THE bid for the Tory leadership moved into top gear yesterday, when the former secretary of state for Wales, Mr William Hague, and Mr Stephen Dorrell, the former health secretary, formally entered the race.
Their declarations brought the total number of contenders to replace Mr John Major to six, including the former chancellor, Mr Kenneth Clarke, the 1995 leadership challenger, Mr John Redwood, the former home secretary, Mr Michael Howard, and the former social security secretary, Mr Peter Lilley. Mr Lilley yesterday won the official backing of the former education and employment secretary, Ms Gillian Shephard.
All of the candidates have spoken of the need for party unity and a message directed at voters which needed to put victory for the Conservatives within reach at the next general election.
It was a theme echoed by Mr Major after he held the first shadow cabinet of the new parliament.
Mr Major said it was his priority to see the election of a new Conservative leader as soon as possible "behind whom the whole party can unite". He ruled out any new opposition front bench appointments because, he said, they "would inevitably limit the freedom of manoeuvre of my successor". Mr Major himself will take overall responsibility for foreign affairs and defence issues while the surviving former cabinet members will retain responsibility for the portfolios they held in government.
But the leadership question is set to dominate the agenda for the next few weeks and Mr Hague (36) officially launched his campaign calling for a "fresh start", beginning with a rethink on how the party needed to change. He said, however, that the Tories must not abandon their basic principles.
Standing on a podium in the modern and spacious Atrium restaurant at the heart of the political broadcasters' Westminster base in Millbank, Mr Hague said he was not planning "to do a Peter Mandelson", but he did want to modernise the party's method of communicating with the public.
Mr Dorrell launched his bid with a call to the party to look to the next general election. Posing for news photographers with his supporters outside his campaign headquarters in a sunny mews street near Victoria station, Mr Dorrell said he did not intend to "knock" any of his rivals.
"The party has to look at the issues it faces and to look at the different personalities that are offering themselves and ask themselves simply: which of these contenders is best placed to unite the party and then to secure the support of the electorate in the general election in 2002?" he said.