Howard: Clarke ‘too old’ to be leader
Conservative leader Michael Howard has told leadership hopeful Ken Clarke that he is too old for the top job.
The 63-year-old, whose party suffered a third successive election defeat this month, is stepping down as leader claiming he will be too old to fight the next election.
And he told Mr Clarke, 64: “You’re too old to be the next Tory leader.”
“If you look ahead to the next election in four or five years’ time, I will be 67 or 68. I think that is too old to lead a party from opposition into government,” Mr Howard told the BBC.
But Mr Clarke, who would be approaching 70 at the next election, said age had nothing to do with doing the job.
“My view is you’re as old as you feel,” the former Tory chancellor insisted.
Mr Clarke contested the Tory leadership contest in 1997 only to be beaten by William Hague and again by Iain Duncan Smith in 2001.
Other names tipped for the post this time include David Davis, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, Dr Liam Fox, Alan Duncan, Tim Yeo, Damian Green, David Cameron and George Osborne.
The latter two are seen as youngsters within the party, aged only 38 and 33 respectively.
In today’s Independent, Tory chairman Francis Maude said the party had to re-brand to survive.
“You have to understand what the negatives are about the brand – the sense we don’t understand modern Britain; that we sometimes live on a different planet; that we are thought to be backward-looking and we have not presented a positive enough vision of what Britain of tomorrow could be like,” he wrote.
“Tony Blair’s key insight was that for Labour to be elected they needed to sound like nice, moderate Tories. Charlie Kennedy’s only key insight has been the same; that is why he puts together a frontbench team with Menzies Campbell, Vince Cable and Mark Oaten.
“We have to be a party with the same kind of appeal but more principled, and authentically Conservative, but one that people feel lives in the same world they do.”
