Rutland's new Lib Dem councillor fought Rushcliffe for the Liberal Party at the 1970 general election

Last night Paul Browne won a Rutland Council by-election for the Liberal Democrats, polling two-thirds of the vote in the Oakham South ward and gaining it from the Conservatives.

People soon started tweeting that he had fought a seat for the Liberal Party at the 1970 general election.

The trouble was that no one said which one it was. I checked, and it wasn't the Rutland and Stamford constituency that existed in those days.

Thanks to a comment on last night's post, I can now reveal that Paul fought Rushcliffe in Nottinghamshire. He came third and the seat was gained from Labour by a promising young Tory called Kenneth Clarke.

Ken Clarke on David Cameron

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The Times has a valedictory interview with Ken Clarke behind its paywall today.

He says things that will please Liberal Democrats:

"I like Jo [Swinson], she’s very nice and very bright ... The Conservative Party is more right wing and the Labour Party is more left wing than at any time in my lifetime so for the Lib Dems ... this is the opportunity of a lifetime."

But I was taken by his dismissal of David Cameron:

"He had the style and presentational skills, but he could never answer the question - what does he believe in? What is he doing it for? The real answer was he was doing it because it was fun and he had risen effortlessly to the top."

And on the referendum:

"All Etonians have this terrifying self-confidence; David had always won everything in his life ... it didn’t cross his mind he’d lose."

I suppose an Old Etonian for whom everything has gone swimmingly will be likely to attribute his success to his own personal qualities rather than a happy accident of birth.

Nottingham panel discussion on "Brexit - What Next?"

The European Movement is holding  a free 'Question Time' event in Nottingham city centre on the evening of 28 September.

On the panel will be:

Ken Clarke MP
Anna Soubry MP
Chris Leslie MP
Tom Brake MP
Femi Oluwole - Our Future Our Choice
Eloise Todd - Best for Britain

The moderator will be John Hess, the former BBC East Midlands political editor.

You can apply for tickets via the European Movement Leicestershire site.

The event will take place at the Nottingham Conference Centre, 30 Burton Street, Nottingham NG1 4BU (6.30-9.30pm).

Kenneth Clarke and Tom Brake to speak on Europe in Spalding

Kenneth Clarke and Tom Brake will be two of the panel at a meeting on Europe to be held at the South Holland Centre, Spalding, on Friday evening (7.00pm, 25 May).

It is organised by the European Movement under the title "The Brexit Dialogue: Explaining the Facts, Exposing the Myths, Exploring the Options."

The other speakers will be Amelia Womack, deputy leader of the Green Party, and James Torrance, one of the founders of the new party Renew. (Me neither.)

It will be chaired by that excellent Liberal Democrat George Smid, who chairs the European Movement in the East Midlands.

For free tickets, says Spalding Today, go to the South Holland Centre booking office or phone 01775 764777.

Or you can reserve tickets for a small charge on the South Holland Centre website.

Good Liberals were up in arms when the police raided Damian Green's Commons office in 2008

It seems tomorrow's Sunday Times is reporting that police found "extreme pornography" on Damian Green's computer when they raided his Commons office and impounded it in 2008.

When we have finished giggling, it might be a good idea to recall that at the time all good Liberals were up in arms over that raid.

Here is the House Points column I wrote for Liberal Democrat News that week...

MPs Collared

Michael Jabez Foster said just one constituent had raised the search of Damian Green’s office with him. It was "self-indulgence", he argued, for MPs to debate it.

But the people of Hastings and Rye should be more concerned with the health of parliamentary democracy. So this column is devoted to some of Monday’s more enlightened contributions.

Theresa May: "Constituents do not give information to their Member of Parliament on the basis that one day it might be pored over by police officers. Parliamentary privilege is not our privilege; it is the people’s privilege."

Elfyn Llwyd: "It seems rather strange that we should be discussing the whole idea of prejudicing the inquiry, given that the Government tried to force through the 42-day measure on the premise that we were all going to discuss issues to do with individuals."

Simon Hughes: "If the police knocked on the door of one of my constituents in Southwark or Bermondsey, everybody inside would know … they do not have to let the police in unless they have a warrant."

