Clarke considers Tory top job
Ex-Chancellor Kenneth Clarke has hinted that he might like to succeed Michael Howard as Tory party leader.
Despite the fact that Mr Clarke, at 64, is a year older than the self-declared ‘too old’ Howard, he told BBC radio 4’s Today programme that age shouldn’t matter.
He pipped: “you’re as old as you feel”.
It would not be the first time Mr Clarke has tried for the top job. In 1997, William Hague beat him to the post, and on his second attempt he was trumped by Iain Duncan Smith.
Insiders have suggested in the past that his pro-European stance has worried the right wing party, and this may be hindering his leadership opportunities.
He famously said in 1999: “My desire is not to destabilise the Conservative Party any more than it is already destabilised on the European issue”.
The MP for Rushcliffe told the programme that his fate lay in the hands of his peers, and that he would only consider running if the party was “making itself more attractive as an alternative government”.
