Tory Leadership race begins

[HStorm]

For the first time in God-knows, the Conservative Party's contribution proved to be the highlight of the conference season. This is not to say it was enthralling or ground-breaking stuff, but at least something happened, which is more than can be said at the other two conferences (Wolfhgang incident apart - and that's something the Labour party didn't want to happen anyway).

Chiefly, Michael Howard formally resigned as leader of the Tories, and the hopelessly-ironically-named "beauty pageant" of contenders for his successor began. There were two very interesting developments.

Firstly and most significantly, the standout front-runner to date, hard-line Thatcherite David Davis, had a real stinker as his speech proved to be a drab, poorly-delivered litter bin of cliches and nothing-speak. All the other speeches were nothing-speak as well of course - 'tis the nature of the beast we call 'politics' - but several of them were far more engaging performances. Ken Clarke definitely made up a lot of ground with his typically sparkling, polished oratory, showing all his experience and character. But the other big development was that a third major contender - perhaps the long-awaited new golden boy of the Conservative Party - emerged to deliver perhaps the most unexpected gem of a speech we've heard all year.

David Cameron is Eton-educated, son of a stockbroker, and husband to a baronet's daughter, so he doesn't sound like he's exactly a radical breakaway from the Tory stereotype.

But he's also young (just 38), has a certain charm (which may come across as sickly, but hey, it works for Tony Blair), appears to have some new ideas (although he's been careful not to articulate them too clearly), and most of all manages to pull off the rare trick of appearing dynamic and confrontational without being macho (which is certainly something a lot of other Tory leader-elects of recent times, especially Davis, would have done well to learn).

Cameron talks of modernising the party in ways that simply make its program more relevant to what happens to the country today rather than what happened in the 1970's, which would be an important step. Whether he can manage that without making the same mistake William Hague and Iain Duncan-Smith made before him of trying to appear effective by being as right-wing as possible, well, that remains to be seen.

Is Cameron the dark horse of the race? Could he be the one who can finally guide the Tories onto new ground, instead of being yet another leader to resort to building campaigns on xenophobic 1950's prejudices? And even if he doesn't make it this time, is there reason to be confident that he will be a key player in the Tories' hopes for a better future?

[Naselus]

Well, Cameron's lost a lot of face now, as he refuses to comment on whether he's tried class A drugs.

We all know what that means. When a politician 'refuses to confirm or deny' any negative allegation, it means he spent his college years wearing a sarong and claiming to be Jesus H Christ, in between injecting mescaline into his genitalia.

However, since 30% of the UK's population seem to have spent their college years doing exactly the same thing, this may be a bonus to young David, if he succeeds in his leadership bid. Perhaps the Tories can finally escape from their fuddy-duddy useless image... if the fuddy-duddy majority of them can be convince to put a young pro-drugs hippy in charge of their party. Unfortunately, I doubt that they will, probably choosing Davis or Clarke and almost certainly continuing to decline.

[HStorm]

Well, the big news (literally seeing who we're talking about) is that Ken Clarke is out of the race, eliminated with a disappointing 38 votes in the first ballot.

David Davis came top with 62 votes, followed by David Cameron on 56 and Liam Fox on 42. Interestingly, this is actually quite disappointing news for Davis as well, as it was already declared beforehand that he had much the same number of MPs voting for him, which means he swayed hardly any of the undecideds during the run-up.

For Cameron, by contrast, the news is terrific. His support has surged from the 20-odd he had early on, and as he must be confident of getting a far larger second-ballot slice of the leftist vote that had gone to Clarke than the other two, he must be considered the man in the driving seat for the Tory leadership.

Right-winger Fox can also smile at a creditable showing, but I can't help feeling this was about as good as it was ever going to get for him. He shouldn't be seen as unimportant at stage two though, as his support is likely to split the Davis vote further.

[HStorm]

Wow, what a thumping result for David Cameron!

