Concentrating Tory minds

Portillo still has a battle ahead

		By Nick Assinder BBC News Online political correspondent

The first round of the Tory leadership election may have looked like a shambles, but it has served to concentrate MPs' minds.

A number of assumptions were blown away and rival camps forced to go back to the drawing board to re-examine their war plans. And it is a bloody business.

For the first time, Michael Portillo looks vulnerable while Ken Clarke and Iain Duncan Smith are fighting to the death for second place.

And whatever they may be trying to tell themselves, the two joint losers - Michael Ancram and David Davis - are having to face the cold fact that their votes are now up for grabs.

Clarke will look for new votes

The whole affair looked like a farce, suggesting Tory MPs still don't know which direction they now want their party to follow.

But a lot of that uncertainty will have been punched out of them by the result of the first ballot.

Losing two general elections on the trot was bad enough, but then being universally derided for their inability to make up their minds over who should lead them has heightened their misery.

Cold shower

Optimists believe it will have worked like a cold shower and snapped the party out of its dream world.

What is absolutely certain is that backbenchers are now reassessing their positions - and will be coming under intense pressure from the top three candidates to throw their weight behind them.

The arguments are not new and have already been deployed.

MPs are being cajoled with hints of future preferment, warned - irrespective of their political views - that they must back the only candidate who can win an election and, finally, threatened with reprisals if they pick the wrong man.

Smith is the favourite for second place

The rival camps are also urging them to vote tactically, with Mr Portillo's supporters particularly active.

They have always believed their man was guaranteed to be in the crucial, final ballot of party members.

Confusing the issue

So they have been urging some of their supporters to vote for Iain Duncan Smith to ensure the most dangerous rival, Ken Clarke, is excluded from that run-off vote.

It was done in the belief that when it came to it, Mr Portillo had a far better chance of beating Mr Duncan Smith than Mr Clarke.

But it appears the tactic has only served to confuse the issue, and the figures are now being re-calculated.

It now seems likely that Mr Davis and Mr Ancram will lose votes as their supporters in the first round decide to throw their weight behind one of the three front runners.

But if the first round has proved anything, it is that this contest is not as cut and dried as many believed.