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Essay: Clarke and IDS share a goal but not much else
Robert Skidelsky
Guardian
| Tuesday, August 28, 2001
The language politicians use tells you less about what they intend to do than about the hopes and fears to which they wish to appeal. How, then, does one set about deconstructing the manifestos of the two contenders for the Tory leadership, Kenneth Clarke and Iain Duncan Smith, bearing in mind the rather specialised nature of their electorates?
The first difference - on which nearly everything else hinges - hits you in the face. Clarke puts himself forward as the leader most likely to topple Labour; Duncan Smith as the leader best placed to unite the Conservative party. The Clarke appeal is to the hunger for power; the Duncan Smith appeal is to the hunger for unity. Clarke plays to the fear that the Tory party under IDS (as he has
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