Taking a whopping 90 of a possible 198 votes, Cameron is now light years in front. Frighteningly for David Davis meanwhile, his support has regressed still further. His announced support for the first ballot was 66, but dipped to 62. He is now a distant second in ballot 2 on just 57. Liam Fox meanwhile has been eliminated after gaining a very respectable 51 votes, just slightly behind Davis.

A six-week head-to-head campaign will now begin between Cameron and Davis to settle the matter once and for all in a 300,000 ballot of all party members round the country.

Things have gone so terrfically for Cameron he must be supremely confident. However, one note of caution, and it's a serious one. Davis is a right-winger. So is Fox. Most of Fox's supporters will have been right-wingers as well, and therefore most of them are likely to switch to Davis; most who choose not to will probably vote against him because of personal dislike of him. In any case, the great bulk of the voters in the final ballot have not been consulted at all so far, and so things could go enormously differently.

My suspicion is it won't though - the impression I get is that Cameron's popularity round the wider Conservative Party is even more pronounced than it is among Tory MPs.

So it's a phenomenal week for David Cameron, and he's in with a fantastic chance of winning now, but it's not over yet.

[Thanatos]

www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1598988,00.html suggests that Cameron is not as moderate as some make him out to be.

Anyway, rejecting Clarke was suicidally idiotic, even more so than Michael Howard's resignation. I recently read a suggestion, from Bruce Anderson of the Indie, I think, that the latter was a ploy to get Cameron to the top as Howard saw that he could make the party great. This seems both far-fetched and premature to me, but even if it is true, wouldn't it have made more sense for Howard to avoid this embarrassing palava by staying on, gradually promoting Cameron until by the next election he was Shadow Chancellor and Deputy Leader and then resigning after either losing the 2009/10 election or ending his term as Prime Minister in 20013/14/15 - with Cameron poised to take over?

And, from today's letters to the Indie:

"A General Election campaign to elect nearly 650 MPs, and involving nearly 30 million voters, is conducted in 17 working days. Why does the Conservative Party need six weeks for its 300,000 members to choose between just two candidates?"

[HStorm]

thanatos said:

www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1598988,00.html suggests that Cameron is not as moderate as some make him out to be.

Well in fact, I haven't seen much indication from anywhere which wing of the party he is on. As I mentioned in the opening post, he's been very careful not to articulate his views in too much detail at all, and his background doesn't exactly make him working class.

It's also worth mentioning that Cameron was a member of Norman Lamont's team at the Treasury during 1993 - Black Wednesday and all that - so his record in office has its blemishes.

But given what they've had to put up with about themselves over the last ten years, it's hard to deny that his comparative energy and (hopefully) more open mind is probably what the Tories need, if only to get away from the perennial "ancient-sticks-in-the-mud" stereotype that they've been lumbered with. What his policies prove to be like if and when he gets into power is almost a secondary issue for them.

[HStorm]

*Sighs* Will they ever learn?

As usual, the far right of the Tory party can offer no soloution to any of the country's problems except more of the same. As such, their candidate in the leadership election has resorted to one of the tried-and-failed approaches; no policy on solving the woes of the NHS, or the asylum backlog, or the shortage of police on the streets, or the increasingly horrific traffic congestion in our cities, or the spreading damage to the environment, or the ailing education standards throughout the country...

...exce-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-ept...

Can you guess?

You're riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight!!!! David Davis has promised that if he were to become Prime Minister, his highest priority policy would be... a tax cut.

His pledge involves something even more pie-in-the-sky than his predecessors, something in the region of £38 billion per year. How he is to achieve this, he says, is not by cutting services, but by "slower growth in public spending". As growth in spending means he'll be spending more, I don't see how this can lead to a tax cut, unless he actually means he'll be reducing public spending, which would mean that he has flatly contradicted himself in the same sentence. Nice own goal there. In any case, as I mentioned above, and on numerous other occasions on this forum, it's not going to win him much support as there are other matters that are a higher priority to the wider public, like all the ones I mentioned above.

