The Parliamentary stage of the Clarke-Portillo-IDS contest of 2001 may have been determined by a small number of MPs switching to IDS from Portillo when it became apparent that stories about Portillo's youthful exuberance were doing him heavy damage. If this happened it would be an example of tactical voting working to ensure that the less unattractive right wing candidate faced off against Clarke.
Thanks for your comment. The 2001 contest is fascinating - not least as, like you say, there was almost certainly tactical voting and the margins proved so small. I’m looking forward to writing about it in the weeks ahead!
Historians are still arguing over the Baldwin-Curzon choice by King George V a hundred years on. If in a century's time this little spat will be noted, it will surely be because it reinforces D R Thorpe's assessment in Supermac of the 1963 choice of Alec Home by showing just how difficult it is to work out what Conservative MPs actually want when choosing a leader and how important "I do not want X at any price" can be.
The pre-1965 system of relying on some sort of consensus to emerge with somebody (George V in 1924, Salisbury & Kilmuir in 1957 and Macmillan in 1963) playing the part of the Sybil gave great weight to negative opinions. Rab Butler in particular suffered from a great deal of hostility among backbench MPs - the Chairman of 1922 told him "the chaps won't have you". During the 1963 soundings, reports came in suggesting that women quite strongly opposed to him. Reports from Blackpool convinced Macmillan that Hailsham/Hogg had made too many enemies to be acceptable.
Although in 1957 the famous polling of the cabinet by Salisbury and Kilmuir produced a clear majority for Macmillan (there was no such clarity as to a first choice among the 1963 cabinet) soundings were also made of MPs and the party membership (or at least its senior leadership in the National Union). Importantly these sounding showed that what was regarded as left (one nation) MPs were willing to accept Macmillan.
Thorpe's assessment is that in 1963 Macmillan really did do no more than weigh up the reports which he received of the preferences of cabinet minsters, of MPs and the party membership. Some glaring errors have come to light - for instance Lord Chancellor Dilhorne's polling of the cabinet showed Boyle as favouring Alec Home when he supported Butler - but nobody has cast doubt on the hostility expressed against both Butler and Hailsham or the widespread (although famously not universal) willingness to accept Alec Home as Prime Minister.
This week's events shows the defect in a system which only allows positive votes compared t the pre-1965 system. Of course that was not flawless. Later in life both Macmillan and Home were to say that maybe Butler should have become PM - anything else looked somewhat unnatural they thought - they also thought that Butler would have won the 1964 election.
FOOTNOTE ON MUNICH AND 1963
The importance of Munich is too often downplayed; Butler, Macmillan, Home, Hailsham/Hogg and Heath had all played a prominent part either in the event itself or in the acrimonious Conservative conflicts that resulted, especially the Oxford "Munich" by-election; a number of MPs in 1963 had as undergraduates taken part in that - e..g. Hugh Fraser, Maurice Macmillan, Julian Amery.
Under the current system where the MPs choose 2 candidates for the members to choose between, the temptation for MPs to scheme to 'fix' the result by keeping one of the most popular candidates off the final ballot must be strong, but also dangerous to the Party. If the members believe MPs have deliberately denied them the chance to vote for the leader they strongly wanted, this could lead to members resigning, and an exodus to some other party such as Reform.
You’re undoubtedly right that there are all sorts of considerations beyond ‘who would be the best leader?’ influencing how people vote, especially because of the two stage process. In the late 1990s, before these rules came in, some people proposed an ‘electoral college’ model which might have mitigated some of those issues.
There’s surely as much chance that Jenrick or Kemi lent votes to Cleverly to juice his numbers and try and hurt the other right winger in round three as there was that 20 Tugenhadt supporters and 2 cleverly supporters all did something stupid right? But weirdly I haven’t seen this suggested anywhere, I don’t know if it’s more plausible that happened but surely it’s equally plausible
Also, just once more to get on my favourite hobbyhorse, we have a Westminster system where the PMs position relies on the confidence of parliament, member’s should be nowhere near this process, in a directly elected executive system then there’s an argument for membership or registered voters getting a vote for the party’s top position, but it makes no sense in a parliamentary system
I have been giving some thought to whether that might have been the case, but think it less likely as: (1) There seemed a genuine momentum behind Cleverly after the conference. (2) There were a significant and fairly consistent number of ‘centrist’ votes in each round (58 for Cleverly/Stride/Tugendhat in round 2; 59 between Cleverly/Tugendhat in round 3). So I don’t see any sign of artificial inflation between rounds 2 and 3. (3) Most importantly, it isn't clear to me what the benefit would be for either Jenrick or Badenoch in boosting Cleverly's numbers in the penultimate round. Tugendhat was almost certainly going to go out in that round, so it wouldn't change the final three, and it would risk undermining their claim to be the preferred candidate of MPs on the 'right' (unless they had enough support for them still to be clearly out in front, which neither did). But there might be something I'm missing!
I take your point re members. It’s an interesting thought - and one I’ll be returning to in the future!
Yeah, it’s genuinely baffling what happened but 22 ppl (2 cleverly and 20 Tugenhadt) all individually making the same mistake between the final 2 rounds just seems crazy also, it really is a mystery
The Parliamentary stage of the Clarke-Portillo-IDS contest of 2001 may have been determined by a small number of MPs switching to IDS from Portillo when it became apparent that stories about Portillo's youthful exuberance were doing him heavy damage. If this happened it would be an example of tactical voting working to ensure that the less unattractive right wing candidate faced off against Clarke.
