and the Sun? Will they opt for the anti-EU Liam Fox or might they go with Cameron or Davis. It is hard to see Clarke getting any help here.
The PB.C Leadership Survey
Site problems caused by abnormal levels of demand have caused us to put back our survey on how site users think that Tory members will rate the candidates. Things have changed a bit in the meantime but for the record these are the figures that Paul Maggs has kindly produced.
Overall you gave Ken Clarke an average score of 6.51, Davis 6.27, Cameron 5.77 and Fox 5.02. On the specific attributes David Davis came top for his personal CV and policy portfolio while Ken Clarke came top on speaking/media skills and looking most like an election winner.
Cameron came bottom on personal CV, Clarke on the policy portfolio, Davis on speaking/media skills and Fox on being a likely election winner.
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I see DD is drifting again in Betfair but much more decisively in favour of DC than earlier. If I’ve got the odds and sums right both can be backed for a 40ish% return on either winning. Sound like a good bet? Certainly better than laying KC for a 27% return, I would have thought.
This is becoming a great market for people who hav taken long prices on the top three. Am sitting pretty knowing I’m in profit whatever the outcome.
The media knives will be out for Davis before he’s even become leader.
It would be difficult for the press to run to his aid, when his speech has been widely panned.
The Tories would look stupid now to elect Davis when so many of his audience appear to fall asleep in his speeches.
Davis and the Tories would be a laughing stock. That is the reality.
Davis is dead meat as a leader already.
3. Not really, what happens if he gets massively greater backing in the first round than he has pre-announced. The evidence from my contacts in the palace is that there are a lot of spare votes that DD is not announcing. DD will be disappointed that his speech didn’t go down better but he is a big enough politician to carry on with the campaign. Remember it is a postal ballot so he has until the end of November-ish plenty of time for this to get forgotten or replaced by a good new story. Don’t write him off just yet….
I think both the Mail and Express will come out for Clarke, the Sun and Times for whoever can beat Clarke. The Mirror won’t care, the Indy and Guardian will want the most lef-wing. It’s only the Torygraph that’s up for grabs in my view.
Please excuse the untimeliness of this post, I’m on holiday in maritime Canada this week. Rather sad that I can’t tear myself away from the Tory leadership for a week, but there you go…
On the drive down to Gatwick on Thursday, I heard both DD and DC launch their leadership bids. DD’s speech was not actually anything you could complain about for content - in fact dealt in such generalities that there was almost none of it that I couldn’t imagine Tony Blair saying - but was clunky and awkward. Two hours later, David Cameron spoke fluidly and elegantly, and, uniquely, with some content. If I was part of the electorate for this competition he would have secured my vote then and there. Now, I have no magic insight into the minds of Conservative party members, but surely some of them are thinking the same way. DC must therefore be a shoo-in against either KC or LF, for different reasons. The question is whether he will get to the second round. How likely are MPs to change their minds on the basis of this week?
Canada, meanwhile, is fascinating. The liberals are busy filling up time to put off any vote which may lead to an election - looks like they’re clinging on until each fingernail is prised loose from power.
‘laying KC for a 27% return’? I bet it’s not a pretty sight, whatever the return….
Adam Bolton saying that four first time MPs have come out for DC and Alan Duncan to do so tomorrow. Centre right MPs now openly talking of deserting to Liam Fox( I’ve got a humble background but it doesn’t mean I should be leader- a devastating put down of Davis ). Davis has to mount an immediate salvage operation or he’ll be gone in the first round.
I think most of the papers will remain true to previous form. Murdoch Press won’t back Clarke, may Back Davis, Fox or Cameron. I would expect the Daily Mail and the Guardian to back Clarke. No idea about the Indy.
However, the most important endorsement is that of the Telegraph. I have a sense that they may be put off DD after his poor performance today, and much as I may like to see them do it, I have difficulty envisaging them backing Clarke. That leaves Fox and Cameron. I like a lot of what Fox says but he’s too hard line to win an election, if the bosses at the Telegraph agree, then they could well back Cameron, and if they do, then he probably becomes the front-runner.
I’m off now, completely shattered. Until tomorrow from home!
I wonder if people aren’t getting too carried away on the Cameron bandwagon. He made one good speech but his campaign had previously stalled badly and he made a few comments which make you wonder how much he understands about the problems faced by young people today. Cameron’s inexperience makes him a very risky choice as leader.
