Watching Question Time last night it struck me (not for the first time) that Ken Clarke is the greatest modern leader the British Conservative Party never had. It's not that Clarke isn't a loathsome Tory like the rest of them (those of you with long memories will recall, for example, his attempts to dismember the National Health Service in the 1980s.)
It's just that he has a brilliant ability to tune into what people think and he actually sounds like an ordinary bloke on the street.
Of course, he isn't an ordinary bloke on the street. The ordinary bloke on the street is unlikely to be a Non-Executive Chairman of Savoy Asset Management plc and British American Racing (Holdings) Limited. The ordinary bloke on the street will almost certainly not be a Non-Executive Deputy Chairman at Alliance UniChem PLC, or a Non-Executive Director at Foreign and Colonial Investment Trust plc and Independent News and Media (UK) Limited. The ordinary bloke on the street doesn't toil away as Non-Executive Deputy Chairman of British American Tobacco p.l.c., chairing the Remuneration Committee and the Corporate Social Responsibility Committee and sitting on the company's Audit Committee and Nominations Committee.
Still, Clarke can sound like the ordinary bloke on the street - and that must count for something. What I most love about Clarke is that he has a "hinterland." In other words, he isn't just a robot who lives and breathes politics. He likes jazz and beer. He smokes cigars. He wears suede shoes.
Ken Clarke - likes a cigar.
Compare this to Blair or Brown or any of the others. Compare it in particular to the ghastly Michael "Something of the Night" Howard who is (this week's) leader of the Conservative Party. Whoever dreamt up last night's Conservative party political broadcast, in which Howard slithered towards the camera hissing "My name is Michael Howard," looking for all the world like a viper wearing glasses, should go back to making Pot Noodle commercials.
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