POLITICS
There are glimmerings of logic in Mr Clarke's apparently suicidal antagonism of the Right
BORIS JOHNSON
As Kenneth Clarke has been frank enough to inform John Major and every- body else, he would very much like to be prime minister. On the face of it, his meth- ods of achieving this goal are mystifying. There are plenty of Tory pinkoes who think his ample form would somehow ricochet to victory in a leadership contest. 'I would look very seriously at Clarke,' is the private view of one Government minister, by which he meant, 'I'd vote for him'.
And yet it flies in the face of precedent for a man to capture the soul of the Tory party while deliberately baiting the right wing, as Clarke did in his speech on the Euro-budget. The Chancellor, moreover, has the additional and novel disadvantage of being blatantly Euro-federalist.
Clarkes were trading at a discount at the end of the week, in spite of the Chancel- lor's typically robust performances in the House, and a no-frills Budget. In any case, runs the general wisdom, in the event of a convulsion in the next weeks and months, President Heseltine has the contest sewn up, thanks to his fabled axis with Mr Por- tillo; the understanding being that in due course the older Michael will gracefully succumb to a minor infarct, enabling the torch to be passed to the younger haircut. One could argue, however, that this analy- sis underestimates Mr Clarke's deep medi- tation on the future of the party.
Heseltine is too old, say the Chancellor's backers; Fortino worryingly radical. Clarke would be bouncy and decisive where Major is brittle and dithering. Wittingly or unwit- tingly, Clarke has in the last few weeks helped to intensify Mr Major's instability. He has been crashingly, jovially solicitous about the good health of the Prime Minis- ter, like a man clapping a colleague so heartily on the back that his spectacles fall off: `Whoops. So sorry!'
'Tell, you what, John. I've had a bit of an idea. Let's all have dinner, all the good chaps in the Cabinet, and discuss the ways we're going to defeat the Euro-rebels. The only way to play this is to announce that we are all going to bump ourselves off, call an election. Don't you worry, I'll announce it.'
This may be a grossly unfair assessment of Mr Clarke's motivations in arranging the so-called `suicide pact', but that is how it has looked, and the net result can hardly be called conducive to the Prime Minister's survival. Except for the case of Mr Rupert Allason, who also rebelled over Europe, the Tory whip has not been withdrawn since 1942. To withdraw it from eight MPs, and provoke a ninth to throw it in, has min- isters opening and shutting mouths like fish.
Those who have long called for the rebels to be figuratively napalmed are delighted, and believe it will knock sense into them. 'They'll come crawling on their bellies to the whips' office', was the prediction of one arch Europhile. That may be optimistic. These are persons of steel, these Wilkin- sons, Gormans and Shepherds. They are not like other backbenchers, social crawlers habituated since prep school to taking the whip, the slipper, the jokari bat, or, oh yes, the golf club handle., The Government is relying on the Conser- vative area agents and constituency chair- men, and especially their wives, tempted past reason by the lure of the knighthood, the CBE, or whatever pathetic bauble Central Office dangles before them, to bully the nine into line. Arrogantly, and probably mistaken- ly, the Government believes their associa- tions will deselect them.
Ministers fantasise that Nick Budgen, intellectually chaste heir of Enoch Powell, might ask congratulatory questions about the Government's management of the exchange rate, in the hope of persuading Mr Andrew Mitchell, his floppy-haired whip, that he is a good boy after all.
Or perhaps, they delude themselves, Sir Teddy Taylor will make public repentance on the subject of the Common Agricultural Policy. You might as well ask an Italian dairy farmer to renounce fraud.
The removal of the whip, in punishment, do not forget, for those who merely wished 'They stunt your growth, you know.' to obstruct extra payments to Brussels, not the entire budget, has sown the dragon's teeth of hatred. Resentment may or may not erupt next week, in the vote on VAT oll fuel. But it will come. And the excommuni' cation of nine Tories may not merely mark the beginning of the end of John Maj0r. It is quite conceivable that it marks a turning' point in the row over Europe, the opening of the long-predicted fissure in the l'clY party that has been so often compared, ill anticipation, to the split over the CO Laws or Free Trade.
We may be witnessing, in short, the beginning of the end of the Tory party as we know it. And if that is true, we perhaPs see the glimmerings of a logic in Or Clarke's apparently suicidal antagonism 0' the Right. In the breast of most politicians, one assumes, the Man of Principle is engaged ill ceaseless struggle with the Opportunist. Looking at Kenneth Clarke and the issue of Europe, one might be tempted to say that in the most amiable way possible, the Opportunist wins. Or it may be that the Man Of Principle and the Opportunist are in total agreement about the merits of die, European Community. We have no way 01 knowing. But to judge by his public pronounce' ments, how he craves a monetary ulli°,°' how he reviles the Euro-sceptics, Kennew, Clarke has a hunch about the destiny 01 this continent, that there is a glacier-like inevitability to the process of Europe Union. If that is true, he reasons, the Eur°' sceptic Right is fighting the tide of historY, a fact Mr Major might secretly accept, but could not bring himself to admit in public. In the end, when the Kingdom of Delors is established on British soil, the nationalist die-hards, including Mr Portillo, will be 10 more significant than a Bennite frond. WIW knows, they may even form a new partY, 1 Tony Marlow suggested this week, funde, by Sir James Goldsmith. Even if they cl° not, Clarke perhaps believes, they Will ber hounded and proscribed like members c)" Militant Tendency. And that kind of Tory party Will longer need a unifier, as Mr Major hail tried so long and so vainly to be. It vilke need someone who positively relishes l" challenge of putting rebels to the sword.
Boris Johnson writes for the Daily Telegraph
Previous page
