the Tory Succession

So
don’t blame me when the time
comes.

Peterborough
Column

September 3, 2001, Monday

It’s
Clarke’s turn to make history, says
Irving

WHILE Iain Duncan Smith
luxuriates in the support of BNP activist Edgar Griffin, his leadership rival Ken Clarke will no doubt be delighted to learn that he is enthusiastically endorsed by the
Holocaust revisionist David Irving.
“Kenneth Clarke is the only one to show leadership qualities,” he says.
“There is a pleasing touch of
Churchillian insouciance about him.”

Putting his personal appeal to one side, Irving says he thinks Clarke is better attuned to the way the political wind is blowing. “Britain is bound to join the euro sooner or later, which also points in his direction,” he says, adding ruefully: “But for the Tories to win big, they’d have to do radical things: bring back Margaret
Thatcher and do more leading and less listening.”

— Richard Eden