[A-List] UK state: political realignment

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Duncan Smith faces growing crisis

Impact of nationwide tour fades quickly as leader surrounded by air of
mutiny

Nicholas Watt, political correspondent
Tuesday November 5, 2002
The Guardian

Iain Duncan Smith was meant to march back in triumph to Westminster
yesterday buoyed up by a three week nationwide tour. Sadly for the Tory
leader, events in the Westminster village intervened and he returned to face
the continuing crisis over his leadership.

Before he had even put a foot inside the Palace of Westminster, Mr Duncan
Smith suffered his first blow of the day when the arch moderniser, John
Bercow, announced that he was quitting the shadow cabinet. In a lengthy
letter Mr Bercow insisted he had no trouble with the Tory leader, but said
he could not bring himself to obey a three line whip to block unmarried
couples from adopting.

Shadow ministers wasted no time in blackening Mr Bercow's name, claiming he
acted in a "fantastically self indulgent way" by ignoring the advice of the
Tory whips, who told the modernisers they were welcome to abstain in last
night's vote.

Within hours, however, the depth of the crisis in the party was underlined
when Michael Portillo launched a barely coded attack on the Tory leader. In
a pithy intervention in the Commons he asked his party's frontbench how Mr
Duncan Smith could reconcile his campaign to modernise the Tory party with
his determination to block gay couples from adopting.

As Tory MPs lingered in the Westminster lobbies before and after last
night's vote there was a mutinous feel in the air, ominously reminiscent of
the events of another November 12 years ago when Margaret Thatcher was
overthrown.

Anxious Tory MPs voiced the same fears which convinced them to wield the
knife against the former prime minister. The party, they said, appeared to
be stalling or even going backwards, which spelled the ultimate danger: they
could lose their seats.

Mr Duncan Smith, who acted quickly to replace Mr Bercow by appointing the
Clarkeite Oliver Heald as the new shadow work and pensions minister, is
adamant that he will survive. His aides insisted his overwhelming mandate
from grassroots Tories makes him untouchable.

Mr Bercow lent Mr Duncan Smith some support by insisting in his resignation
letter that it would be wrong to read more into his resignation. Mr Duncan
Smith also ensured Mr Bercow's period in the political wilderness lasted
only a few hours when he appointed him to a campaigning role at Conservative
central office, squashing rumours that he would cross the floor to join the
Labour benches.

But the resignation of such a high profile figure, who made his name after
abandoning his rightwing past in favour of championing modernisation, is a
powerful illustration of Mr Duncan Smith's failure to command his party.
Tory critics said it was not credible of him to draw up a policy on
adoption, to impose a three line whip and then tell MPs in private they
should feel free to defy party policy.

Miffed

Loyalists said it was wrong to read too much into the resignation of Mr
Bercow because he had little difficulty in accepting the leadership's advice
when the Commons last voted on adoption in May. An exasperated fellow
moderniser accused Mr Bercow of "seeking attention because he is miffed that
he was demoted to the post of shadow pensions minister after he
conspicuously failed to shine as shadow chief secretary to the Treasury".

But others thought Mr Bercow's decision to jump ship on an issue that
appeared not to alarm him six months ago was a sign of Mr Duncan Smith's
weakness. "In May there was a reason for staying in the shadow cabinet
because there was a chance that Iain could have pulled things round," a Tory
said. "Any hope of that has vanished now."

With other members of the shadow cabinet almost in open revolt last night,
Mr Duncan Smith was widely seen to be in deep trouble. Michael Portillo, who
has been careful not to criticise him since tumbling out of the Tory
leadership contest last year, made clear that his patience has run out when
he hit out at Mr Duncan Smith's "inconsistency" on social policy.

He asked Tory frontbencher Tim Loughton: "Does my honorable friend remember
on the last day of the Conservative party conference hearing a speech which
included the phrase: 'We must first understand the way life in Britain is
lived today and not the way it was lived 20 years ago.' Given that sentiment
and given the range of very sincere opinions, can my honorable friend return
to the question of why this is a three line whip please?"

Damning intervention

No mention was made of Mr Duncan Smith, who coined the crucial phrase in
Bournemouth, and Mr Portillo showed little emotion. Such a damning
intervention shows that Mr Portillo is probably genuine in his claims -
repeated yesterday - that he has no interest in becoming leader because
disloyalty is rarely rewarded in the Tory party.

But there was growing speculation last night that he now hopes to exert
formidable pressure on Mr Duncan Smith to prevent him repeating William
Hague's error of veering from left to right. Failing that, he may be lining
up to play a crucial role in bringing down Mr Duncan Smith.

The plotters took particular delight when they noted that Kenneth Clarke,
who still has his eye firmly fixed on the leadership, slipped into the
Commons chamber just as Mr Portillo finished his remarks. There is intense
speculation that they might form a "dream ticket" by uniting Eurosceptics
and pro-Europeans.