Former Tory Cabinet minister Ken Clarke has been caught on camera ridiculing the candidates for the Conservative leadership contest. He was filmed having a conversation with Sir Malcolm Rifkind in front of a camera in the Sky News studio, apparently unaware he was being recorded.
Here is a transcript of the exchange:
Ken Clarke: I think that I shall wind up voting for Theresa. I might give Stephen Crabb an encouraging vote first, but I don’t know what Crabb’s views are on most things. A lot of my friends, really, are great fans of his.
But it is, what a fiasco.
Sir Malcom Rifkind: *inaudible* then “As long as Gove is not in the final two then I don’t mind what happens.
Ken Clarke: I don’t think the membership will vote for Gove. I remember being in a discussion once about something we should do in something like Syria or Iraq and he was so wild that I remember exchanging looks with Liam Fox who’s much more right-wing than me, we exchanged views and Liam was raising eyebrows. I think with Michael as Prime Minister we’d go to war with at least three countries at once.
He did us all a favour by getting rid of Boris, the idea of Boris as Prime Minister is just ridiculous! I don't think either Andrea Leadsom or Boris Johnson actually are in favour of leaving the European Union.
Mr Rifkind: Well I don't think they even cared very much either way.
Ken Clarke: No, it was the obvious thing that the voters, i.e. the Conservative Party members, were going to vote to Leave.
In only three years she’s had a Pauline conversion, she does have experience in the City and the Bank of England. She is not one of the tiny band of lunatics who think we can have a sort of glorious economic future outside the single market. So long as she understands that she's not to deliver on some of the extremely stupid things she's been saying.
I hope that these two that I’m going to see today will prove me wrong; Stephen and Theresa. One of them has actually begun to have the slightest idea of what they’re going to do! Theresa is a bloody difficult woman but you and I worked with Margaret Thatcher. She won’t be any more difficult than that! I get on all right with her, and she is good. She’s too narrow on her department. She's been at the Home Office far too long, so I only know in detail what her views are on the Home Office. She doesn't know much about foreign affairs.
