Editing John Redwood (section)

===Leadership contests===
When [[John Major]] called upon his critics to "put up or shut up" and tendered his resignation to allow for a leadership challenge, Redwood resigned from the Cabinet, and stood against Major in the subsequent [[1995 Conservative Party leadership election|party leadership election]] on 26 June 1995.<ref>{{cite news|title=Conservative Party Leadership Election 1995|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/politics97/leadership/lead95.shtml|access-date=13 November 2017|publisher=BBC|date=1997}}</ref> In the ballot held on 4 July 1995, Redwood received 89 votes, around a quarter of the then Parliamentary Party. Major received 218 votes, or two thirds of the parliamentary party vote. ''[[The Sun (United Kingdom)|The Sun]]'' newspaper had declared its support for Redwood in the run up to the leadership contest, running the front-page headline "Redwood versus Deadwood".<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/pm-assails-malcontent-redwood-1588458.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220613/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/pm-assails-malcontent-redwood-1588458.html |archive-date=13 June 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live | location=London | work=The Independent | first1=Donald | last1=Macintyre | first2=Colin | last2=Brown | date=27 June 1995 | title=PM assails 'malcontent' Redwood}}</ref>

When Major resigned as party leader following the General Election defeat of May 1997, Redwood stood in the resulting [[1997 Conservative Party leadership election|election for the leadership]], and was again defeated. After being defeated in the third round with 38 votes to [[Kenneth Clarke]]'s 64 and [[William Hague]]'s 62, Redwood backed Clarke against Hague.<ref>{{cite news|title=John Redwood|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/politics97/leadership/redwood.shtml|access-date=13 November 2017|work=BBC News|date=1997}}</ref>