Tory leadership battle

Jeremy Paxman talked to deputy chairman of Beckenham Conservatives, Simon Fawthrop, and Tory party donor, Stuart Wheeler, after Conservative MPs voted to oust their leader, Iain Duncan Smith.

JEREMY PAXMAN:
Let's talk to Simon Fawthrop, who is the deputy chairman of Beckenham Conservatives and Stuart Wheeler, one of the party's major donors, given them £5 million in the past. Simon Fawthrop, how cross are you at what happened today?

SIMON FAWTHROP (Beckenham Conservative Association):
Well, very angry. If you bear in mind that 156,000 Conservative Party members voted for Iain Duncan Smith and effectively got rid of him. That's disgraceful.

PAXMAN:
There's nothing you can do about it though, is there?

FAWTHROP:
No and that's also disgraceful. The Conservative Party rules are a disgrace.

PAXMAN:
Hang on. They're a disgrace which gave you the right to choose a man who was not up to the job.

FAWTHROP:
Well, we judged that he was up to the job. That's what the membership decided and he was never given the chance to prove it. I'd say Iain Duncan Smith was up to the job. He was a very good worker. He did all the work behind the scenes. He brought us up in the opinion polls; we were beginning to go ahead of Labour; fantastic election results in the council elections; a very good man indeed and we need workers in this party, not people who just "give the talk" and are not trusted by the people out in the country.

PAXMAN:
But there's nothing can you do about it, is there?

FAWTHROP:
No and that's the unfortunate thing.

PAXMAN:
And it looks as if the parliamentary party is going to get together, decide upon some agreed candidate which will cut out the need to consult you people again. What do you think about that?

FAWTHROP:
Frankly, it makes us look a mockery. It means that the Liberal Democrats are more democratic than the Conservatives. It means that, you know, we're actually falling into the Liberal Democrat trap here. The Liberal Democrats will say, "You didn't elect your leader. He wasn't democratically elected." The Labour Party are even more democratic than the Conservative Party when it comes to this. We're going to have some sort of Politburo-style election with one candidate, by the looks of it. That's not very good.

PAXMAN:
Stuart Wheeler, you, presumably, are pleased about what happened today?

STUART WHEELER (Conservative Party Donor):
I'm very pleased indeed, yes.

PAXMAN:
Doesn't that prove that money bags wins out over democracy in your party?

WHEELER:
Well, the fact that I am pleased says nothing about money at all. I think the case for; in spite of his good points, for removing the present leader and having an election for another one was overwhelming. It had nothing whatever to do with money.

PAXMAN:
Would the presence of another leader be enough to induce you to give the party some more money?

WHEELER:
Well, I've also; I'm going to say again what I've been saying which is that the importance of changing the leader and so forth, is so great that I just don't want to discuss money in the same context. I haven't decided what to do. I simply haven't made up my mind.

PAXMAN:
Well, you clearly wouldn't give money to a party led by a man you thought was going to take them to oblivion.

WHEELER:
I'm sorry to be unhelpful. I'm not going to discuss my plans for giving money or not giving money.

PAXMAN:
So you're perfectly happy at an arrangement which appears to be incipient, which is that the Parliamentary party will get together, agree upon a single candidate and put that candidate in post, as leader of the party, without consulting the membership.

WHEELER:
I'm absolutely happy about that and in spite of the opinion just expressed, I believe the party and the country will be happy about it too. They're very, very loyal and if they find that the MPs have all managed to agree with each other about who the leader should be, I think that they will be very happy with that and will follow him and be loyal to him themselves.

PAXMAN:
Will you be happy about it?

FAWTHROP
Well, I mean, what's done is done and one has to look forward to a certain extent.

PAXMAN:
Ah, so you will live with it?

FAWTHROP:
Well, there's not a lot I can do about it but I will be pushing for change within the Conservative Party because this should never be allowed to happen again. The democratic will of the party members should not be able to be overrun by a handful, literally a handful, of other Conservative Party members.

PAXMAN:
Is the problem here that the party simply has William Hague's great bequest to it, a completely useless system for choosing a leader.

WHEELER:
Well, I think it has difficulties. I wouldn't say it's completely useless. It's the first time, I think I'm right in saying, that the party members were given any say in the matter.

PAXMAN:
But 156,000 of them voted for a man judged by the Parliamentary party to be incapable of taking them to victory.

WHEELER:
Well, he wasn't judged by the Parliamentary party, in that sense, two years ago. They've now made that decision and that's the big difference.

PAXMAN:
Do you think there's a case now, for reforming the system for choosing the leader?

WHEELER:
I think there probably is. Luckily it looks as if we're not going to have a long drawn-out contest and I think that's a good thing. On the other hand, the idea that any contest tears a party to bits is nonsense. I mean all the parties have leadership contests when there's a vacancy.

PAXMAN:
How many prominent members of your party do you think would want to campaign on the platform of I'm against one member, one vote?

WHEELER:
I don't know. I haven't thought about that but they wouldn't campaign on that anyway.

PAXMAN:
You see the difficulty, of course?

WHEELER:
No.

PAXMAN:
Well, that's effectively what you'd be saying. We do not want the membership to choose the leader.

WHEELER:
The membership in any case are only given the two, at the best, the two candidates the members of Parliament both want but I can only repeat what I said. I believe the membership will be very happy indeed if the MPs come down and say we all want this man. Why would they want a vote in those circumstances?

PAXMAN:
And in the end, you'll accept it, won't you?

FAWTHROP:
Myself?

PAXMAN:
Yes.

FAWTHROP:
Well, as I said, there's not a lot I can do but I think the problem with the Conservative Party and the Conservative Members of Parliament have put themself in is that by showing a distrust of democracy in the party, there's a reflection that could go out to the country at large that we don't care about democracy, we don't about your views. If they don't care about the party members' views, how will people in the country trust Conservative Members of Parliament with the decisions of Government?

PAXMAN:
OK, thank you both very much.

This transcript was produced from the teletext subtitles that are generated live for Newsnight. It has been checked against the programme as broadcast, however Newsnight can accept no responsibility for any factual inaccuracies. We will be happy to correct serious errors.