As Tory MPs were voting to eliminate Ken Clarke from their leadership contest, another heavyweight Clarke – the home secretary, Charles – was addressing lobby journalists at the monthly press gallery lunch.
The Home Office was beset with burning issues. It was trying to deport terrorist suspects to Libya without having them tortured. Labour MPs were in revolt on ID cards. Judges were refusing to be ‘browbeaten’ on human rights. Yet, as the eighty-odd hacks polished off their sea bass and the home secretary began his speech, there was only one topic he really wanted to talk about: David Cameron.
The 39-year-old Conservative front-runner has got many on the Labour side worried. As ministers and party strategists try to get a handle on him, they can only hope for a last-minute switch in fortunes to revive their preferred choice, David Davis, before declaration date on December 6.
Charles Clarke’s broadside was revealing because it identified three areas where Labour sees Cameron as vulnerable.
First, inexperience. The home secretary turned to the topic of the Tories with a lament for Ken Clarke, whom, he said, would have been the biggest threat to Labour. (This is always easy to say of someone eliminated from a contest. On this occasion the blokeish Europhile would have brought a short-term boost, but he would not have been their best choice four years down the line as a 68-year-old challenger.)
Charles Clarke scorned the popular view that Cameron and his campaign manager, George Osborne, are their party’s Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Whereas Cameron has made only four dispatch box speeches, Blair and Brown already had a long track-record as prominent opposition frontbenchers before John Smith’s death in 1994, handling difficult questions such as Labour’s stance on secondary picketing and privatisation.
Clarke said: ‘They went through a process where they formed themselves as politicians. Cameron has not got that. He has not done anything as far as I can see.’
Second, the drugs question. Cameron initially refused to say whether he had ever taken any illegal drug, then refined his position by declaring that he had not taken cocaine since becoming an MP in 2001. Charles Clarke reminded the lunchers that he himself had admitted smoking cannabis – and inhaling – in the past. In urging Cameron to be just as open, he gave the story fresh legs for the following day’s papers. Half of all young people try illegal drugs, but, for a Tory boy who is ambitious to reach No 10, it would inevitably be regarded as a lapse of judgement. As Clarke put it: ‘Do I think it’s right that people should be judged by their experience? Yes, I do.’
Thirdly, the ‘posh’ question. Cameron’s Old Etonian background is widely seen as a handicap in his quest to be loved by the British public. The theory is that it doesn’t matter so much for Tony Blair and Labour, but if the Tories are still struggling to shake off their image as the party of privilege, then the last thing they want is a leader with an overtly privileged, upbringing.
Charles Clarke homed in on his target by mocking Cameron’s wife, Samantha, for owning an £875 handbag: ‘I thought, how would that play in my constituency?’ Clarke continued: ‘Would most people think, £875, that’s about right for a handbag?’ Of course, voters could not be put off by the handbag if they didn’t know about it, which is where Clarke’s reminder came in handy. (He said his own wife Carol’s handbags, by contrast, were ‘very, very cheap indeed, because I’m a bit of a cheapskate’.)
Inexperience, privilege and questions of judgement. Those were what Clarke raised in his lunch with journalists. He concluded: ‘I look forward to a Cameron leadership of the Conservative party.’ And the name David Davis didn’t crop up once throughout the entire meal.
Cameron became the bookies’ favourite following the Blackpool conference and his lead in the final round of MPs’ voting, 90 to 57 over Davis, cemented his position as front-runner. But Tory grassroots members are enough of an unknown quantity to keep us guessing.
The two contenders are not a world apart politically. Both are Eurosceptics who declare themselves ‘modern Conservatives’, whilst supporting tax breaks for married couples and a greater role for private firms in providing public services. Both display their civil liberties credentials by opposing ID cards. Both also speak of reducing the tax-take over time, giving Labour scope to repeat its ‘billions of Tory cuts’ line which has played well at the past two elections. It is likely, however, that Davis would be an easier target on this front.
Cameron would make a play for the centre ground by ditching ‘voucher’ policies for health and education. By standing up to the resulting backlash from the Tory right, he would indicate to floating voters that he was serious about making his party electable again.
Davis, 57, with his support for capital punishment and the retention of section 28, would find it harder to capture the metropolitan vote, despite making big play of his humble origins. Labour does not need to press such issues; they are there to sway those voters who care.
Labour has had great success since the fall of Margaret Thatcher by playing on Tory splits. Davis, with his Whip’s Office background, would be tough on dissenters. But he is prone to make enemies. Modernisers could launch a whispering campaign if things went badly, just as the Davisites whispered against Iain Duncan Smith.
While Cameron has not yet demonstrated any leadership ability, he would start off with massive goodwill and the endorsement of far more MPs than Davis.
Whoever wins the Tory contest is likely to be pitched, in 2009, against a 58-year-old Gordon Brown, forced to fight on the strength of his own personality as much as on the government’s record. Davis can claim to be more voter-friendly than IDS or Michael Howard before him. He could benefit from his Mr Ordinary appeal, making great play of having been brought up by a single mother on a council estate. Cameron would undoubtedly attract ‘Eton’ jibes from Brown. But with his youth, PR background and relaxed ‘call me Dave’ style, he could have that spark of charisma to propel his party back towards power.