The Ultimate Question

Taken from The Crisis Facing Conservatism by Harry Banham (2005)

The Shadow Cabinet announcements by Ken Clarke, a few days after he had been announced leader, had contained little surprises for the top-level positions while having varying levels of that emotion for other positions of the Shadow Cabinet with some of the public being surprised by the choice of John Redwood as the Shadow Chancellor when the two had very public differences on policy. This was something that would only become more noticeable when the issue of the Euro, minimum wage, Conservative stance of the New Labour reforms on things such as homosexuality and Devolution being a key difference as the issue would become a large divide between leader and party in a short amount of time.

The Shadow Cabinet, as it was, had been structured as this:-

Rt. Hon. Kenneth Clarke MP — Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition and Leader of the Conservative Party
Rt. Hon. John Redwood MP — Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer
Rt. Hon. Sir George Young Bt MP — Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
Rt. Hon. Michael Howard QC MP — Shadow Secretary of State for the Home Department
Rt. Hon. Lord Douglas Hurd PC — Chairman of the Conservative Party
Rt. Hon. Alastair Goodlad MP — Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Employment
Rt. Hon. Gillian Shephard MP — Shadow Leader of the House of Commons and Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
Rt. Hon. Viscount Cranborne PC — Leader of the Opposition in the House of Lords
Rt. Hon. Peter Lilley MP — Shadow Secretary of State for Defence
Rt. Hon. Michael Heseltine MP — Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry
Rt. Hon. Ann Windecombe MP — Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions
Rt. Hon. Michael Ancram QC MP — Constitutional Affairs Spokesman, including Scotland and Wales
Rt. Hon. David Curry MP — Shadow Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
Rt. Hon. Francis Maude MP — Shadow Secretary of State for International Development
Rt. Hon. David Heathcoat-Amory MP — Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury
Rt. Hon. Edward Leigh MP — Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
Rt. Hon. Andrew Mackay MP — Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
Rt. Hon John Maples MP — Shadow Secretary of State for Health
Rt. Hon. Alan Duncan MP — Shadow Secretary of State for Social Security
Rt. Hon. Stephen Dorrell MP — Opposition Chief Whip
Rt. Hon. Lord Strathclyde PC — Opposition Chief Whip in the House of Lords

Some of the more unwise position choices had been down to the large drop in potential candidates for high positions had lost their seats in the Labour landslide which had meant that positions may have been given based on their loyalty, Clarke's need to appease the right and leadership rivals and to show the more outspoken Hague supporters that Hague's absence was one of his own choice, as he had adopted Alan Duncan, a lieutenant of Hague during the leadership election as Shadow Secretary of State for Social Security. Hague did, in fact, decline a position in the Shadow Cabinet to try and convince Michael Howard to forgive him for leaving him to be humiliated in the leadership election and to slowly let himself be swayed by the modernising forces in the Conservative Party who had lost out in their seats.

Hague's choice to go on a journey to 'find himself' was one that gained suspicion from the traditionalist, One-Nation faction of the party who thought that Hague was just trying to rebuild favour in the party and then get rid of Clarke when it suited his needs which was not helped by pictures of him, Michael Portillo and Michael Howard discussing how to assist the NO side of the Welsh Assembly Referendum, something that seemed to minor to have them meet so publicly.

If Ken Clarke had even suspected something, which was more falling into the madness of his fellow 'Old Tories', then he did not show it as he was already facing complaints for his perceived lack of action over the referendum on devolution for the Welsh, which was hard when your heart is not into the matter after much campaigning on the issue only to be subjected to being barraged by complaints that you're being too right wing or too left wing about matters. The result had been a narrow victory for the YES campaign, something that was blamed on Ken Clarke again, even when evidence showed that John Redwood had a more negative rating then Ken Clarke, who was popular with the public.

This was a sign of what was to come for Ken Clarke's leadership.
 
Going with something different, the change in font is because this isn't from a book but more from someone's point of view, thanks to all who helped me with the last update and thanks to stodge for letting me use two characters close to his heart. That's right! It's the Norman Show!

