Clarke-Redwood alliance

Clarke sums up the contest on Today

Tory Leadership Race Reaches Climax

The leadership of the Conservative party is being decided with MPs voting to choose between Kenneth Clarke or William Hague.

The result is expected to be nail-bitingly close, with the future of the party in a handful of undecided MPs. After yesterday's dramatic events, almost anything could happen.

Tory MPs were queuing to be the first to cast their vote outside Commons committee room 10, with supporters of both camps predicting that their man would win.

The Clarke team were given an early boost with the latest survey of Tory party chairmen, peers and Euro-MPs coming out once again for firmly for him.

The poll showed Mr Clarke was more popular than Mr Hague among every section of the party, and his lead over his rival among the constituency chairmen had widened significantly.

The former Chancellor delivered a final sideswipe at his leadership rival as Tory MPs began the third and decisive round of voting.

On BBC Radio 4's Today programme, he accused Mr Hague of persistently shifting his position on the crucial issue of a single European currency.

"William says we must all sign up to some collective policy in future. Unfortunately he cannot decide what it is and he is producing formulations which people hold up to ridicule when they look at them," said Mr Clarke.

Guto Hari looks back on a 'unity campaign' full of disunity (dur 3'20")

Carolyn Quinn looks forward to the final hours of voting (dur 3'10")

The right-wing Euro-sceptic John Redwood who came last in Tuesday's second-round ballot and dropped out, caused earlier predictions to be torn up when he announced he would now back left-leaning, pro-European Mr Clarke in the third round. Mr Redwood's move, which would see him as Shadow Chancellor in a victorious Clarke team, seemed a decisive blow for the former Chancellor, although the former Welsh Secretary will not be able to deliver the votes of all his former backers.

Dorrell explains why the Clarke/Redwood alliance is the only way

Mr Hague was the first of the two leadership contenders to cast his vote this morning. "It looks like it's going to be an exciting day," he said.

Yesterday he hit back with an equally unexpected endorsement from the former Prime Minister Baroness Thatcher.

Weighing publicly into the contest for the first time, she dismissed the Clarke/Redwood pact as "an incredible alliance of opposites, which can only lead to further grief".

Hague: Still confident

"The principles he is founding his vision upon are very much the principles I founded my Government on for quite a long time," she declared as she stood side by side with 36-year-old Mr Hague, who so impressed her with his firebrand speech at a Tory party conference 20 years ago.

But the Clarke/Redwood pact got the blessing of Lady Thatcher's former lieutenant, the right-wing Euro-sceptic Lord Tebbit.

He told BBC 2's Newsnight he would have preferred a Redwood win: "But the party wasn't prepared to have that and at the end of the day it's better that we have a balance between these two men than anything else."

"If John Redwood and Ken Clarke can get together and find a way of living together then surely that does bring the whole party together," he added.

Whoever wins, the contest has undoubtedly deepened party splits. Some in Mr Redwood's camp yesterday put aside their ideological objections to Mr Clarke to back "the big hitter", but others accused their leader of "handing the party over to the left".

The Second Round Results

Mr Clarke emerged victorious in the second ballot, but with only a narrow lead over Mr Hague.

In the second round ballot, the results were as follows:

• Kenneth Clarke 64
• William Hague 62
• John Redwood 38

Mr Clarke is also favourite with the bookies, at one to three, while the odds on Mr Hague are two to one against.

Party rules state that a majority of the votes cast in today's ballot will be enough to secure victory.

In the event of tie, a fourth ballot will be held on Tuesday, unless the two candidates can resolve the matter between them.