Dominic Grieve: "Since the passage of the Official Secrets Act 1989, the leaking of material not concerning national security has ceased to be a criminal offence. On what basis, therefore, is a civil servant arrested for that, and on what conceivable basis is my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford [Damian Green] arrested?"

Menzies Campbell: "Our responsibilities involve both the scrutiny of Government and the redress of grievance. If we cannot be confident that our communications with our constituents are confidential, there is necessarily an inhibition in our ability to fulfil those responsibilities."

Andrew Mackinlay: "Leaks are food and drink to me as a backbench Member of Parliament, and I do not want to stop them coming to me."

Kenneth Clarke: "I first met the Leader of the House [Harriet Harman] when she was the legal adviser to the National Council for Civil Liberties. She was a pretty feisty, radical lawyer in those days, and … she would not conceivably have made the speech then that she made an hour or two ago. She would have been leading demonstrations outside about the behaviour of the Government."

I am not sure what Simon’s claim tells us about South London, but it was a good debate.

The Economist has endorsed the Liberal Democrats - and the Tories should be worried

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I must begin by apologising to Stephen Tall for stealing his headline, but I have had it in mind to write a post on these lines from some time.

And today's news that the Economist has endorsed the Liberal Democrats has prompted me to do it.

The endorsement is grudging:

Many moderate Conservative and Labour MPs could join a new liberal centre party—just as parts of the left and right have recently in France. So consider a vote for the Lib Dems as a down-payment for the future. Our hope is that they become one element of a party of the radical centre, essential for a thriving, prosperous Britain.

But the fact that it has been made at all shows how far the Conservatives are estranging themselves from their usual business supporters.

Rather than aiming to satisfy those supporters, the party's leaders are flattering their own backwoods on Europe.

As I wrote in March:

I remember a Labour-supporting friend who was in North Devon during the 1979 general election campaign speaking with something close to awe of the acres of good suiting on the platform at the Conservatives' meetings. 

But the party does not look like or feel like that today. 

The Tories have discovered ideology and, even more, they have discovered grievance. They are less the party of people with an interest in maintaining the status quo than the party of people who believe they have been cheated. 

The culprits vary - immigrants, experts, the European Union, latte-drinkers, refugees, the BBC - but the feeling is widespread. 

Only radical action, those members and activists believe, can remove the hurt and see justice done.

The last time there was an outbreak of this feeling in the Conservative Party was after their crushing defeat by Tony Blair's Labour in 1997.

Rather than elect Kenneth Clarke to busk it and keep them cheerful while they worked out what the hell they were going to do, Tory members elected first William Hague and then Iain Duncan Smith as leader because they liked their right-wing views.

And the time before that was over Europe under John Major.

But I am reminded of an earlier incident, which I wrote about for Comment is Free some years ago:

I was a newly elected Liberal Alliance councillor back in 1986 when the Thatcher government began consulting over the introduction of the poll tax. 

Conservative members didn't want it phased in over 10 years: they wanted it at once. You could see the pound signs in their eyes as they calculated how much they and their neighbours would save.

If it had been phased in over a decade then the poll tax might well have stuck. But Margaret Thatcher made the mistake of listening to her own backwoods, and doing so ended her premiership.

From all of which I conclude that the Conservative Party's estrangement from the Economist will end it tears.

Kenneth Clarke on Paddy Ashdown on Tony Blair

Kenneth Clarke - surely the real-life Peter Mannion? - was interviewed by Andy McSmith in Sunday Independent:

He fears that the long shadow of the Iraq war is diminishing the UK as an actor on the world stage. He suspects that part of the reason David Cameron was defeated in the Commons when he proposed to punish the Syrian regime for using chemical weapons was a “sense of guilt” over Iraq. 

Clarke opposed the war at the time – unlike David Cameron and the majority of Tories – but acquits Tony Blair of the charge that he deliberately lied over Iraq’s weaponry. He remembers Blair addressing the Commons long after the invasion, still arguing his case with total conviction like “the last man living who still really believes they are going to find weapons of mass destruction… 

"One of the funniest things ever said to me about Tony Blair – it was by Paddy Ashdown – was: ‘The trouble with Tony is that he always believes everything he says when he is saying it’."

It is enjoying a summer break at the moment, but this is a chance to say how good McSmith's diary in the Independent is.

In an era when other such columns subsist on yesterday's leavings from social media, he still finds original stories.