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Norman wondered when everyone began to lose their minds. It was the only explanation for why the party was now acting like Labour and thinking that they lost to centrists because they weren't right wing enough, either that or he missed the part of the conference when Tony magically appeared and bribed everyone to be as insane as possible in the face of possible success under Ken Clarke.

Most of the newer MPs had now declared that their new leader was responsible for the bad weather and the grass-roots were now thinking of 'punishing' the party by voting for the Independence Party and their leadership of rich lunatics as if it would somehow change Ken's mind. (How the hell did the Electoral Commission even let them get away with that?)

Speaking of new MPs, a rare find in the swarm of the damned, he had been asked to try and talk to one of the new men who had potential to move on up if he dumped some of the Sacred Gospel tripe from his days of a candidate and wised up to reality. His name was David and, as part of his journey to becoming the candidate, had pledged to be a good Eurosceptic and that he would be a regular listener to Tebbit's attempt to have the party become The Margaret Thatcher Appreciation Society.

He had been bumped up into a higher position then expected for a first-timer, mostly because all the others lost or had left by then, so it was Norman's duty to make sure that he never did anything too silly that could make the party fail in its goal at modernising in certain aspects. He was fine with Ken as leader, the man was sound and had the facts on his side, but you could only go against the backbenches before they start to pull out the knives again just as they did to Thatcher and Heath after they had outlived their usefulness Tories were cold-blooded like that.

David had now strolled into the room and seemed to not know if he should be celebrating or crying about his election. The man looked to be in his late 30s and certainly looked like the model Tory, smartly dressed while also trying to match the criteria for being nice and new for the voters, Norman motioned to David and the younger was now sitting next to him and seemed to be waiting for him to say something.

"I suppose someone told you why you are here?" David seemed eager to prove his knowledge as he nodded like a five year old, certain of his answer.

"They said that I needed to know a bit more about the way that things are done." He seemed to know a bit, Norman was a bit uneasy about how happy David seemed when he recalled himself acting like this when he got elected, much to Rosemary's annoyance.

"Yes. I just want to ask you some questions, first." Norman just wanted this out of the way so that he could see if this David had any potential or if he was like some of the others and was just someone who parroted Tebbit's attempt to portray Thatcher as the Second Coming and burnt in contact of common sense. "Who did you vote for?"

David seemed shocked by this question and looked around to make sure that no one could hear him when he gave his answer, believing IDS's rumours that Ken was crushing all dissent and making John Redwood Shadow Chancellor was a secret trick to lull them into a false sense of security.

His opinion of that man was slowly dropping.

"This is between us?" David whispered as Norman sighed in his mind and nodded in response, allowing David to give his honest answer. "Hague." This interested Norman as he knew many Hague voters and was now hoping that David was part of the group that actually thought about why they should vote for Hague.

"Why?" David seemed to puff out his chest and look very proud of himself as he gave his answer, never a good sign.

"I thought he represented the Thatcherite values that made this party great before the sudden blip." Norman would have just written him off as a lost cause, but there was something in his eyes and voice, he didn't really think that, he just did it so he could gain the approval of voters who were making noises about defecting to Independence Party.

"What's the real answer?" Norman pried in as David looked confused by the question being posed to him. "I mean what you actually think and not what you were asked to say?"

David's expression changed and he spoke in a manner that was almost quicker then Norman could be able to hear. "Ken has good ideas on modernisation and on reforming the party but his stance on crime, New Labour's reforms and Europe are going to make Major's time look like if Churchill was running the party again." David then remembered what happened back in the Association meetings and went for old lines. "And the before comment."

"Starting to see why you were chosen." Norman noted as he knew that David needed some help with how to progress and some lies he may have been fed. "But you do know that Margaret signed the Single European Act and that Hague is already being tempted by the devils of Portillo and Howard after he went a bit strange?"

"She made the best out of a hard choice and its so that Portillo or Howard can get in and replace Ken, followed by the other and then Hague." David knew these things and how to combat those points, Norman was starting to warm up to the man, though he didn't really believe the attempts to cover-up the idea that Hague was just planning ahead. "Yes I know it is silly, but how do you see this going."

