Open war in race for the Tory leadership

THE RIVALS for the Tory crown today cast aside any pretence of unity and went for each other's throats as the contest hotted up.

Campaigners for Iain Duncan Smith, the Right-winger in second place, derided the troubled front runner, Michael Portillo, claiming publicly: "The wheels are coming off his campaign."

Kenneth Clarke, third in last night's ballot, contemptuously dismissed his fellow challenger, Michael Ancram, declaring: "He hasn't got the proverbial snowball's chance in Hades of winning."

Mr Ancram, more tersely, said that the patronising belief among the Portillo team that the result was a foregone conclusion had "gone". Mr Portillo was struggling to hang on to his status as favourite as the race plunged deep into confusion and farce.

After last night's first ballot failed to produce a result of any kind, all five contenders embarked on a cut-throat contest to hold their own votes and grab some from their rivals.

But the heaviest pressure was on the shadow chancellor, battling to regain momentum ahead of the next vote, tomorrow.

If he fails, he faces the nightmare that some of his support could start to peel away to his competitors.

The initial ballot of the 166 Tory MPs gave Mr Portillo 49 votes, Mr Duncan Smith 39 and former Chancellor Mr Clarke 36. The two "outsiders", Mr Ancram and former minister David Davis, both did better than expected, gaining 21 each.

The tie at the lower end made it impossible to eliminate the lowestranking runner, as the rules specified.

Sir Michael Spicer, chairman of the backbench 1922 Committee and the contest "umpire", was forced to announce that the vote will be rerun tomorrow.

If Mr Davis and Mr Ancram tie again, both will be eliminated.

Mr Portillo said that he was "happy and pleased" with the result. But his image as runaway favourite was all but demolished by the fact that he had failed to secure even one third of the available votes.

He also fell just short of the emblematic 50 threshold.

Mr Duncan Smith did better than expected, only 10 votes behind. And Mr Clarke did well enough to claim that he is still strongly placed to make it to the top two in the MPs' ballot, who will go forward to the decisive poll of the nation-wide Tory membership in September.

Both Mr Ancram and Mr Davis refused to step down voluntarily, calculating that the contest is so wide open and so fraught that anything could happen.

Calculations today, however, were homing in on who among the top three would gain most if one or both of the also- rans drop out tomorrow. Most believed that a solid quota of Mr Ancram's votes would switch to Mr Clarke.

His foremost supporter, shadow home secretary Ann Widdecombe, made clear last night that she would back the former Chancellor if Mr Ancram is knocked out.

Mr Davis is from the party Right and a significant proportion of his votes looks likely to transfer to Mr Duncan Smith with the net effect of intensifying the squeeze on Mr Portillo.

He was under question on issues ranging from accusations that he had failed to declare donations to his constituency party when he was a Cabinet minister in the Nineties, to his support for the legalisation of cannabis and for gay rights.

Although the individual allegations appeared to have no massive impact on MPs, Portillo supporters feared that cumulatively they could inflict real damage on his backing among the 300,000 nationwide members who will decide the outcome.

Mr Duncan Smith's campaign manager, Bernard Jenkin, said his candidate was "absolutely delighted" at the result.

He claimed: "The big story of this is that Michael Portillo has polled less votes than he had publicly pledged."

Labour was watching the contest scarcely able to believe its luck. One Cabinet minister said that it looked as though Mr Duncan Smith was on course to win, adding: "He'll be like William Hague without the jokes."

Assuming tomorrow's vote goes according to plan, MPs will vote again next Tuesday and yet again two days later in the knockout series to produce the final two.

HOW THEY VOTED

The full result of the first ballot, with all Conservative MPs taking part, was:

Michael Portillo 49

Iain Duncan Smith 39

Kenneth Clarke 36

Michael Ancram 21

David Davis 21

Copyright 2001
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