Kenneth Clarke should have become Conservative leader in 1997

Kenneth Clarke stood down today after a remarkable 42 years in front-bench politics.

If the Conservative Party had known its own best interests, he would have become its leader after the landslide defeat of 1997. Clarke would have busked it and kept the Tories' spirits up while they worked out how the hell they were going to fight back against Tony Blair and New Labour.

Instead, the party's members chose leaders whom they saw as true Thatcherites - William Hague and then Iain Duncan Smith. Eventually the MPs felt obliged to take control by nominating Michael Howard as the sole candidate for leader after the collapse of IDS.

The party began its recovery under Howard, but if Clarke, a figure far more likely to appeal to the wider public, had been made leader in 1997, that recovery would surely have come sooner.

And if Clarke had become leader, William Hague would have been spared the premature exposure that blighted his career. Without it, he might well have become prime minister by now.

Grant Shapps to be sacked in cabinet reshuffle?

In the Independent, Jane Merrick and Mark Leftly forecast that David Cameron will carry out a "ruthless' cabinet reshuffle this week:

Senior ministers who are thought to be nervous about their position include Andrew Lansley, the Leader of the Commons; the Chief Whip, Sir George Young; the Environment Secretary, Owen Paterson; Ken Clarke, the Minister without Portfolio; and the Tory chairman, Grant Shapps. 

Despite their bitter row, Theresa May, the Home Secretary, and the Education Secretary, Michael Gove, are unlikely to be moved or demoted, because such a switch-around would risk escalating tensions between their supporters and trigger a fresh round of bloodletting.

If have seen no speculation anywhere about a reshuffle of Liberal Democrat ministers.

Kenneth Clarke is a liberal Conservative not a Liberal Democrat

"Ken Clarke is now a Liberal Democrat in all but name," complains Steerpike on his Spectator blog.

This is nonsense.

Clarke is a liberal Conservative - a breed that used to be common, but is not almost extinct. And the Conservative Party is much weaker because of it.

In his early days as leader, it looked as though David Cameron had grasped that, in order to win a majority, his party had to reach out to voters who are not instinctive Conservative voters. And in order to do that, he would have to reverse its rightward drift.

Some even saw the formation of the Coalition as a tactical masterstroke on his part. He had co-opted the Liberal Democrats to take the place of his own party's vanished liberal wing.

Few now see Cameron in those generous terms and Steerpike sounds like a Labour activist from the 1980s saying some moderate MP who refused to back the Militant or Bennite line was a "Tory" who should be thrown out of the party.

The truth is that the Conservative Party, which has not won a majority for 22 years now, needs many more people like Kenneth Clarke if it is to thrive.

Kenneth Clarke and Lord Bonkers on the way newspapers have changed

In his evidence to Lord Leveson's Inquiry, the Guardian reminds us, Kenneth Clarke recalled his days as a student Conservative, when Harold Macmillan was prime minister:

"Everybody in politics, even a minor parliamentary candidate, knew that the then PM's wife had been having a torrid affair with a backbencher for at least 30 previous years. Not a word of this ever appeared in public print."

Funnily enough, Lord Bonkers said much the same thing back in 1992:

In my young day ... it was common knowledge in political circles that Bonar Law maintained a second household with a large white rabbit called Mabel; yet, while my Varsity chums and I would sit in the front row at his meetings, hold up our hands on either side of our heads and wrinkle our noses throughout his speech, not a breath of the affair ever appeared in the Press.

The moral, he tells me, is to read Lord Bonkers first.

Kenneth Clarke on why politicians must sometimes say no to the security services

Jerry Hayes writes on Dale & Co. today:

I fear that I was over optimistic when I wrote that Nick Clegg had scuppered the sinister un-Conservative, un-British and certainly un-Liberal surveillance and secret trial proposals, as the fight back from the intelligence services has begun. You will notice that over the next few days distinguished columnists and chosen MPs will be shroud waving that unless these anti democratic proposals are put in place nobody will be able to sleep safely in their beds.

Kenneth Clarke said much the same thing in 2005 when opposing Labour's attempt to introduce house arrest to the British legal system:

There is a danger in our system of politics, which I have seen, that senior politicians and senior officials who have access to an exciting and hidden world of security will get carried away with their excitement. They can sometimes become vulnerable to advice to do things that, with hindsight, are not altogether wise ... However, the idea that the public often have - that if the security services and the police demand something, it is unpatriotic for the House of Commons to refuse it - would be dangerous for us to accept.

