Page 4, 8th November 1974

8th November 1974

Page 4

Page 4, 8th November 1974 — The Tory leadership
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The Tory leadership

by NORMAN ST JOHN-STEVAS
The crisis over the leadership of the Tory Party continues and it is likely to he some time before this question, of such great moment to the political future of Britain, is resolved. That Mr Heath's leadership should be called in .question is natural enough. No political party likes to lose an election and Tories like it least of all.
Tories, and I regret to have to say it, are bad losers. This is not so much because of lack of sportsmanship but because the Tory Party sees its natural place
as being in government. A lost election is the political equivalent of the reversal of the order of-nature and dismay and fury follow.
The Labour Party, on the other hand, still has hankerings after opposition, where doctrinal delirium can be happily indulged free of the con straining facts of government. A sizeable proportion of the Labour Party feels happier in
opposition than in the claustrophobic confines of Whitehall.
After two elections lost in one year it would have required the intervention of the miraculous for Mr Heath to have escaped criticism and assault: and it is true that he is beginning to look like a twentieth century equivalent of St Sebastian. Those in the Tory Party who are participating in this particular type of blood sport are not acting incomprehensibly but they are on the verge of conducting themselves inexcusably.
There appears to be a group in the party who want to indulge themselves by criticising the present leader but who are either unwilling or unable to agree about a replacement. This is not politics but bear baiting. The longer it goes on the greater will he the damage done to the party.
Soldiering on
Had Mr Heath expressed an intention of resigning after an interval to give the party a chance to settle down and make up its mind on a successor there would be a case for doing nothing for a period of up to a year to allow a successor to "emerge". But he has not done this and it is quite clear that he intends to soldier on in the belief that he is the man best equipped to lead the party out of the wilderness and hack into the promised land.
In this judgment he may be right or wrong, but it makes the strategy of the quiet period of reflection untenable. The decision makes in-fighting inevitable and nothing is more destructive to a party than to give itself up to the delights of civil war. It is now in the interests of the Conservative Party to have an early decision over its leader and the machinery is there to make this possible.
This was not always so. Until 1965 there was no formal machinery for electing a leader of the Tory Party. He was said to "evolve" or to "emerge". In the period between the wars the system worked well enough but in the post war struggle over the succession to Mr Harold Macmillan it did not work at all, Far from a leader acceptable to all "emerging", a bitter power struggle ensued — partly fought out in the bizarre setting of the annual party conference at Blackpool and resulting in the selection by the Queen of Sir Alec Douglas-Home to be Prime Minister and conse aiently leader of the party.
There were widespread accusations that Mr Butler had been robbed of the leadership by the machinations of a magic circle and in 1965 under the guidance of Sir 'Alec the Conservative Party for the first time adopted a method of electing its leader. In July of that year Mr Edward Heath became the first elected leader and has been at the head of the party ever since.
MPs only
It is worth looking at the machinery for election to see exactly what it does provide. The first point is that the voting is by Members of Parliament only: the party outside of Parliament does not have a vote. A possible three ballots are allowed for.
Only one preference may be indicated on the first ballot and in order to win a candidate must get both an overall majority and 15 per cent more of the votes cast than any other candidate. In default of this a second ballot has to be held not more than four days after the first ballot: all the candidates are free to stand again and this time an overall majority suffices to produce a winner.
if no candidate achieves this a third ballot is held between the three candidates receiving the highest number of votes, and first and second preferences may be indicated. The candidate with the lowest number of first preferences is eliminated, his second preferences distributed and the candidate with the largest number of votes is elected.
The machinery has one gap: there is no formal provision to bring it into operation. This has led some people to suggest an amendment to provide that there should be an annual election or an election at the beginning of each parliamentary session. Personally I do not believe this to be necessary: if the party wants an election to he held its will in practice is irresistible. Nor do I think it wise to bring in unelected persons to take part in the ballot: this would raise grave constitutional problems and threaten the sovereignty of Parliament,
Furthermore absorbing as constitution mongering is: it is time and energy consuming. What the Tory Party needs now is an end to internal wrangling. An election for the leader of the party should be held at the earliest possible moment: whoever wins the election will be the legitimate leader of the party and there will be a duty on every member to forget about personalities, to accept the democratic decision and to devote all energies to mobilising the resources of the party to assist the country to weather the gathering storm.




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