More Doom and Gloom for Michael Howard
July 26, 2004 12:00 PM
Michael Howard's leadership of the Conservatives is being called into question
Liberal Democrat leader, Charles Kennedy, received another massive boost as a new poll showed another surge for the Liberal Democrats. The Populus poll for the News of the World showed the Liberal Democrats level with the Conservatives on 28% with Labour on 30%. For the Liberal Democrats to have reached parity with the Conservatives at this point of the electoral cycle is quite unprecedented. This poll comes as signs are growing of internal dissatisfaction with Michael Howard's leadership.
Last week also saw the Liberal Democrats making progress in Local Council by-elections across the country. On 22 July Liberal Democrats gained a seat from the Conservatives in Sue Doughty`s Guildford constituency. Ken Reed won the Cranleigh ward of Waverley Borough Council by 936 votes to the Conservative's 855. There was another great result for the Liberal Democrats in Bournemouth, where Ben Prescott doubled the party`s majority over the Conservatives in the previously marginal Boscombe West ward. The ward is in the Bournemouth East constituency, where the Liberal Democrats need a swing of just 4.8% to win at the General Election. The third Liberal Democrat-Conservative challenge of the day again saw the Liberal Democrats triumph, with Stephen Mitchell holding Flitwick East ward of Mid Bedfordshire District Council with a 144 majority.
Leading Conservatives have admitted that it looks impossible for them to win the next general election. The Guardian has reported that Conservative MPs from across the party are voicing fears that Mr Howard`s recent remarks in the face of a series of Liberal Democrat by-election successes signalled panic. "I fear history may be repeating itself," one frontbencher said. "The interview has been a gift to Labour. It looks like Michael is starting to make the same mistake as Hague and Duncan Smith -starting to live by headlines."
Conservative big-hitter Lord Tebbit has described Michael Howard's leadership as "colourless" and warned Tory "dead-weights" to expect a third general election defeat. An article in the Independent reports that Michael Howard has 'admitted the party was not where he had wanted it to be by the summer.'
In his most pessimistic assessment yet of the Conservative position, former cabinet minister Michael Portillo warned that Michael Howard's errors over Iraq and public spending meant electoral hope had died on Tory benches.
Steve Norris, the former Conservative candidate for London mayor, urged Mr Howard to tear up his spending plans and abandon talk of tax cuts while Michael Heseltine, the former deputy prime minister, warned the party leader to resist calls to go to the right.
In addition, there appears every chance the Conservatives will come fourth in the Hartlepool by-election caused by the appointment of Peter Mandelson to the European commission. The party's candidate in the seat in the 2001 election, Gus Robinson, said the Conservatives could not win. He told the Hartlepool Mail: "I learned in the last election that the people of Hartlepool did not have a stomach for a Conservative candidate."
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