On 26 August Matthew Parris devoted his weekly column in The Times to the procedures for electing the leader of the Conservative Party. The final decision, which is now made by the party membership should, he argued, be restored to MPs. His article contained the following passage: “I haven’t the heart to drag you through the different arrangements that the party has tried, proposed, abandoned or rejected. What little I do say here will surely include inaccuracies that my good friend the Conservative historian Lord Lexden will write to The Times elegantly to correct”.
Alistair Lexden’s letter in response was published on 29 August (though with the fifth paragraph excised).
Sir, Exactly 40 years after we first met, Matthew Parris invites me to find fault with his summary of the procedures under which Tory leaders have been elected since 1965 (Comment, Aug.26).
He falters at just one point. No recent leader has been given significant added protection by the changes introduced over the years. The leader enjoyed protection under the initial formulation of the rules which provided that an election could only take place on the death or resignation of the incumbent.
A leader in whom confidence had fallen could not be challenged. Subsequent revisions enabled backbench MPs to force elections in circumstances where dissatisfaction with the existing leader had reached significant levels.
For more than 30 years the election procedures rested on a clear principle: “The predominant voice in the selection must be that of the House of Commons since the leader’s position ultimately depends more on his or her ability to command the support of the party in the Commons than on any other single factor”.
Arguably, the well-defined arrangements for consulting the rest of the party worked satisfactorily during that period, though Macmillan in 1963 was the first to order detailed soundings at every level outside Parliament (Matthew errs in saying that the old magician confined consultations to MPs).
Foolishly, the Party equipped itself with a written constitution in 1998 which handed the decision to the Party at large. That makes it much harder to establish a new form of electoral college in which the original founding principle can be reasserted. It must, however, be done.
Lord Lexden
House of Lords