Apart from the hard-core campaigners, who have declared their support for each of the Conservative leadership candidates, there are unofficial lists of potential supporters collected by each camp. It was also being said at Westminster by Clarke supporters that Mr Clarke would gain a considerable push from the results of the constituency ballot.On the right, the contest is still close between Mr Howard and Mr Lilley but Howard’s supporters were saying they had made strong advances. William Hague issued a glossy brochure which did not mention the issue.In the jockeying for position, Mr Hague claimed more support among the new intake, including the former Asda boss, Archie Norman. Michael Howard recruited David Faber, one of the backers of Stephen Dorrell who dropped out in favour of Mr Clarke.Some of Mr Hague’s supporters, who might have been thought to have been natural Clarke backers, were saying yesterday that the former Chancellor could not unite the party, which is why they had opted for Mr Hague. If Ken and others say that keeping up a campaign for a single currency of some sort is more important than being in the Shadow Cabinet, I will respect that position.”Mr Redwood said his clear rejection of a single currency was the only way to stop the Tory party having “all the charm of a Balkan battlefield”.

But his critics said it would deepen the splits in the party.Mr Clarke’s camp are hoping to take more than 50 votes in the the first ballot next Tuesday and there has been continued speculation that some could leave the party if it swung decisively towards Euro-scepticism.Mr Redwood’s move to turn the leadership election into a ballot on the European policy was intended to outflank the other right-wing candidates. As nominations closed with five candidates in the race, Mr Redwood said he would stop the civil war in the Tory party by imposing a clear policy to rule out British entry into the single currency.
“If they wish to be in the Shadow Cabinet, and I think Ken should be in the Shadow Cabinet, then they will be required to stick to the Shadow Cabinet line.”I say it must be settled now in this leadership election The party must make up its mind in a few days’ time. John Redwood raised the pace in the Tory leadership election campaign by warning Kenneth Clarke he would not be able to serve in a Redwood cabinet unless he toed the line, by opposing the European single currency. Thank you for listening, and I hope you will enjoy the rest of the flight.. Establishing the new order is hard work; and slipping back to the old one is so very easy. And why only two women backbenchers spoke during the entire hour.

But Tony, what about the ministers – your ministers? Do they have to engage in the same preposterous “my honourable friend is quite right” to every Labour query, and “I am astonished that the honourable gentleman should have the gall …” to every Tory one? And when they do not know the answer, why can they not just say so?Perhaps, Tony, this daftness explains why, of the the 36 questions tabled, only two were from women MPs. Couldn’t he write a letter? Or was it to ensure his place on page 6 of the Ilford Recorder, opposite “cockroaches found in curry house”?Let us be charitable and assume that – temporarily – natural enthusiasm drove out the tiring duty of holding the executive properly accountable. Yesterday the question bit of his peroration went like this: “Isn’t it good that we have a Labour government?” No, really. And what was the purpose of this? To share a unique insight with any astonished colleagues who may have been on parliamentary delegations to other solar systems? Or simply to remind himself that he was still alive?How about Mike Gapes, the florid soprano from Ilford, who forgot to append a question-mark of any kind to his intervention and simply told the Government that he wished to thank it on behalf of his constituents. Mr Gunnell is a man whose rock-cake features rarely register the turmoil of the battle of ideas. Yet the member for Morley and Rothwell was once a local government big cheese who ran the whole of West Yorkshire; now he asks tame questions in a voice like porridge being strained through a hiking sock. (I exempt from this charge the teddy- boy coiffured MP for North Essex, Bernard Jenkin, who is developing a nice line in quick and pointed questions.