Kenneth Clarke's bid for the Tory leadership is backed by the cigarette industry and the businessman behind "Bob the builder" whose motto is "can he fix it?".

Clarke's largest backer is Nat Purim, a Nottingham based cigarette paper manufacturer who has given £25,000, and second largest is a £10,000 donation form Peter Orton whose HIT Entertainment owns the intellectual property rights for children's cult cartoon, and unintended gay icon, "Bob the builder".

Former British American Tobacco's chairman, Sir Patrick Sheehy gave £1500 and leading eurosceptic Lord Harris gave £2500.

Iain Duncan Smith says he will pre-empt Labour plans to portray him as an extremist with an early declaration of "common ground" if he wins the Tory leadership race.