8. It seems there aren’t new Clarke’s backers (JAck, where are they?)
10. Agree, but the problem is where do you go. All the candidates have their downsides, broadly: Davis can’t do speeches. Clarke does Europe. Cameron can’t do experience. Fox does hyper right-wingery. Rifkind can’t do modern…
10 - agreed. If you look at his website it seems as though he has got a soundbite for every issue (except, notably, health) but you get no real sense that any proper thinking has gone into the formulation of policies. Obviously the Tory Party don’t need policies now but it would be nice to have some idea of where he is headed. From what I gather he seems set to embark down the same formula of increasing public spending (because the public services need investment) and cutting taxes. Well he’d better have a better way of selling that than in the past.
And I’m somewhat concerned about where he’s going on Tuition fees, especially, and road charging (the only actual policies i could discern). It’s not a complete surprise that he was responsible for the “A4 manifesto”.
4 - Xenon, If Davis gets the support and becomes Tory leader, my point is that he will be a laughing stock.
It would be ridiculed that the Tories elected a leader that makes the party faithful fall asleep.
If that’s how his own party activists respond to what he has to say, what do you think the rest of Britain will do?
A new opposition leader might expect a period before the press get their knives out, but the knives are out on Davis already.
Davis may or may not become leader, but if he can’t inspire his own party, he isn’t going to inspire a nation.
anada, meanwhile, is fascinating. The liberals are busy filling up time to put off any vote which may lead to an election - looks like they’re clinging on until each fingernail is prised loose from power.
Not really. This was true about 6 months ago, but the Conservatives shot themselves in the foot. Simply put, with Harper in charge (or some like minded), the best the Conservatives can hope for is a (very awkward and probably short-lived) coalition with the Bloc Quebecois, who are also anti-Liberal but for diff’t reasons.
Harper and the ex-reformites are too right wing for Canada.
3,
I agree with you Printz,
However printz, looks like you will get a new Blair to hate, ie David Cameron.
Daily Telegraph headline - “Lacklustre [ (c) Mike Smithson ] Davis leaves leadership wide open”.
For example, via pollingreport.ca:
Latest National Poll (Ipsos, 10/3) has the Liberals on 37%, the Tories on 27%, the NDP on 17% (a kind of leftist social democratic party), and the Bloc Quebecois on 14%
I actually can’t see any paper backing Fox. The Sun might, if it backed somebody, but the political editor was on Newsnight tonight saying that’s not going to happen. Times might go Foxy and that would be enormously significant if it happened.
Anyway, looking forward to the Cornerstone backing of Foxy over the next few days.
17 - I think Davis has probably had a result with that headline! Makes it sound like he had a bit of a cold or something
I suspect there might be worse elsewhere…
Combine the four, Xenon (at 10), and you have the essence of the Tory Party.
They are not very good at expressing their ideas (like Davis), they are anti-Europe (Clarke being the one exception), they have increasingly little experience of Government (especially Cameron), they do hyper right-wingery (Fox-style) and they can’t do modern (strange expression, but loking at Rifkind, one understands the idea. Sorry, Nuala).
So if you put all of this into the melting pot, the obvious answer is the one I have been recommending for some time - John Redwood, the essence of the Tory Party: but Tories never take any notice of sensible Lib Dem suggestions…. (sigh).
20 alex. Yes. The rest are as bad and some worse, although no other paper leads with the story. The Mail and the Times are especially damning.
‘Tories never take any notice of sensible Lib Dem suggestions’ - There has never been any in anyones lifetime….
The thing is that some of the papers, especially the Murdoch Press, have a very difficult balancing act. They can’t afford to put down Davis too much (so it’s quite surprising to hear the Times going in for the kill) just in case he ends up in a run-off with someone they don’t like eg. Clarke. I’m sure some of the Times leader writers are straining at the leash to pile in behind Cameron but they still need to see what support he has. In the cold light of day his campaign could easily fizzle out again, which is why, with the MPs on board, Davis remains very strong.
The only paper that I have seen with a negative front page is the Torygraph. The tabloids are going on Tom and Kate story, or on Kate Moss. The Indy is going with a health story. FT has a pensions lead. Times going on a Iraq story. Mail pensions again.
25. Who are Tom and Kate?
26. ok, I think I know who they’re and what the story is about.
25- The Torygraph is one of the most important newspapers when we talk about tory leadership race.
I suppose few tory members read The Indy.
Been listening to Cameron’s speech.
I think I’ve seen a future Prime Minister.
Tories should ponder. He could beat Gordon Brown as early as the next election.
Do Tories want power? es? They vote Cameron. No? They vote Davis.
Even Tories were asleep as he was talking, how do they expect the UK to be bothered listening.
