Conservatives urged to end navel-gazing
Tory leadership hopeful Dr Liam Fox has called for an end to his party’s collective navel-gazing in a bid to refocus attention on attacking Government policy.
The right-winger urged colleagues to put aside “the endless speculation” on who will replace outgoing leader Michael Howard and start to hold the Government to account.
The Tory foreign affairs spokesman dubbed the seemingly endless rumours and counter rumours on the leadership race as “the longest phoney war in history”.
He said it was now timely for Tories to articulate a vision for the good of the country.
Speaking to the BBC on Sunday, he said: “It’s still my intention to be part of that leadership contest whenever it comes, but we have got such a long wait for it that the opposition should be concentrating on opposing the Government rather than involving themselves in endless speculation.”
“What the country requires is a clear political agenda.”
“If we simply adopt the sort of approach we had in recent years and say what is it that voters want to hear and then tell them it, that’s not the sort of politics most of us want.”
“The Conservative party’s biggest problem is it seems to want to talk about the Conservative party far too much.”
His comments came as Tim Yeo pulled out of the race and backed former chancellor Kenneth Clarke for the job.
Dr Fox bemoaned the apparent deterioration of politics to the level of a “glorified, second rate soap opera”, where personality and image manipulation was assumed to have credence above viable policy beliefs.
David Davis is the bookies’ favourite for the top Tory job, though education spokesman David Cameron, David Willetts, former foreign secretary Malcolm Rifkind and Andrew Lansley remain in the running.
Meanwhile, the Sunday Mirror yesterday claimed Michael Howard may leave the Tories ahead of schedule if MPs procrastinate in the coming months over rules for the leadership election.
The tabloid claims Mr Howard may jump ship after the end of the annual conference in Blackpool in October unless the rules are finalised.