David Cameron's response was somewhat critical of Davis' attitude. "The Conservative Party will never convince people that we can be trusted to run the economy if all we talk about is cutting taxes and cutting spending. That's not an economic policy, that's a tax policy. Tax is a vital part of economic policy - but it is only a part."

Which is a good way of summing up the problem with Davis' narrow attitude. However, let's not be scathing in only one direction. At least, Davis has managed to put forward a firm policy pledge, no matter how illogical and unworkable it so far sounds. That's one thing in his favour that cannot be said for Cameron, who up to this point has offered nothing clear in the way of solid policy ideas at all.

[Naselus]

Say what you like, Cameron's definately moved ahead in my opinion, simply because he's capable of seeing why the Tories are such a pathetic laughing stock. He's their only real hope; but are the party members too tight-fisted and anacronistic to choose a man who not only might have taken drugs prior to becoming an MP, but also hasn't promised to lower their taxes if he gets into government?

[ringmasterrob]

Did anyone see David Cameron's 'Keep it real' interview? I had a feeling that could turn into a major embarrassment but he pulled it off rather well. If Davis wins it only shows just how little the Tory party has changed over the last eight years. Cameron is certainly looking like a Tory Tony, he's young and seems to appeal to the media a fair bit at the moment. Whether or not his policies are up speed (no drugs jokes intended) remains to be seen...

[HStorm]

To be honest, I winced watching excerpts of that interview. There's a difference between coming into the modern world and looking like someone who's afraid of growing old, and I just wish some politicians would realise that; remember William Hague in the baseball cap? Yeesh!

[HStorm]

There's a live debate between the two candidates on Question Time on BBC1 tomorrow night. Audiences in excess of twelve people are expected to tune in...

[HStorm]

Whom do people feel won the debate on Thursday?

I thought it was close-run, largely because there's so little distinction between the standpoints of the two candidates, but Davis edged it as he made fewer errors.

[Naselus]

From what I saw, Davis definately had control over the debate, steering it far better than Cameron and showing his greater experience. Cameron stood firm, but never seemed quite capable of wrestling the initiative from his opponent.

[HStorm]

More credit to the resurgent Davis. He has come up with another firm policy pledge, and one that - get this - actually makes some sense. As PM, he would ban Scottish, Welsh and Irish MP's from voting on exclusively English matters in the House of Commons. A sensible, just policy, I would say, and one that won't upset any of his natural allies, seeing there are hardly any Tories left on the Celtic fringe these days.

[HStorm]

Well, folks, the result is expected around 3pm tomorrow. Who do we believe has the upper hand at the crucial stage?

I think Cameron still has a slight edge, but there's no doubt that over the last six weeks, Davies has made up quite a lot of ground.

[ringmasterrob]

I guess I'm the only person here who still cannot stand David Davis...

[HStorm]

Don't misunderstand me, Rob. I'm not sure any of us can stand Davis, but when making an impartial assessment of the campaign, there's no denying that he's made fewer mistakes over the last six weeks than Cameron, and has also been more positive and clearer on what his aims are (no matter how outdated and feeble-minded they have turned out to be).

While I'm perfectly prepared to acknowledge that he's done far better since the campaign went 'head-to-head', it certainly doesn't mean I've grown to like him or want him to win. He is another Tory stick-in-the-mud who doesn't realise that the policies that were perhaps necessary in 1981 are not relevant anymore.

[ringmasterrob]

Well whatever happens we will know who the new leader is at around 5pm this afternoon...

[HStorm]

The new leader has been announced and it is, probably for the best, David Cameron.

It was in fact a landslide, a far wider margin than I'd expected. Cameron thrashed the guts out of Davis by 134,446 votes to 64,398, more than double Davis' total.

Well done to Cameron, a reward for being by far the quickest out the blocks, and for being the one who was prepared to leave Thatcherism behind (apparently).