He sounds like Tony Blair in the right party.
I don’t think a Blair clone could outmanouevre Brown, hey the original can’t…..
28-”He sounds like Tony Blair in the right party. ”
or perhaps British voters don’t want a new Blair and would like something different.
28 - No matter who was speaking, the media would find someone asleep at a Tory Party conference. As someone who has been to many of them, the conference hall can sometimes have the feel of a nursing home
Cameron has had an excellent week, after a great launch and I hope he has opportunity in the next few weeks to show skills in Parliament. I would like to see him on the ballot. There is still a big risk having him as leader, drug policy etc., but I’ve been impressed so far.
30 - It would be slightly ironic if having criticised Blair’s many faults for 10 years and got no joy with the electorate, the Tories were to do a complete about turn and pick a Blair clone just as the electorate realised that they had been right all along
Just like Labour and Maggie in the 1980s, the Tories are too reluctant to acknowledge their own uselessness as a factor in Blair’s success. 36% of the vote, people!!!
32. yes, Blair is great in understanding how political wind is blowinng and following it, but I would have liked to see him challenged by a decent opposition (apart from the Libdems who played their cards well against Labour).
“It would be slightly ironic if having criticised Blair’s many faults for 10 years and got no joy with the electorate, the Tories were to do a complete about turn and pick a Blair clone just as the electorate realised that they had been right all along”
Joking aside, that is a real danger. If there is a desire on the part of swing voters for sincerity rather than slickness at the next GE, it could rebound on DC if he is chosen.
34 Manufactured sincerity is just as good as the real thing….
Are you saying, Xenon (23), that the Tories don´t think much of John Redwood? I thought he would have been one of your favourites….
But then, even Nuala could not persuade you to go for Rifkind either.
So it seems you Tories are doomed to be stuck with a choice among Davis (who can´t speak, I think you said), Clarke (who is dangerously Europhile: same source) and Cameron (who has no experience worth talking about: likewise yourself as the source).
Suit yourselves. I expect you will….
Cameron would make Blair look tired and old. He would no longer be Bambi … Blair would look hyper-active.
In the Clark option, Blair still gets to look good in comparison.
No, why pick a man who’s like one who has just won three election victories. Of course. What was I thinking.
But never mind, having seen the reactions on here, the Tories still aren’t ready for power, so they’ll pick Davis.
Davis will be less good than IDS, who (for all he’s a nice man) was dreadful.
OT: Le Monde suggests they borrow Gordon Brown for a bit while he waits, what odds on that?!
Should you follow a banjo act with another banjo act?
“28 - No matter who was speaking, the media would find someone asleep at a Tory Party conference.”
They managed to find someone who threw up during a speech by IDS.
Only one?
At a recent Swinton Circle meeting in London, apparantly Simon Heffer was openly bemoaning what he called, ‘Hobson’s choice’. The one candidate who he appeared to trash (quite correctly) more than the others was that utter slimeball, David Cameron.
Given that Heffer has recently joined the TORYGRAPH, I can’t envisage them backing DC. Rather they’ll go for Liam Fox, IMHO.
Interesting that this thread is much less popular than the others, when the media backing is likely to be critical in swinging Tory members in particular, and probably some MPs too. As I said before I think this is a really important area that we’ve neglected on this site up till now.
You make a good point, Mike, about the Sun and Times being Murdoch-owned and that he’s likely to make the decision for both. They backed Portillo before, both backed Labour in 1997. So, critical to that decision will be someone who can win and probably someone from the centre. However they’ll want someone who’s with them on their populist agenda: Europe, crime, taxes etc. Clarke is unlikely because of Europe. Fox would be a bad choice because he doesn’t have winnability. I’d have thought it’s Davis or Cameron for them, with Davis being more in line with Sun reader views.
As for the Telegraph, I really have no idea. Again you make a good point Mike that they may be less forthcoming after picking someone perceived as poor in IDS last time.
35 Xenon ‘manufactured sincerity is just as good as the real thing’. An utterly cynical and probably completely accurate assessment. Fabulous!
I can see a Murdoch split, with The Sun going for Davis (or even Fox if he really starts putting on momentum) and The Times plumping for Cameron: it has longstanding links with the Notting Hill set, not least through Michael Gove.
18 – I see there is another person called ‘Ben’… another nail in the coffin of my individuality, now I’m going to have to resort to including pointless “that said”’s in my posts and then only Tabman and Innocent aboard will appreciate it
46. I thought you were the Ben@46. You sometimes mention US politics, so I thought you made a trip to Canada too.