Ken Clarke - loose cannon?

Following Ken Clarke's comments at the weekend about inheritance tax (he said that fulfilling their pledge on reducing the threshold was not one of their main economic goals) Iain Dale has said that it is a minor gaffe, he should just concede so and move on.

That is fair enough as far as it goes but it does demonstrate what I referred to a couple of months ago, that he is not exactly in lock-step with the Cameron leadership.

Dale also says that Clarke was not quite up to speed with the fact that the IHT policy was actually a commitment and not just a pledge. It's not really good enough though for a senior party grandee who has been brought back to the front-bench to add weight and gravitas to not be fully up to speed with policies that he then goes onto national TV to discuss. I have heard in the past that Ken Clarke is considered to be lazy by some of his colleagues. If the Tories are serious about vying for power, they cannot allow any of their front-benchers to have the charge of being lazy sticking to them. I certainly don't think that charge could be applied to any of the Lib Dem front-bench although we of course suffer from not getting as much coverage as the other two main parties (Vince Cable excepted at the moment!).

I originally thought bringing Clarke back was a good move on Cameron's part but now I am not so sure. I suspect it will only take one or two more gaffes like this before he is sidelined.