Today, of course, Clarke is one of the ministers trying to persuade the Commons to accept the idea of secret trials.

To understand why it is so important that we defeat his proposals, read Ian Cobain's Rendition ordeal that raises new questions about secret trials in the Guardian today

Kenneth Clarke, rape and the paucity of political debate in Britain

The row over Kenneth Clarke's comments on rape exemplifies what is wrong with our politics: the obsession with identifying gaffes and comparative lack of interest in the substantial interests involved.
Of course, Clarke's comments were crass: there is no such thing as a rape that is not serious. And the argument that it is somehow better to be raped by someone you know is a very questionable one.

But no one believes that Clarke really believes that rape is not serious. He spoke in a clumsy and thoughtless way, which is regrettable but is hardly a reason for resignation. It is no surprise that the right-wing press is after his moderate blood, but the way Ed Miliband has joined the clamour must be a great disappointment to those who believed he was a Labour moderniser.

And his point that looking at the average sentence for rape does not tell us very much is a valid one. Indeed, the variation in sentences for rape suggests that we do regard some rapes as more deserving of punishment than others.

The more important point at stake has hardly been discussed. Clarke was talking about rape in the first place because of his intention to halve the sentences of offenders who plead guilty. It is this we should be talking about.

I am not a supporter of plea bargaining at the best of times. It risks raising the interests of administrative convenience above those of individual justice. And if the differential in punishment is great enough, it can put pressure on the innocent to plead guilty.

Plea bargaining seems particularly inappropriate in the case of rape. Firstly because it is such a serious crime. And secondly because of the low conviction rate. Will it even work, if offenders do not believe they will be convicted?

Six of the Best 160

Some words of wisdom of Kenneth Clarke's travails from Welcome to Spiderplant Land.

Liberal Landslide writes on the consolations of losing elections: "Since the polls closed on the 5th of May, I’ve carried with me a sense of overwhelming liberation."

Writing on the Daily Telegraph site, Ed West pays tribute to the former taoiseach Dr Garret FitzGerald,: "Generally regarded as the nicest man in Irish politics, FitzGerald was often outfoxed by his more cunning rival Charlie Haughey, but was all the more loved for it. FitzGerald had a vision of a more liberal, wealthy and outward-looking Ireland that came to pass, and part of this vision was a non-sectarian society at ease with its neighbour. This he helped achieve, and it is strangely fitting that he passes away during its symbolic reconciliation."

The Philosophy Shop is and educational charity set up to introduce primary and secondary school-age children to philosophy. Read all about it on journalism.co.uk.

"The Middle East's restive countries are experiencing everything from measured success to incipient civil war." Foreign Policy has a country-by-country guide to the progress of the Arab Spring.

Enjoy a wonderful 360° panorama of Wilton's Music Hall in Tower Hamlets, thanks to Spherical Images.

Kenneth Clarke: What happens if Labour starts making pro-European noises?

Iain Dale describes his experience of arriving at the studio to appear on Simon Mayo's Radio Five Live programme, only to find himself confronted with Barry Legg:

I generally have a policy of not appearing on programmes with other Tories who I know are purely there to disagree with me, as it does not generally lead to a very edifying discussion. For those who have never heard of him, he was a Tory MP in the 1990s and before that was on Westminster City Council. He currently chairs the Bruges Group.

He was naturally against Ken Clarke having any role in the Tory Party whatsoever. Whatever question Simon Mayo asked him he always brought the subject back to Europe. It was like being in a timewarp ...

Legg had been invited onto the Mayo programme as a former Chief Executive of the Party, albeit for only a few weeks back in 2003. In some ways it was encouraging that they were reduced to choosing him, as it meant there were no leading figures prepared to put the anti-Ken argument over the airwaves. A few years ago, there would have been a queue at the studio door.

That is certainly an encouraging sign for the Conservative Party: it no longer gives the impression that it is more interested in theology than power, and the presence of Kenneth Clarke in the shadow cabinet will be popular with the wider public.

But what happens if the Labour government starts making gently pro-European noises? Clarke's opposite number, Peter Mandelson, will find have no problems with doing this either ideologically or tactically.

