Ken Clarke caught off camera

Fretwired

Ken Clarke caught off camera on Sky ..... :-)

octatonic

Well, he does seem to have a pretty accurate take on things.

monquixote

This is brilliant. 

Nice to find out what people think off the record

Fretwired

octatonic said:

Well, he does seem to have a pretty accurate take on things.

I always liked Ken Clarke .. he seems down to earth and reasonable. His ideas tended to be sensible as well ...

Bucket

Very good

I'm unfamiliar with him as a politician (presumably before my time) but I like him. Everyone seems to think he's quite good.

Snap

for a politician, he is pretty down to earth and normal. Used to drive round in a red Escort XR3.

ICBM

It's difficult to be sure whether that's been manipulated given the number of cuts in it, and whether it's intended to help or harm any of the candidates - or whether the people who actually get to vote would respond in the same way as I do anyway...

But as usual, I probably agree with him as far as we can tell.

Fretwired said:

I always liked Ken Clarke .. he seems down to earth and reasonable. His ideas tended to be sensible as well ... 

That at least is one thing we do agree on .

He's an intelligent man, and I think it's a great shame that the Tory split over Europe denied him ever having a real chance at the top job.

Bucket said:

I'm unfamiliar with him as a politician (presumably before my time) but I like him.

First elected in 1970 under Heath, promoted to ministerial level under Thatcher, had a couple of spells as Health and Education Secretaries where he was a bit contentious, became Home Secretary under Major which he was better at, Chancellor where he was better still - actually fixing the mess Lamont made, and getting the economy working well enough that the first years of success under Brown have been unfairly credited to Brown and not Clarke, before Brown blew it in a massive way - and finally as Justice Secretary under Cameron before his intention to properly reform the prison system got him effectively sacked.

And he opposed the Iraq war, you will be pleased to know.

I've always thought he was one of the best of the Tories, possibly the only one who could have led a party I would ever have voted for.

Lodious

Quality. The future of TV interviews....scrap the interviewer ;-)

Ro_S

Interestingly, his constituency was one of the few in the Midlands/North to vote Remain.

xSkarloey

Fretwired;1139295" said:

octatonic said:

Well, he does seem to have a pretty accurate take on things.





I always liked Ken Clarke .. he seems down to earth and reasonable. His ideas tended to be sensible as well ...

My thoughts too.

Always struck me as being down to earth, realistic and honest.

Him being Tory leader is one of my favourite speculative political 'what ifs?' along with other questions like 'What if John Smith had lived?'.

Chalky

Off camera slips are a nice way of getting your point across with reduced responsibility for them...

octatonic

Trevor Noah referred to Boris as "Business-casual Shrek".

Awesome.

scrumhalf

That's not Ken Clarke, it's Stephen Fry doing a bloody good impression.

RandallFlagg

Fuck he looks like he enjoys an afternoon drink doesn't he? I think I will look like that soon....

ICBM

Skarloey said:

Him being Tory leader is one of my favourite speculative political 'what ifs?' along with other questions like 'What if John Smith had lived?'.

I think his worst mistake was to not stand for the leadership again after IDS fell, leaving Howard to get it. The party members should have been firmly reminded that Clarke was consistently the most popular in the country as a whole and the leader who could have beaten Blair in 2005 when the wheels were starting to come off the public spending bus.

Then we would never have had Brown, we'd have probably been out of Iraq years earlier, and if the banking crash had still happened anyway we would at least have had someone competent to deal with it.

And David Cameron would still be an inconsequential junior minister probably.

Nitefly

Does he still wear suede Hush-puppies?

FX_Munkee

ICBM said:

Skarloey said:

Him being Tory leader is one of my favourite speculative political 'what ifs?' along with other questions like 'What if John Smith had lived?'.

I think his worst mistake was to not stand for the leadership again after IDS fell, leaving Howard to get it. The party members should have been firmly reminded that Clarke was consistently the most popular in the country as a whole and the leader who could have beaten Blair in 2005 when the wheels were starting to come off the public spending bus.

Then we would never have had Brown, we'd have probably been out of Iraq years earlier, and if the banking crash had still happened anyway we would at least have had someone competent to deal with it.

And David Cameron would still be an inconsequential junior minister probably.

IIRC he was effectively vetoed because of his completely pro-EU views, ironically.

ICBM

FX_Munkee said:

IIRC he was effectively vetoed because of his completely pro-EU views, ironically.

Yes - the Tory party membership didn't like him because of that, which is why he lost first to Hague and then to IDS, despite being much more popular with the public and the MPs.

If only he'd stood against Howard it might have been possible to convince them that two goes at the same losing strategy was enough, but apparently he decided not to for 'party unity'.

I bet he regrets that now...

Blueingreen

Brilliant.

I've always thought Clarke's recent reputation as the acceptable face of Toryism is a tad overly generous.  In his ministerial career he was  often a lot more aggressively right-wing than his genial bloke on the left of the party image suggests.  His ropey links to the tobacco industry (as Health Secretary!) and willingness to take lucrative boardroom positions as well as fiddle his expenses don't really pass the smell test.  As President he also opposed the admission of women to the Cambridge Union.  A different era admittedly but still...........

But he still seems a lot more human than most politicians with lots of interests outside politics including an avid interest in jazz. His jazz programmes for the Beeb from the intelligent layman's point of view are pretty good. And you have to admire the principled way he stuck to his beliefs about Europe even when it became obvious that they were damaging his political career.

I can't imagine he feels comfortable about that clip though.  He was always fond of a pint and looks pretty red about the face these days - I wonder if he was entirely sober.

Still he'll regret giving vent but the rest of us (Tory leadership contenders aside) will be glad he did.

ICBM

Blueingreen said:

I've always thought Clarke's recent reputation as the acceptable face of Toryism is a tad overly generous.  In his ministerial career he was  often a lot more aggressively right-wing than his genial bloke on the left of the party image suggests.

He was, and in fact some of the Tory policies like the NHS internal market were his doing - although apparently to prevent a more US-style approach - but overall he was well to the left of where most of the party has been since Thatcher took over. Hence why I thought he might have been the only Tory leader I could vote for… not that I necessarily would have .

Nitefly