Clarke still considering leadership bid
Ken Clarke has said that he would run for the Conservative leadership if he thought he could win and the party was prepared to broaden its appeal.
Speaking on ITV’s Jonathan Dimbleby , the former Chancellor said he was still interested in becoming prime minister – “the one big office that matters in politics.”
Mr Clarke said that his decision about whether to stand for the Tory leadership would depend on persuading “enough people who I want to persuade to help me get there”.
“There isn’t going to be a contest until the autumn, so I have got another couple of months at least in which I can weigh up, firstly, do I have a reasonably good prospect of winning and, secondly, do I have a reasonably good prospect of winning with a party that will change in the way I would like to see it change,” he said.
Stressing that at 64, he was not too old to become prime minister, Mr Clarke added that the Conservatives had to figure out how to change in order to win over Labour and Liberal Democrat voters.
Mr Clarke, who earlier said that he was taking soundings from colleagues about whether to make a third bid for the Tory leadership, had come under pressure to make his intentions clear after a former ally signalled his backing for rival David Davis.
Ian Taylor, who helped run Mr Clarke’s two previous leadership campaigns, said Mr Davis could be the best man for the job.
“David Davis could be the man for me,” the Esher and Walton MP told the Press Association.
“David has a strong base within the party on the right wing and that is the more dominant part of the party.”
“Having been one of Ken’s supporters in 1997 and 2001 I am trying to see if we could form some kind of coalition across the party, reaching out to the vast section of the population that seems to want to ignore us.”
Meanwhile, right-winger Mr Davis, the favourite for the Tory leadership, has gained the surprise support of senior left-wing MP, Damian Green.
Former Shadow Education Secretary Mr Green said the party had to elect a new leader who could “reach out beyond its current support.”
“Too often we are seen as a privileged elite. Electing as leader the son of a single mother, brought up on a council estate in south London, who went on to a business career before entering politics would tell the world the Conservative Party has changed,” he said, writing in the Sunday Times .
