Clarke prepares for his speech...

Chatting with Lobbydog earlier Ken Clarke sought to play down any division among the Tories over sentencing policy.

There has been much written over Clarke's view that shorter sentences don't stop re-offending - and that it might be useful to look at community punishments as a replacement.

How could there be division over policy, was his tricky defence, when there weren’t any policies yet? A review still had to be carried out to form the policy and any division reported had merely been spun by the media.

Clarke said that he had probably received more criticism from ex-Labour ministers, like Alan Johnson, rather than the right of his own party.

Far be it from me to ‘spin’ something into your minds, so I’ll leave you to make up your own decisions on what to think of that.

But tomorrow we will really see what the rank and file Tories think of his rhetoric during his speech. I’ll be in the main hall checking my clapometre.