Ken Clarke calls on May and Shapps to rein in ‘spatting entourages’

The Tory chairman, Grant Shapps, and Theresa May’s special advisers are guilty of allowing “a little spat between themselves” to make the headlines, the former chancellor Ken Clarke has said.

As a veteran of Tory battles dating back decades, Clarke advised the party chairman and home secretary to rein in their “entourages” which he described as “quite entertainingly newsworthy”.

The remarks by Clarke, who became the most senior Tory to acknowledge tensions after two of the home secretary’s special advisers were suspended from the list of approved parliamentary candidates, came amid reports that May is pressing for a toughening of rules to remove foreign students from the UK after they complete their courses.

The Sunday Times reported that the home secretary wants the Conservatives to include a commitment in their manifesto that would force students from outside the EU to leave the UK and apply for a new visa from abroad once they have completed their degree. The proposal is likely to face serious questions from the Treasury and Department for Business, Innovation & Skills, which believe Britain can benefit if highly skilled overseas graduates are allowed to enter the UK job market after completing their degrees.

Clarke, who is likely to side with the Treasury, nevertheless praised May as one of the cabinet’s heavyweights. But the former chancellor advised the home secretary and Downing Street to calm tensions after Grant suspended two of May’s special advisers, Nick Timothy and Stephen Parkinson, from the list of approved parliamentary candidates.

Shapps, who is understood to have secured the full approval of Downing Street, acted after Timothy and Parkinson declined to take part in telephone canvassing during the recent Rochester and Strood byelection on the grounds that this was against the rules for special advisers. Tory sources, who said the rules were changed last year to allow special advisers to take part, pointed out that Timothy had helped out in the Newark byelection in the summer.

Clarke said of the briefings and counter-briefings by the Shapps and May camps: “I don’t complain. It’s quite entertainingly newsworthy but somebody should stop all their entourage falling out with each other. The relations between the people themselves are good.

“Theresa is one of the strongest ministers in the government. Any prime minister – and David is very sensible about this – accepts he wants strong ministers at the top of his government. The entourage seem to be having a little spat between themselves.”

Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, criticised May’s plan to toughen the visa rules for poeple who have recently graduated overseas. Cooper said: “More does need to be done to stop people overstaying illegally when their visas run out – whether they arrived on student visas, work visas or tourist visas. But the answer to that isn’t to prevent highly skilled overseas graduates getting legal work visas to fill shortages in fields like science or medicine here.”