Ken Takes the lead amongst party members

Up until now Ken Clarke has been the favoured candidate amongst the general public, but amongst party members - who may yet end up making the final decision if Michael Howard’s reforms are rejected - David Davis has been in the lead. Ken Clarke was soundly defeated in the member’s ballot in 2001, and it was broadly assumed that the only reason that he entered the race this time round was that it appears that members would no longer have the final say. David Davis on the other hand was seen as the rank and file’s favoured son, and Michael Howard’s reforms were widely interpreted to be an attempt to block David Davis. A new YouGov poll in the Daily Telegraph turns all of this on its head.

Back in May YouGov found that Davis was the first choice of over a third of Conservative party members with Ken Clarke trailing in third place behind David Cameron. Between them Ken Clarke’s maneouverings on Europe, his smooth media launch, the support he has demonstrated in the polls and the momentum his bandwagon has built up in recent days seems to turned the position round - in this morning’s Telegraph YouGov have Clarke as the most popular choice of leader amongst party members, leading David Davis by 33% to 28%. David Cameron is third on 17% with Liam Fox on 8% and Sir Malcolm Rifkind on 4%.

Far from the old system of election benefiting David Davis, it now seems that Davis would be better off under the new system. It’s not all bad news for Davis though, when it comes to a final head-to-head run-off Davis would still beat Clarke, but only just - YouGov have Davis on 48% and Clarke on 45% (while a actual vote wouldn’t be for months even if the members retain their voting rights, in the 2001 contest YouGov did predict it correctly). In a Davis-Cameron final round, Davis would win relatively comfortably by 53% to 36%.

While Clarke is the most popular candidate amongst members, he is still staunchly opposed by a significant portion of the membership. Asked which candidates they would not like to see as leader 37% named Clarke, though hostility is clearly on the wane - back in May it was 54%. The equivalent figure for Davis is 16%. Therefore Clarke is most popular, but Davis is less unpopular (the most unpopular was, by far, Malcolm Rifkind on 54%.

The reason for the opposition to Ken Clarke is unambiguous and unsurprising. YouGov gave those who said they opposed Ken Clarke a list of possible reasons for their opposition. While they found a majority were concerned about his age and a significant minority worried about his tobacco links, in one area opponents were almost unanimous: 97% of those who were opposed to Ken Clarke cited his pro-European views as a reason.

Perhaps more important is how deep opposition to Clarke is among those that reject him. The fear amongst many Conservatives is that Ken Clarke is so strongly opposed amongst sections of the Conservative party that members would resign en masse if he became leader. YouGov’s poll gives some backing to that fear - 14% of members said they would resign if Clarke became leader. To put that in perspective, it’s likely that in many cases those would be idle threats, it could to an extent be balanced by new members, and even the most inoffensive of candidates would apparantly cause about 2% of respondents to resign. Nevertheless, there would appear to be a section of the party, albeit a relatively small one, so opposed to a Clarke leadership that they would simply walk away.

While a substantial minority of the party membership continue to find Clarke’s views on Europe anathema, the fact remains that while Davis remains a strong favourite under Michael Howard’s proposed new rules, if the reforms are rejected and the contest ends up being run under the old rules, it would be very hard to predict whether David Davis or Ken Clarke are more likely to emerge as the winner.