Thanks for your comment. The 2001 contest is fascinating - not least as, like you say, there was almost certainly tactical voting and the margins proved so small. I’m looking forward to writing about it in the weeks ahead!
'Youthful exuberance' - now there's a euphemism!
Historians are still arguing over the Baldwin-Curzon choice by King George V a hundred years on. If in a century's time this little spat will be noted, it will surely be because it reinforces D R Thorpe's assessment in Supermac of the 1963 choice of Alec Home by showing just how difficult it is to work out what Conservative MPs actually want when choosing a leader and how important "I do not want X at any price" can be.
The pre-1965 system of relying on some sort of consensus to emerge with somebody (George V in 1924, Salisbury & Kilmuir in 1957 and Macmillan in 1963) playing the part of the Sybil gave great weight to negative opinions. Rab Butler in particular suffered from a great deal of hostility among backbench MPs - the Chairman of 1922 told him "the chaps won't have you". During the 1963 soundings, reports came in suggesting that women quite strongly opposed to him. Reports from Blackpool convinced Macmillan that Hailsham/Hogg had made too many enemies to be acceptable.
Although in 1957 the famous polling of the cabinet by Salisbury and Kilmuir produced a clear majority for Macmillan (there was no such clarity as to a first choice among the 1963 cabinet) soundings were also made of MPs and the party membership (or at least its senior leadership in the National Union). Importantly these sounding showed that what was regarded as left (one nation) MPs were willing to accept Macmillan.
Thorpe's assessment is that in 1963 Macmillan really did do no more than weigh up the reports which he received of the preferences of cabinet minsters, of MPs and the party membership. Some glaring errors have come to light - for instance Lord Chancellor Dilhorne's polling of the cabinet showed Boyle as favouring Alec Home when he supported Butler - but nobody has cast doubt on the hostility expressed against both Butler and Hailsham or the widespread (although famously not universal) willingness to accept Alec Home as Prime Minister.
This week's events shows the defect in a system which only allows positive votes compared t the pre-1965 system. Of course that was not flawless. Later in life both Macmillan and Home were to say that maybe Butler should have become PM - anything else looked somewhat unnatural they thought - they also thought that Butler would have won the 1964 election.
FOOTNOTE ON MUNICH AND 1963
The importance of Munich is too often downplayed; Butler, Macmillan, Home, Hailsham/Hogg and Heath had all played a prominent part either in the event itself or in the acrimonious Conservative conflicts that resulted, especially the Oxford "Munich" by-election; a number of MPs in 1963 had as undergraduates taken part in that - e..g. Hugh Fraser, Maurice Macmillan, Julian Amery.
Under the current system where the MPs choose 2 candidates for the members to choose between, the temptation for MPs to scheme to 'fix' the result by keeping one of the most popular candidates off the final ballot must be strong, but also dangerous to the Party. If the members believe MPs have deliberately denied them the chance to vote for the leader they strongly wanted, this could lead to members resigning, and an exodus to some other party such as Reform.
You’re undoubtedly right that there are all sorts of considerations beyond ‘who would be the best leader?’ influencing how people vote, especially because of the two stage process. In the late 1990s, before these rules came in, some people proposed an ‘electoral college’ model which might have mitigated some of those issues.
There’s surely as much chance that Jenrick or Kemi lent votes to Cleverly to juice his numbers and try and hurt the other right winger in round three as there was that 20 Tugenhadt supporters and 2 cleverly supporters all did something stupid right? But weirdly I haven’t seen this suggested anywhere, I don’t know if it’s more plausible that happened but surely it’s equally plausible
Also, just once more to get on my favourite hobbyhorse, we have a Westminster system where the PMs position relies on the confidence of parliament, member’s should be nowhere near this process, in a directly elected executive system then there’s an argument for membership or registered voters getting a vote for the party’s top position, but it makes no sense in a parliamentary system
I have been giving some thought to whether that might have been the case, but think it less likely as: (1) There seemed a genuine momentum behind Cleverly after the conference. (2) There were a significant and fairly consistent number of ‘centrist’ votes in each round (58 for Cleverly/Stride/Tugendhat in round 2; 59 between Cleverly/Tugendhat in round 3). So I don’t see any sign of artificial inflation between rounds 2 and 3. (3) Most importantly, it isn't clear to me what the benefit would be for either Jenrick or Badenoch in boosting Cleverly's numbers in the penultimate round. Tugendhat was almost certainly going to go out in that round, so it wouldn't change the final three, and it would risk undermining their claim to be the preferred candidate of MPs on the 'right' (unless they had enough support for them still to be clearly out in front, which neither did). But there might be something I'm missing!
I take your point re members. It’s an interesting thought - and one I’ll be returning to in the future!
Yeah, it’s genuinely baffling what happened but 22 ppl (2 cleverly and 20 Tugenhadt) all individually making the same mistake between the final 2 rounds just seems crazy also, it really is a mystery
Agreed. Genuinely baffling. When I first heard the result, I thought I must have misheard!