[ringmasterrob]

Well his victory speech was quite interesting, obviously at this stage it's easy to get caught up in all the waffle of a 'new conservatism' but Cameron does seem to be the most electable Tory leader in recent years. I'm looking forward to Prime Minister's Questions today, Cameron says he wants to get away from 'Punch and Judy' politics but politics doesn't get much more Punch and Judy than PM's Questions. Any speculations on the new shadow cabinet?

So far I've heard the following (mostly speculation)

Leader: David Cameron
Shadow Chancellor: George Osborne
Shadow Home Secretary: David Davis (possibly)
Shadow Foreign Secretary: William Hague
Chief Whip: Patrick McLoughlin (confirmed)

Others: Oliver Letwin, Michael Gove, Ed Vaizey, Boris Johnson

There could be quite a drastic reshuffle to come as well as a policy announcement coming up later today. So, looks like we're in for a busy Christmas season...

[ringmasterrob]

Well, here are the key job appointments so far:

Leader: David Cameron
Chancellor: George Osborne
Foreign: William Hague
Home secretary: David Davis
Party chairman: Francis Maude
Defence: Liam Fox
Education: David Willetts
Commons leader: Theresa May
Constitutional affairs: Oliver Heald

Did anyone see PM's questions? There's some debate over whether David Cameron came across as confident or arrogant. Not to mention his slur on Blair 'he was the future once' very true of course, but perhaps a little more Punch and Judy than he had promised. It certainly surprised Blair when Cameron offered to work together on the educational white paper! Is he going to kill Blair with kindness? or will we be back to Punch and Judy in January?

All very good questions of course, it's still far too early to make a full judgment on David Cameron just yet of course but it's interesting how he performed in PM's questions and his appointments so far including the likes of William Hague, Ken Clarke, David Davis, Liam Fox et al certainly suggest he's trying to make the most of the party's talents. Plus I have to say kudos to him for sending Rifkind back to the back benches! An interesting point was made by none other than Michael Portillo on 'This Week' last night, he said that if Cameron fails to deliver results at the next General Election the party could be totally sunk. With Cameron they have made a very big gamble, putting all their eggs in one Old Etonian basket, it could go very wrong for them.

[Thanatos]

It says a lot about the state of the Conservative Party that the return of William Hague to the front bench is lauded as a great source of hope.

[HStorm]

And how little the Tories can smile about when a pair of yeltzes like George Osborne and David Willetts can be seen as men of heavyweight talent. Still, the change of direction they have taken means they have more to smile about now than they did a year ago, and I guess a journey of a thousand miles has to start with a single step.

You are quite correct, Rob, that Cameron's staged aggressive speaking at the despatch box suggests that he'll be as prone to Punch-And-Judy posing as any Opposition Leader of the past, but it was only his first time out, so we should give him a chance. If nothing else, he's provided the Tories with some much needed vigour.

[ringmasterrob]

I was quite surprised to read on the BBC that several polls, taken by both newspapers and independent organisations seem to suggest that if a general election were called tomorrow the Tories would probably win. Albeit the reliability of these polls is sometimes suspect, plus they only indicate a minority government but it surprises me that the electorate can be this fickle. After all Cameron hasn't even finished unveiling all his policies and had only had one outing at PM's questions, yet already people seem to be rallying for him to run the country. Are we as a nation getting a little caught up in the Tory euphoria?

[HStorm]

Not necessarily. Remember that Labour got the lowest ever proportion of eligible voters on their side at the last election - just 25%. I suspect the majority of the people who have swung over to the Tories probably abstained last time. We should indeed reserve judgement on Cameron until he's had some time in charge, but the main reason why there's been un upswing in interest in the Tories is just that something has actually changed in the way they're doing things, while New Labour, since the election, has given us just more of the same underachievement and disappointment. Indeed, what with the Blunkett business, we could even argue that it's not just more of the same, but they have allowed history to repeat itself almost exactly.