Despite the departure of foxhunting, the highlight of the English sporting calendar remains. A truly successful sport carries through a spark of mankind’s chthonic barbarity into a modern context. So it is with the semi-annual Tory leadership contest. Imagine a muddy swamp in the stagnant, Jurassic heat of antiquity. In the middle of a glade we see a wild tumble of thrashing, wrestling limbs – all carefully fitted out in chalk-stripe suits. Such is the Tory leadership battle: ancient combat with a modern veneer.
Immediately after the general election we can expect the hostilities to commence. Michael Howard is fast heading towards pension age (and therefore the vast tax cuts that he is giving to pensioners). Whatever the result of the election, the mutterings will begin: ‘running the Tory party is a job for a young man’. Of course, Hague and Duncan Smith proved that amply. So let’s look ahead to the coming battle.
There is only one certainty in a Tory leadership contest. It is that the overwhelming favourite, the person who the country expects to get it, really the only obvious choice, the one who thrills the public and terrifies Labour, doesn’t get it. Often they are careless enough to lose, or to fail to win, their seats (see Heseltine, Patten, Portillo, Rifkind). But even if they do manage to retain a seat in the Commons they just get spurned anyway, as we have seen again and again with Kenneth Clarke. So it goes without saying that whoever is chosen will come as a complete surprise to all but the most ardent Tory Kremlinologist.
Even the method of choosing the leader changes every time. Margaret Thatcher lost the leadership by getting more votes than her rivals. Hague was elected after an insanely complex bit of horse-trading. Duncan Smith had to travel Tory England to get his votes – and then got deposed by his own MPs. Finally, in a return to the 1950s, Michael Howard was selected as leader by the invisible hand of the ‘magic circle’. Of course, the process that enthroned him can’t have been operating at the same time as he was so vigorously backing Duncan Smith. That would have been hypocritical. So it must have just happened spontaneously within the five seconds following Duncan Smith’s defenestration and before Howard’s acclamation.
Perhaps the Tories should finally acknowledge that every variation on their process of internal recruitment has failed. Perhaps they should advertise? ‘Wanted: Leader of the Conservative party. Do you have experience in turning around well-known brands that have lost their sparkle? Can you motivate a diverse team? Do you have an almost mystical connection with the views of 100,000 blue-rinsers in the home counties? Previous applicants need not apply.’
Except, of course, they will. Perhaps it’s William Hague’s turn to apply again or Duncan Smith. Who will their competition be? In 2001 Charles Moore suggested David Trimble do it. Perhaps Ian Paisley would better reflect the modern party. What about David Davis, a politican who seems to have no dimension or interest other than running for leader? Or what about Kilroy-Silk? It is his stated ambition to destroy the Conservative party. And that has been the main qualification for leading it since 1975. Nor should we necessarily rule out the dead. In the modern, inclusive Conservative party a gravestone should not be a millstone. And once the dead are in the running, why not go yet one stage further and open the contest to the House of Lords – Thatcher, Heseltine and the rest? It would be like a 1980s nostalgia special edition.
Perhaps the greatest solution would be to adopt a reality TV approach. All the candidates could be locked into a house. Viewers could watch their debates and their discussions and then vote for their favourite. Except that on the dawn of the first day the cameras would scan inside the locked house to find nothing but cold corpses.