The result:
Iain Duncan Smith was elected, but the results were delayed a day and massively overshadowed by the
World Trade Center attacks.
The Conservative Party is in turmoil:
Think of an empty "Conservative Party"
nodeshell with thousands of
soft linked party
factions but no
content. The
party is just about ready to rip itself
apart (having threatened to do this over the issue of
membership of the
European Union for the past 10 years).
Until
June 2001, they were led by
William Hague, who was seen as
unelectable on account of his being both
bald (no seriously, that was his main fault as seen by
the press!) and a politics
geek.
He stepped down after their
massive defeat in the
2001 Election and a
ridiculous leadership contest is now
underway.
The main
contestants were
Michael Portillo (a man with whom most of the
UK population could at least relate and who seemed certain to be the
victor),
Iain Duncan Smith (a
right wing and fairly unheard of chap with funny
eyebrows) and
Kenneth Clarke (an old,
pro-European stalwart of an earlier
era).
Somehow, due to the
intricacies of the Tory's voting system,
Portillo, having initially the
most votes from Tory
MPs was
eliminated from the running as a number of
also-rans dropped out and voiced their
support for the other
candidates. Two members were to go forward to the
ballot of the
Party membership and thus, the
Conservative Party now find themselves in the
surprising circumstance where they must replace an
unelectable leader with either of an extreme right-winger (
Smith) or a controversial pro-European who is been a paid consultant of
the Tobacco lobby (
Clarke).
The future would not seem to bode well for
the party!.
Latest: the Party membership will soon be balloted, expect updates!
Just to say that
andydougan's w/u below is absolutely correct. There is a very good chance IMHO that the
party could split in two depending on the
outcome
Re
Anne Widdicome as
salimfadhley nodes below, here is precisely what my
roommate said to me when we heard on
BBC News that she had put her name forward:
"I thought the Tories were already out of touch, but could you imagine a 50 year-old virgin becoming Prime Minister of Britain?"
His words, not mine; I did laugh though