Will Clarke oppose him? If he doesn't, will rank and file opinion in the Conservative Party be outraged?

It will be fun finding out.

Calls for Kenneth Clarke to be shadow chancellor grow

Back in September Iain Dale started a hare running by suggesting that Kenneth Clarke should replace George Osborne as shadow chancellor. Now The Mole on First Posts suggests that senior Conservatives are pressing David Cameron to make just this move.

Looking back, I see that I was rather rude about Iain's attempt to suggest that his call was no reflection on George Osborne's performance. He suggested that Osborne would have made a good chancellor in normal circumstances, but that Clarke was more suited to a recession.

Maybe there is something to this after all. Can one divide all politicians between those suited to good times and those suited to hard times? A provisional list might look like this:

Good times
Tony Blair
David Cameron
Nick Clegg
George Osborne
David Miliband

Hard Times
Gordon Brown
Margaret Thatcher
Vince Cable
Denis Healey
Alistair Darling

Well, it's a thought.

Iain Dale: George Osborne should not be Tory chancellor

Yesterday Iain Dale suggested that if (Iain said "when" - arrogance may yet be the Tories' undoing) David Cameron becomes prime minister he should make Kenneth Clarke chancellor of the exchequer.

I have always liked Clarke, and the Tories should certainly have made him their leader after losing the election in 1997. He would have busked it and kept the Tories cheerful while they worked out how the hell they were going to fight back against Tony Blair.

But what is really interesting here is where this leaves George Osborne. Iain writes: "The idea of making Ken Clarke Chancellor should in no way be taken as a criticism of George Osborne."

Oh yeah?

The rationale he gives for this is that we are not living in normal economic circumstances. After the next election we will be "entrenched in a recession".

Yes, the current situation is extreme, but difficult economic circumstances are always a possibility and cannot necessarily be foreseen. You can never appoint someone as chancellor and be sure he will not have heavy economic weather to deal with.

If Osborne is not a suitable chancellor in the current situation, he is not a suitable chancellor at all.

Maybe we should see this argument by Iain as a tribute to Vince Cable's grown up authority. If it marks a break from the belief that our leaders must all be Andrex puppies, I for one shall be delighted.

Kenneth Clarke "We must turn to the Liberals"

Tomorrow's Spectator has an interview with Ken Clarke by Fraser Nelson. There Clarke floats the idea of a Conservative/Lib Dem coalition after the next election.

No doubt the old rhinoceros is making trouble, but it is hard not to sympathise with him when he says of Ming Campbell:

"I don't know his views on domestic policy; I'm not at all convinced that he's got that many."

Clarke kicked out

The results from the first round of the MPs' ballot for the Tory leadership:

David Davis 62
David Cameron 56
Liam Fox 42
Kenneth Clarke 38

I am reminded of the exchange from Bremner, Bird & Fortune:

Interviewer: Kenneth Clarke is the most popular Conservative.
George Parr [Tory] MP: Yes, but only with the electorate.

Tories go mad on drugs

More on the remarkable "I never snorted coke, says Ken Clarke" story I mentioned last night.

Today's Shropshire Star reports that:

Wrekin MP Mark Pritchard admitted this afternoon that he had once tried cannabis but was now a hardliner on drugs policies.

He was speaking just hours after persuading Tory leadership heavyweight Ken Clarke to tell a packed meeting of Tory MPs that he had never taken cocaine.

It seems the whole exercise has turned into something of an own goal on the part of Pritchard. He is a supporter of David Davis and was presumably seeking to embarrass David Cameron. The way the Guardian tells it, Clarke's intervention was designed to warn Tory MPs not to go down this road:

"If you start asking personal questions it does not stop."

Will the Conservatives allow Clarke to save them from their own worst instincts? Not by the sound of it:

Mr Clarke delivered the same sort of witty and intelligent performance he displayed at last week's Tory conference - to little avail.

Adjectives like exhilarating and exciting were used. "He was brilliant, but he's just not a Tory," explained one rightwinger after Mr Clarke had stressed five policy points - the economy, democracy, health, education and pensions - on the road to making his party an effective opposition again.

I have never been a great admirer of Freud. But he spoke of Thanatos - the death instinct - and something of the sort seems to be at large in the modern Conservative Party.