Election of Tory Leader by the members - how it started!

 At the Party Conference in 1997 a paper was presented by William Hague setting out a democratic Constitution for the Conservative Party. This was the first time the Party had a constitution.   Missing from it was the right for Party members to elect the Party Chairman based on One Member One Vote.   Instead, members were offered a vote in the election of the Leader of the Party.  Initially it was proposed that there be an electoral college sharing votes with the Parliamentary Party.   Jeffrey Archer suggested that the members should have 50% of the votes and the Parliamentary Party should have 50%.   I rejected this.   In the end the rules for the election of the Leader were determined by the 1922 Committee.   What a disaster.   We should have stuck to our guns and pursued the election of the Party Chairman and control over the Party Constitution.   By doing this we would have controlled the rules by which the Parliamentary Party elected the Leader and using preferential voting the Leader would be the candidate who got over 50% of the Parliamentary vote.   This would help to cut out the personal stake way in which today many MPs use their vote.   We would also determine how the Leader could be removed in a fair and democratic way.