THE defeated Tory right-winger, Mr John Redwood, could today lay the kingmaker as the Conservative leadership contest moves to a gripping third-round playoff between Mr Kenneth Clarke and Mr William Hague.
Mr Hague (36) remains the bookmakers' favourite to succeed Mr John Major in tomorrow's third and final ballot. However, the momentum was with Mr Clarke after yesterday's second round ballot left him top of the poll with 64 votes, two ahead of Mr Hague on 62. Mr Redwood was excluded from the contest after polling a disappointing 38 votes.
The destination of those 38 votes will determine the Tory leadership. And Mr Redwood can savour the next 24 hours as briefly "the most powerful man in the Conservative Party".
Both the Clarke and Hague camps were courting Mr Redwood last night as he and his campaign managers maintained a tantalising silence about their intentions for the final round in this protracted and often bitter contest.
However, yesterday's result checked the easy assumption at Westminster that the right-wing Euro-sceptics would, in the end, rally behind Mr Hague as the candidate of "the centre right". Mr Hague gained 21 votes on his first round performance, but that was significantly perhaps less than 50 per cent of the total cast last week for the defeated right-wingers, Mr Peter Lilley and Mr Michael Howard.
A further indication that the party would not vote on uniform left-right grounds came as Mr Clarke - the party's most senior pro-European - gained 15 of the available extra votes, as against an extra 11 for Mr Redwood.
While some Redwood supporters last night confirmed they would switch to Mr Hague in the final ballot, one leading Euro-sceptic, Mrs Teresa Gorman, dismissed Mr Hague as "too young and inexperienced", and said the party needed "a heavy hitter" for its period in opposition.
Mr Edward Leigh, a close ally of Mr Redwood, said he was "genuinely undecided" as to who he would vote for.
These indications - together with his success in the second ballot, and his retained lead in the consultative survey of constituency chairmen, MEPs and key voluntary workers - last night spared Mr Clarke the risk that support could start to flow from him if Mr Hague appeared the certain victor.
Mr Clarke meanwhile, backed by Mr Michael Heseltine and Sir Norman Fowler, cast himself as the unity candidate for the final ballot, amid continuing criticisms of Mr Hague's perceived shifts on European policy and his apparent readiness to exclude from his shadow cabinet anyone declining to rule out British membership of the Single Currency in the life of the present or next parliament.
Signalling that for some at least Europe might not prove the defining issue, Mrs Gorman told her colleagues last night to stop behaving as if they were still in government.
And Mr Clarke was first off the mark in a determined bid to see if he could secure Mr Redwood's help in forging a cohesive Conservative opposition. As Mr Heseltine confirmed there would be a place for Mr Redwood in a Clarke shadow cabinet, Mr Redwood said he now had "a very difficult decision to make".
Heading for a night of heavy political brokerage, Mr Redwood declared: "I said to people, don't vote tactically. In the third round, of course, it is very important to vote for the best of the pair." Asked how he would vote, Mr Redwood replied: "I don't know. I am going to talk to my team, talk to my constituents."