"I think I will enjoy your company, David." Norman couldn't let a promising star be captured by IDS's new loony squad while some common sense could be saved in the party, Rosemary would never hear the end of it when he would regret it. "Now, let me tell you about what to expect in this jungle of doom."

And soon enough The Norman Show would then become The Norman and David Show.
 
Taken from Europe: The Bane of the Conservative Party by Norman Tebbit (2004)

The leadership of Kenneth Clarke took another blow after his shameless lack of participation in the NO campaign against breaking apart the United Kingdom when there was such a good chance of saving what we could, knowing that, Scotland could not be salvaged, after years of Labour propaganda over this matter. Instead, we lost by a mere 10,000 votes and Labour's dream of another area of legislation that they could maintain a foothold in was fulfilled, meaning that the party now looked even more divided and the timing of Clarke's smarter decisions only made it worse.

The smarter decision, even if many disagree with me on this, was having the Scottish Conservatives become a separate party once more. Though it would take time for a new identity to fully emerge and more then one election will be needed, this was a good move for making the party reach out to a voting base that would otherwise be forever lost to us due to Labour's control of many urban areas and the SNP stealing our rural base. Others would disagree with me and claim that Clarke was just going along with what Blair had wanted and that this would be the first time that Conservatives would be split into regions, when Bonar Law, Stanley Baldwin, Chamberlain, Churchill, Eden Macmillan and Home had MPs, Eden being able to gain over 50% of the Scottish vote. This only strengthened the right wing who thought that no reforms were needed, contrary to popular thought, I did think reform was needed but in the right places and led to the revitalisation of the Bruges Group, formerly facing a dark fate after most of the Maastricht rebels had lost their seats in the election or had retired from politics.

Another group was also set up. One that been advocating closer relations with the Independence Party and a far harsher line on Europe then even William was suggesting in the leadership election, becoming the stuff of scare-stories that parents tell their children in the eyes of the One Nationers. The members of the No Turning Back Group was Bill Cash, Teddy Taylor, John Wilkinson, Michael Spencer, John Whittington, John Townend and Iain Duncan Smith and they were all known for their opposition to the Maastricht Treaty, even having meetings with Independence Party members such as Nigel Farage, Tim Congdon, Paul Syke, Zac Goldsmith and, his father, James Goldsmith. The contents of those meetings would not be known until after the Euro referendum and there were many shocks to be expected from such actions as they would soon take.

As New Labour prepared to warp the House of Lords, Ken Clarke chose to take a noble goal. I regret the comments that I made at the time, not knowing what could have been lost without such the sacrifices that were made by Clarke and Viscount Cranborne, but I cannot change the past and blasted them for saving some form of tradition in the Lords and keeping one-hundred and ten hereditary peers to stay in the Lords. They had fallen into the trap of Blair, making him able to pass it a year earlier then he first intended, but had saved what they could and Clarke was even smart enough to only force the Lords to vote for such a thing while allowing a free vote for the Tories in the Commons, knowing that a large majority would pass no matter what would happen.

Cranborne's speech in the Lords was simply amazing and as William was now making appearances to tell some of the more rebellious MPs that Clarke won the leadership and that he was loyal to the leader, adding what happened when parties were not unified for effect. Things seemed to be going well, as much as things could have been, Labour's standard spending reflex was being controlled due to fear of Clarke calling them out on it as Blair was now calling for an extension of copying our type of budgets, we were rising in the polls as Clarke's decision to add right-wingers to the Shadow Cabinet had been able to convince the majority of the right to stay loyal for the time being and Hague seemed to be planning for a comeback after 2001, everything seemed to be going as fine as things could have been.

Then Eurogate happened.

Taken from A Journey by Tony Blair (2010)

Eurogate is one of those things that could only happen in Britain. A government official gives a fourth party secret documents that detail meetings between myself, Kenneth Clarke and Paddy Ashdown mentioning the Euro referendum, the leader of that fourth party leaks the information and then he has a heart attack, meaning that links are made by the tinfoilers which gain some traction in the more conspiracy-friendly readers of the Daily Mail and Express. This had meant that not only did some of the public were demanding answers over why this had been kept from them, being directed by the media, and I had told them the honest truth, we were going to tell them next month after dropping some hints during interviews and I know how absolutely silly that sounds but I had to balance the concerns of Gordon, Jack and then Frank Field was then making noises about resigning because of the opposition to his reforms being given by Gordon and Harriet as well as not being told about this.

