Posted on 10/18/2005 4:08:52 AM PDT by Heatseeker
The four men vying to be Tory leader are preparing for the first knock-out vote by the parliamentary party.
David Cameron, Ken Clarke, David Davis and Liam Fox face the ballot a day after being questioned individually by MPs at a hustings in the Commons.
The man with fewest votes will drop out before Thursday's second ballot, after which the two winning candidates will be put forward to all party members.
Mr Cameron is favourite but the other three men say they remain confident.
Conservative MPs have from 1300 BST to 1700 BST to cast their secret ballot in a Commons committee room. The result is expected at about 1715 BST.
'Ill feeling'
Mr Davis has the declared support of 66 MPs, Mr Cameron of 38, Mr Clarke of 25 and Dr Fox of 23. About 40 Tory MPs have yet to declare how they will vote in the secret ballot.
If the MPs vote as they have declared Mr Davis would be guaranteed to make it to the run off - leaving the other three to battle for one spot.
At the hustings on Monday, organised by the 1922 Committee of backbenchers, each man delivered a five-minute address, before fielding questions for 15 minutes.
Dr Fox, the first candidate to address MPs, said as he left: "The Tory party will not begin to ever recover properly until we have an intellectual renaissance.
"While the front bench must be bound by collective responsibility, backbenchers must be given the freedom to roam."
Mr Clarke said he believed there would be "a great deal of ill-feeling" if he did not make the final round.
"I don't think I will be first out - I actually sense that what the membership want is David Cameron and myself to go forward at the end," he said.
Mr Davis reported a "very friendly response" from MPs, adding that Mr Clarke might be "disappointed" over his stated wish for a final run-off against Mr Cameron.
Mr Cameron, who has repeatedly refused to answer questions about whether he had used drugs as a student, said MPs had not asked him about the issue.
He said he thought his message had "gone down well".
An ICM poll for BBC's Newsnight suggested it would make no difference to two-thirds of voters (66%) if the leader of the Conservatives had used cocaine at some point in the past.
The survey suggests that 28% of voters would be less likely to vote Conservative if they knew the party leader had used the drug.
Ken Clarke, hopefully. I'd like Liam Fox to win, but that seems unlikely.
It looks like it will be Ken Clarke, but it isn't certain.
I wouldn't be surprised if some David Davis supporters vote tactically in this first round to try and remove Liam Fox, the other candidate from the same wing of the party as him, so that he would be virtually assured of reaching the full membership ballot.
In my very limited understanding of them, Dr Fox seems the best of the lot, too. Clarke's remaark about there being "a great deal of ill-feeling" if he did not make the final round seems arrogant.
David Cameron! Though most of them seem to be fiscal/social conservatives, so will do at a pinch. But I don't want that Europhile Clarke.
Ken Clarke hopefully, for his anti Iraq war views and his never ending love of the EU.
I want David Cameron to win. I don’t think any of the others save Ken Clarke has a chance of winning the election, and Ken Clarke isn’t going to be leader. His time has gone and he stuck with his love for the euro for too long.
All the bookmakers favour Clarke to go first. I’ll defer to their better judgement as these sorts of votes are always pretty Machiavellian.
Boris for PM.
Boris is a legend.
I was going to suggest MadIvan for PM, but I defer to your superior wisdom. ;)
Just imagine PM's question time with him in charge.
Boris was born in NYC wasn't he? That's a DQ in my book.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.