Tory leadership: First round results are in, Clarke is out

[Greeby]

Ken Clarke: 38

David Davis: 62

David Cameron: 56

Liam Fox: 42

[moggie]

1. Where will Ken's supporters go?

From the Graun's blog:

1.05pm: Breaking news! Liam Fox has won the first vote of the Tory leadership battle. Literally, that is, the first vote to be cast, which came from his former parliamentary private secretary, Desmond Swayne, who was first in line when the doors to select committee room 14 opened at 1pm.

Shortly afterwards came two votes for Ken Clarke, widely expected to be knocked out of the contest tonight, from his supporters John Bercow and Ann Widdecombe.

Ms Widdecombe had in fact been queueing patiently to cast her vote from 12.50pm and was first in line, but unfortunately was waiting at the wrong door.

Ah, bless!

So, who will Ken's supporters jump to now? The momentum's with Cameron.

[Taxloss]

2. I think Cameron and Fox will get more than Davis.

Davis allegedly had 66 declarations, but has only got 62 votes - curious.

[fedsron2us]

3. Tactical voting ?

Maybe right wing Tory MP's wanted to ensure that Clarke was definitely eliminated. My guess is that all those Clarke votes will go to Cameron so I expect either Fox or Davis to go out in the next round. As usual the Conservative MPs have chosen to ditch the candidate with the most general appeal with the wider electorate in the first fence. I find it amazing that more of them prefer the loathsome Liam Fox to Ken Clarke as their leader. It seems that they have learnt nothing from their three electoral drubbings at the hands of Blair. John Stuart Mill got it right when he described them as the 'Stupid Party'.

[ikri]

5. They've just mentioned tactical voting on Newsnight

And it makes no sense.

Supporters of David Davis voted for Liam Fox in order to force Clarke out of the running.

Typical Tory idiocy. Vote against Clarke because he's not xenophobic enough in an attempt to force a more right-wing candidate on to the ballot. Except virtually all of Clarke's supporters (and probably a few Davis and Fox supporters) will just ship to Cameron probably giving him more votes than Davis and Fox put together.

Cameron will come out on top of the next vote with a massive amount of momentum and he'll probably get enough media attention from it to make him leader.

I'm constantly amazed by the fuckwits in the Tory party, they never come across a powerful weapon without wondering how they can use it to inflict damage to themselves.

[non sociopath skin]

6. Absolutely. They had a chance to split the "left" vote ....

... by ensuring that Clarke stayed in.

Now they've split the "Right" vote.

Piss ups and breweries come to mind ...

The Skin

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. How can you split a vote in an elimination contest?

Are you saying it would be better for the right of the party to have just one right and two 'left' candidates in the second round (ie what would have happened if Fox had lost)? That way, you'd have the chance of two left wing candidates getting through to the final round (though it would be unlikely). The way it's gone, the most left wing candidate has gone out - which is what the right would want to ensure. In theory, they could get two right wingers into the final vote this way (though I don't expect that to happen).

The idea of a tactical vote in the first round makes perfect sense to me. Assuming that most of Clarke's votes go to Cameron, they won't be able to do it in the next round - the right wing MPs will be voting for who they want to be put to the party along with Cameron.

[non sociopath skin]

8. Guess you're right, Mu. It was a long day yesterday (smile) ...

The Skin

[sweetheart]

4. Who would osama vote for

I think osama's favourite has to be David Davis.

For that reason, i prefer David Cameron, because he might be
a conservative on the drugs issue. His actions with this
charade of Davis's puerile mudslinging have shown him a gentleman.

The worry is that cameron will actually win in a future poll against
brown, and THEN what, the stupid party is back in, no matter the nice
clean skin of their babes.

This whole thing makes me pray for long life to Gordon Brown. The
prison state party is deciding what sort of prison their new social
engineer will institute on behalf of the corporations... Ahh, would
back to the days where conservative was the real thing.