Tory donors warn against Ken Clarke’s return

The Mole hears that euro-sceptic Conservative Party donors have hinted darkly that they could withdraw their funding if Ken Clarke is given a job in David Cameron's forthcoming frontbench reshuffle.

My contacts inside Tory HQ tell me that donors such as Sir Stuart Wheeler, a long-term funder and passionate anti-euro campaigner have privately made it clear to the Dave camp they don't want Ken back at any price.

"People like Sir Stuart Wheeler could withdraw their funding and we are not exactly flush with funding," said one member of the Cameron team. "It's still not clear what Camo will do. He's in a very difficult spot but I wouldn't bet on Ken coming back."

In 2005, Wheeler said Clarke was "definitely not the right person to be our party leader", citing the former Chancellor's pro-European stance as the main problem.

A recall for Clarke was backed by a majority of Tory grass-roots activists in a survey at Christmas by ConservativeHome. But his pro-euro passions have not dimmed and - as the Mole pointed out a week ago and Michael Crick has now picked up on his BBC blog - his support for the cut in VAT to 15 per cent has been trashed by his leader, thus making it doubly embarrassing if he is made Tory business spokesman shadowing Peter Mandelson.

Cameron has already hinted at a way out of the Ken dilemma: he said Clarke was already 'back' in the front line as one of his senior advisers.

The clamour for a Clarke comeback has grown because of the failure of George Osborne, the Shadow Chancellor, to make an effective hit on Gordon Brown and his Treasury puppet Alistair Darling in spite of their steering Britain into the worst economic crash in living memory.

The Tories are readdressing their tactics for next week, when the Commons returns and the Supreme Leader holds a jobs summit. You can expect Cameron to go onto the attack at PMQs next Wednesday, chargin 'Control Freak' Gordon with wrecking the economy and leaving debt round the necks of the next generation.

The Tory high command believe Brown's widely-hailed decision to give the Bank independence in 1997 has been effectively rescinded in the effort to avoid recession turning into a British-made slump. The Chancellor's November pre-Budget report prediction that growth will return this summer now looks laughable, and is being hurriedly revised, while Brown is planning to allow money supply to soar to pump life into the dying body.
Mervyn King may be the Bank Governor, but the Tories believe it is Brown who is pulling the levers at Threadneedle Street.

THE MOLE: TORY RESHUFFLE

FIRST POSTED JANUARY 9, 2009