MR REDWOOD TURNED PUCE . . .
Anne McElvoy reveals how the Lilley and Howard forces dumped Redwood and swung to Hague THE RESULT of the first ballot reached Peter Lilley in his room via the television a few seconds before the telephone call came through. His lieutenants, David Wil- lens and former special adviser Peter Barnes, were silent. Their candidate's result was six votes short of the lowest total of 30 needed to stay in the leadership race and three behind John Redwood, who had been universally written off by the pundits. Mr Lilley said, 'Redwood?' and then again, 'Redwood? Three votes. . . . '
Down the corridor in room 501 Mr Red- wood was closeted with his intimates, Hywel Williams, lain Duncan-Smith and Angela Browning. When the result came through, he broke into a broad smile and said, 'This is fantastic. Let's get to work.' A member of Mr Redwood's team frisked through the lobby perspiring and snorting gently with excitement like a highly strung racehorse just beyond the finishing line.
Telephone calls were thus made to Mr Lilley and Michael Howard, who had fin- ished last. Mr Redwood offered them both places on his team. They said they would think about it. At this point, Mr Lilley's aides were anxious that their man should fight on and were encouraging him to call Mr Howard quickly and secure his sup- port. But Mr Lilley no longer believed that he could win. His confidence had been badly shaken at the end of last week by a bruising encounter with some 35 members of the '92 group of right-wing MPs. Asked by the palaeo-right-winger Julian Lewis to declare his exact stance on Europe, Mr Lilley replied that it was important to get the policy right, but that the party would err if it persisted in treating it as a 'theo- logical question'. The mullahs of the '92 group thought otherwise. 'He was appalling,' said one. 'He gave a university lecture on the benefits of vacillation. You could just feel the voters switching off.'
Afterwards, Mr Lilley admitted to friends that he had made a mess of the answer. 'I could have put it better,' he told friends. 'I assumed that those people know my views on Europe as well as everyone in the old Cabinet. They didn't and they wanted to hear something stronger from me.' Mr Redwood performed well, opening his pitch with the words, 'The Vulcan is among you.' Asked what he thought of the other candidates, he said, 'I don't care about them. I want to win.' They liked that.
Mr Howard's result was a bitter blow, since he had come to believe that the dam- age inflicted by Ann Widdecombe had been compensated for by a strong cam- paign. When the result came through, Miss Widdecombe, dressed for the occasion in a striking royal-blue tartan suit and patent leather shoes, marched forth to spread the news with a look of sheer delight.
Mr Howard telephoned Mr Lilley and it was swiftly agreed that they could not pos- sibly back Mr Redwood and that they would both transfer their allegiance to William Hague. Mr Redwood discovered this from an announcement on the Press Association wire. He turned puce at the news. At this point, accounts diverge. The Redwoodites insist that their candidate was poised to profit from a deal arranged over the weekend, whereby the candidates fin- ishing fourth and fifth would drop out and transfer their votes to the right-winger in third place. They claim that Lilley-Howard broke the deal simply because they had miscalculated and found that neither of them was in third place. 'We expected nothing better of Michael but I am person- ally disappointed by Peter who promised his support at the weekend,' said a Red- wood aide. 'This is about honesty and decency. We lost the last election because the public thought we were shifty, lying fools. Here we go again.'
Mr Lilley denies vehemently that any such agreement was reached or hinted at. His version is that when the two men spoke he had tried to persuade Mr Redwood to pull out before the ballot, but Mr Redwood had insisted on continuing, adding mysteri- ously, 'It's a beauty contest.' The Lilley camp maintains that Mr Redwood would hardly have been keen to agree to the bot- tom two candidates dropping out, since all indications at that point were that Mr Lilley would be ahead of Mr Redwood, so that Mr Redwood would be agreeing to an act of self-sacrifice. In the event a key four or five Lilley supporters defected to Mr Redwood after reports of Mr Lilley's disaster with the '92 group spread.
If there was a deal, it was with someone else entirely. Since Mr Lilley's campaign had begun to falter at the end of last week, the Hagueites had sounded confident of winning Mr Lilley's support even before the vote. 'We are very close to each other and there is a lot of mutual respect,' a Hague organiser said on Monday night, surveying with satisfaction his candidate's well-attended party amid the delicate blue decor of the Carlton Club.
Mr Howard who had started the cam- paign offering Mr Hague the role of deputy subsequently ran a 'stop Hague' campaign before finally offering support. This has not done wonders for Mr Howard's reputation. for straight dealing. After a fraught conversation with Mr Red- wood, he dined in the Churchill Room with his aides, Rachel Whetstone and the MP David Faber. His mood was described as 'relaxed, cheerful and tired'.
Mr Redwood, on the other hand, was far from relaxed and cheerful and too cross to feel fatigue. He spent the evening plotting his renewed offensive on second-prefer- ence votes with Mr Williams and Mr Dun- can-Smith. The exhilaration of his good showing had now given way to a mood of resentment towards the other candidates of the Right.
Mr Hague dined as a guest of Lord Grif- fiths with Rupert Murdoch, who offered congratulations. The newspaper proprietor had earlier thrown a summer party, at which Conservative guests were conspicu- ous by their absence while New Labour's top ranks were there in full. Mr Lilley, his sangfroid heroically recovered, gave his supporters drinks in their Gayfere Street HQ. Across the computer screens ran his campaign slogan, 'Unite, Rebuild, Win'. Someone joked that it had been an awfully expensive campaign for 24 votes. Mr Lilley managed a smile. Later, he dined on guinea fowl in Simply Nico, the Westmin- ster restaurant, with Mr Willetts and some friends. The table was joined by the ebul- lient Alan Duncan of Mr Hague's team, who greeted the gathering, 'Heil Hague.' Campaign anecdotes and red wine flowed.
The morning after began with furious briefings from Mr Redwood. He has not given up hope that the right-wing votes will fly back to their proper coops next week. His also believes that he can dislodge a good number of Kenneth Clarke's first- preference votes from what one of his advisers calls 'the soft-centred male senti- mentalists' enthralled by the man but not necessarily his politics.
The Redwood camp denounces Mr Hague as representing the same approach to the party as John Major — inclusive, but lacking in clear leadership principles. But at the same time many right-wingers are attracted to Mr Clarke because of his strength of character and popularity in the country. The internal circuit of the Tory party has been rewired so hastily in the last few days that it is still not certain which bulb will finally light up.
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