The five rivals in the Conservative leadership contest today face a rerun of the first-round ballot of MPs, with political horse-trading continuing until the final minutes before polls close.
The 166 Conservative MPs voting for the next Tory leader will return to a Commons committee room and vote once more, after Tuesday's first-round ballot unexpectedly produced a tie for last place.
Speculation that the former party chairman, Mr Michael Ancram, might withdraw from the race after he tied with Mr David Davis on 21 votes were dismissed yesterday as he bullishly declared he could unite the party. If Mr Ancram and Mr Davis tie again, then both candidates will be eliminated.
The contenders yesterday were busy working out the calculations needed to get their names onto the second-round ballot next week. Mr Kenneth Clarke's camp can expect to pick up some of Mr Ancram's supporters if he is eliminated, but he is unlikely to steal any of Mr Davis's votes when his supporters can choose between right-wing candidates Mr Michael Portillo and Mr Iain Duncan Smith. Mr Portillo is again expected to emerge as the front-runner.
As Mr Ancram insisted his campaign had the momentum to "pull the party together", Mr Portillo, who topped the poll with 49 votes, declared his lead in the leadership race was "very satisfactory" despite securing less than a third of the available votes.
In the House of Commons, Labour took a swipe at the Conservatives over the battle for last place between Mr Ancram and Mr Davis. The Leader of the Commons, Mr Robin Cook, suggested that the shadow home secretary, Ms Ann Widdecombe, might "come to the aid" of her party.
"I see the press have been comparing the Tory leadership election to Big Brother," he said, teasing the opposition benches. "That, I think, is unfair to Big Brother. At least when they have a vote in Big Brother somebody gets kicked out."
With Conservative Euro-sceptic MPs pledging their support for Mr Duncan Smith, the leader of the party's MEPs, Mr Edward McMillan-Scott, insisted that preliminary rounds should be abandoned and all five candidates put to an immediate open ballot of party members.
"I believe the party at large would like to have a say on all five," he said. "I think it is quite clear from the way that the press are reporting this contest that it is not going terribly well. I don't want the party to be humiliated."
But the shadow environment secretary, Mr Archie Norman, warned that it would be a grave mistake to remove MPs from the election process. "To argue that we should have a leader of the party who is incapable of commanding any significant level of support in the parliamentary party is surely a simply disastrous idea."
The Labour Government, meanwhile, was fiercely criticised after two senior Labour MPs were sacked from their chairmanships of influential Commons select committees. The two, Ms Gwyneth Dunwoody and Mr Donald Anderson, have both criticised the reduction of parliament's powers under Labour.