Mark Clarke: Tories did not want disgraced former candidate to win marginal Tooting seat

Exclusive: Tory central office celebrated when he lost to Labour’s Sadiq Khan

Mark Clarke, founder of the RoadTrip campaign (Camera Press)

Senior figures in the Conservative Party viewed Mark Clarke as such a serious risk that they secretly willed the disgraced former candidate and activist to lose the marginal Tooting seat in the 2010 general election, party insiders claim.

Several sources told The Independent that Tory central office was so desperate for the “Tatler Tory” not to become an MP that it calculated the voting swing required to win nationally without the vital South London constituency – and celebrated when he lost to Labour’s Sadiq Khan.

The suggestion that awareness of Mr Clarke’s reputation had reached the highest levels more than five years ago challenges the Conservative Party’s insistence that it only became aware of allegations against Mr Clarke in August of this year.

Since the suicide in September of Elliot Johnson, 21, an activist who volunteered as part of Mr Clarke’s Road Trip election campaign, dozens of activists have complained to the party about bullying, blackmail and extortion by Mr Clarke. Mr Johnson accused him of bullying in a suicide note.

Mr Clarke, 38, a consultant at Unilever, denies all the allegations and is not commenting until the conclusion of an inquest into Mr Johnson’s death.

Blame for his re-entry to the Tories has fallen on the former party chairman Grant Shapps, who brought him into central office as director of the Road Trip campaign in July last year, in a move that is said to have baffled many in the party.

Grant Shapps brought Marl Clarke into central office as director of the Road Trip campaign in July 2014 (Getty)

It has also emerged that former Conservative chairman Baroness Warsi complained to Mr Shapps about Mr Clarke’s behaviour in January this year. Other complaints are said to date back much further, but the party has said it has no record of complaints made before August.

Elliot Johnson’s father Ray has urged the Prime Minister to “take control” of the party’s investigation.

“I think he has to accept Conservative headquarters is failing and it’s time he stepped in and banged a few heads together,” he told the Evening Standard.

In the run-up to the 2010 election, David Cameron was said to have disapproved of Mr Clarke’s public image, and in particular a 2008 profile in Tatler, the society magazine.

Concern also built up in the local party. Mr Clarke was reportedly involved in an altercation in a pub with a senior member of the Tooting Conservative Association.

One insider said that there were concerns in the party about Mr Clarke’s “close relationship” with a right-wing political gossip blog.

Yet the failed candidate’s links with Conservative Future, the party youth wing, made him a valuable campaigner. His Road Trip project, which involved bussing activists to target seats, was seen as a success, earning him an invitation to tea at Mr Cameron’s Chequers country house in September. The event was later cancelled.

A Conservative spokesperson declined to add to the party’s earlier statements about its awareness of Mr Clarke’s behaviour. Unilever declined to comment when asked if it had concerns about the allegations.