I contacted Ken and Paddy and we agreed to solve the internal disputes in our respective parties. I had an open discussion with Frank who had admitted that he was less upset about the referendum, in fact he was happy about the public consultation, but more about the sense that he was just there to win votes. I had a promise to him that I would not drop him or his reforms that he then mentioned to the BBC shortly after, something that slightly upset Gordon but I pointed out that unity was required due to the rumours of Gordon's wish for neutrality in the party over the issue and I wanted to back YES when we both wanted YES for the sake of unity, later altered when the waters did not go well for Gordon. Paddy had a very easy time with his party while Ken's was as hard as trying to cut down a mighty tree with only a mere herring.

The Independence Party now gained a new member from all of this, the infamous backbencher Enoch Powell and his support shortly before he sadly perished, there were the accusations of foul play from us over the heart attack which Zac Goldsmith, the son of James Goldsmith, condemned violently and told everyone that the Goldsmith family just wanted to hope for the best without being bombarded by conspiracy theories. A noble goal for anyone who had a relative who had just gained a heart attack. This had led to Goldsmith patriarch to realise that running a political party was not going to be good for your health and had decided to resign as the leader of the Independence Party but stayed on the Executive Committee as he endorsed Tim Congdon as leader, someone who would become a pain on the backside of anyone who called themselves a pro-Euro in Britain with his mixture of professionalism and determination.

Now all that had to happen was to get the public to know that we honestly wanted to release the news about the Euro the month after and I was now starting to notice that Gordon was making noises about the Euro that contradicted his comments in Cabinet and other, more upset, comments over our extension of Tory spending plans until 2001 in private and to assistants. After I had pulled rank on Harriet over Frank Field's upcoming reforms on welfare and Gordon thought I forced him out of having an opinion on that matter, some around me were claiming that a new opposition was emerging to replace the breaking Tories, one that was called the Brownites and, over time, they would soon make their voice known over welfare reforms and other parts of New Labour they didn't like. But now was not the time, we had many issues to deal with and no time to ponder on small comments that I thought was just Gordon asserting independence.
 
Labour's increased spending delay isn't a good idea electorally, in a more intense battle for the centre ground I can understand why paranoia might get the better of Blair though.

Enoch Powell would probably damage the Independence Party more than benefit them.
 
Labour's increased spending delay isn't a good idea electorally, in a more intense battle for the centre ground I can understand why paranoia might get the better of Blair though.

Enoch Powell would probably damage the Independence Party more than benefit them.

It's more a way to avoid their greatest fear of being seen as economically unstable when someone who is still very popular with the public is leading the Tories.

After the heart attack and Eurogate, no one has noticed this yet, Powell and the I.P haven't been public about this.
 
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It's more a way to avoid their greatest fear of being seen as economically unstable when someone who is still very popular with the public.

Indeed, although their caution will be counter-productive, Browns OTL increases in public spending displayed Labours economic success.
 
Taken from Europe: The Bane of the Conservative Party by Norman Tebbit (2004)

In some way, it was the Conservative Party that had been damaged in a worse manner then the party that was only founded over the issue of Europe was by Eurogate. The Independence Party had used this opportunity to create a new platform that was able to lure away many Conservative voters that was built upon the principles of Thatcher with a hint of Libertarianism, something that was apparently deeply discussed between the No Turning Back Group and the Independence Party, before the former adopted a similar stance. That should have caused warning bells to go off but why worry about a fringe group when your leadership was being threatened due to your inability to find the right way to phrase your support for a policy that most of your party despised, though the real anger was less about the revelation but more about the decision to have the announcement and referendum be very close to one another so that the chance of a Euro victory would be larger.

