Ken, for and against

From Mr Frederick Forsyth Sir: I cannot be the only one bemused by the continuing obsession of the Tory party with Mr Kenneth Clarke ('Why it's got to be Ken', 16 June). Every time the name is mentioned, the party and the media drone on again with words like 'heavy hitter', 'formidable', 'serious player', etc. The record over a decade shows something completely different.

Mr Clarke was at Health, where he managed to alienate the entire medical and nursing professions. Then he moved to the Home Office, where he managed to preside over steadily rising crime. (It took a successor, Michael Howard, to drive the figures back down again.) At the Treasury this passionate advocate of the catastrophic ERM found himself at the threshold of a belated (because of the ERM) economic upturn. Despite this he contrived to introduce 22 tax hikes, thus destroying for a generation the Conservatives' reputation as the party likely to lower your taxes.

History may yet accuse the party of being criminally insane for not offering the nation a referendum on the abolition of our currency at a time when it had the power and would have won a landslide without breaking sweat. That this never happened is due to the iron grip possessed by Messrs Heseltine and Clarke upon the privities of the hapless John Major.

As one of the final triumvirate who ruled the Conservative government for its last 18 months, Mr Clarke was co-responsible for the image, policies, record and campaign that led to the biggest electoral catastrophe in living memory. If he knew the first thing about winning elections, the party would not now be in the mess it is in.

Why do the Tories have this absorption with jovially presented but consistent failure? We have four years more to wait. We have the time. We need a really fresh start, and I mean fresh; not the exhumation of a mid-1990s has-been.

Frederick Forsyth

Hertford

From Mr Tony Hockley Sir: Peter Obome's comments on the Tory leadership contest put the final confirmation on my own emerging conviction in favour of Ken Clarke. The much-vaunted Portillo 'charisma' is based largely on the Old Portillo and not the more fudgy New Portillo, and the Tories would do well to concentrate on the leader they would be getting for the next few wilderness years rather than what might have been.

Portillo's reputation rests in the policy areas that William Hague unsuccessfully relied on this year to rally his vanishing foot-soldiers, whereas many of Clarke's strengths lie in the public-service reform that caused most worry for Blair in 2001 and which could be his nemesis in 2005.

The widespread worry with Ken Clarke, as Peter Oborne repeats and rebuts, is in having a Europhile leading a largely Eurosceptic party, particularly with an impending referendum on euro membership. But if most of the Tory party really wants to see a successful 'No' vote in any referendum on the euro, then it would do well to remain out of the fray. Although William Hague failed to turn this month's election into a referendum, there is a very real risk that his party might well succeed in turning a referendum into an election. The 'No' campaign is comfortably ahead without the help of the Tory party, and paradoxically Ken Clarke would be the right leader to keep it that way.

Tony Hockley

London SEll

From Mr John J. C. Moss Sir: The scale of the problem that needs to be overcome by the Conservative party looks daunting in the light of its defeat, yet there are significant reasons to believe that not only is there a route back to power, but that there is a constituency out there just waiting for the sort of liberal conservatism that is barely hinted at in the manifesto.

As we see increasing crowding on to the so-called centre-ground of politics (with Tories and Labour both now centre-right and the Liberal Democrats just centre-left), so the number of people bothering to turn out to vote shrinks dramatically. This has corresponded with the increasing statist approach of all parties in the fields the pollsters tell us are the main priorities of the electorate: health, education and welfare.

So, why isn't the Conservative party at the forefront, making the case for a shift away from monopoly state-funding and provision in these fields? Isn't it just possible that the promise of giving people back control over their lives will persuade some among the 18 million who did not vote that there is a point after all?

Would it not have been better to take the independent schools' proposals to give tax relief on private education fees, and tie this to extending tax relief on all private medical insurance, not just for the over-sixties?

Taken together, a simple total maximum allowance of, say, £10,000 p.a. of expenditure in any of these fields would cost a maximum of £2,000 per person at a tax rate of 20 per cent. If taken up to the full, which is unlikely, this would add up to an £80 billion cost to government, much less than is currently spent on welfare alone. The multiplier effect would mean that £400 billion would be generated, reducing the government's level of expenditure substantially. It could then concentrate on reforming the supply side in these fields and deliver the goods.

Setting a single maximum allowance would enable individuals and families to spend more or less in each of the different areas to suit their circumstances. It would put people back in charge of their lives in these key areas where successive governments have failed to meet the expectations of the electorate and are likely to continue to do so.

With such a prospect in sight, isn't it reasonable to think that the Conservative party might capture 10 to 20 per cent of the stayat-home votes? Easily enough to reverse the defeats of 1997 and 2001.

John J. C. Moss

Chairman, Walthamstow Conservative Association, London E4