Those who say that Ken Clarke's leadership would have been fine if the news came out later do not really understand the frustration that the grass-roots went through as their MPs seemed to magically forget where their spine went and just bent over backwards for whatever the leadership had to offer them i.e. promotions. The revelation that the leader of the party went behind their backs to push through a foreign agenda would have caused mass rebellion and defections since their own leader had set up things so that his way could be done without their complaints being registered. The sense of being able to work with Clarke was now destroyed and that was only made worse by Michael Howard and John Redwood both announcing that they were not told, even though some say they were and others say they were told nothing, Michael Howard had wanted revenge for Clarke's comments during the 1997 election and John wanted to assert that he was in charge of economic policy and that was also done by announcements that the Conservatives were against the minimum wage on account of it being 'anti-business' which, I was told, caused Clarke to be very upset.

William was able to save Clarke's leadership again by commenting that Clarke had told him that he intended to inform the party a month after now, something that Labour then stole and claimed that all three of the mainstream parties were going to do, but it was able to calm the mainstream right and caused Clarke the problem of knowing that William was doing more to help the leadership while staying away from the potentially poisonous cup of a Shadow Cabinet seat. It was a good way for him to stay above party politics and to spend a long time, showing the public that William Hague was not just some office-boy who we dumped in a safe seat because he made a good speech or two, he was someone who knew that getting on your bike and looking for jobs helped you get away from the loss of dignity that always comes with welfare and that he knew the meaning of hard work, something that Gordon Brown's Treasury toadies could take some notes on before they embarrass themselves on Question Time.

As our party was tearing itself apart, the Independence Party took this time to keep Powell's membership all hush-hush until he sadly passed away, the only person to see where the country was going in economic terms and no one had listened to him for around thirty years, the news was quickly covered by orders of Zac Goldsmith, his father's representative of the Executive Committee until he felt entirely better while James planned to only stay active in the Europe of Nations group which is now becoming the voice of European Euroscepticism. Zac and his sister did marvellously during that time, Jemina did well due to her husband being a politician and due to her friendship with Princess Diana, though her popularity is no longer at cult status, allowed her to give some more attention to her father's party. Zac Goldsmith, like his sister, was working for his environmental concerns as his father was and this was reflected in the entire family when they pushed for more support for getting away from fossil fuels as Independence Party policy, something that gained the ire of Nigel Farage and the No Turning Back Group but gained the support of others.

We were steadily losing our right wing votes, the LibDems looked as if their centre pull was waning and the most cynical were saying that our future involved losing our position to this new and fast-growing party and in a decade or two, Tory VS Labour was going to become Purple VS Red. I knew better as did many others but the feeling was still negative and would continue to be as the Shadow Cabinet became more divided and Europe came up more, a stark contrast to earlier thoughts of a steady co-existence in the party.
 
Taken from The Daily Mail 12th November 1998 'Shadow Chancellor slams Human Rights Act'

A few days after the Human Rights Act was passed, Shadow Chancellor John Redwood has criticised the Human Rights Act as a way for the government to 'maintain their position as 'good Europeans' without risking the wrath of the public over such a matter after the crisis of Eurogate. This is following his vote against the Act after the Conservatives had a free vote on the matter, with a large majority of the party voting against the Human Rights Act while, Leader of the Opposition, Ken Clarke, had voted for the Act.

This is another part of the divisions between the Shadow Chancellor and the Leader of the Opposition as the former was given the position so that Kenneth Clarke could defeat William Hague in the Conservative leadership debate, only for Redwood to place in many Thatcherite policies that Ken Clarke used to say would never win elections, another element that had caused confusion when he made John Redwood Shadow Chancellor.

Others have condemned John Redwood's comments as Paddy Ashdown claimed that the Human Rights Act was 'to make sure that the rights of all Britons was maintained and was not subject to governments in need of poll boosts' while Tony Blair has accused John Redwood of 'bringing up old battles so that he can be the leader of the forces against reforming the law' while Shadow Home Secretary, Michael Howard, had offered no comment at this time, having also voted no.

The passage of the Human Rights Act has had little affect on the polls as the Labour Party has maintained an extremely strong position of 48%, over the Conservative position of 34% and the Liberal Democrat position of 14% and the Independence Party on 3%, a large number of votes for a party that has only fought in one election and gained no seats.
 
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