Yet another Tory leadership contest!

[Ben.]

Word is that some Davis supporters are getting cold feet and Cameron is really improving his position and standing.

I don't buy that Clark would hurt Labour in the long run in a huge way, Davis would probably be more of the same with slow reform and improvement for the party, Cameron is a huge risk but might just be their best bet, excellent speech the other day (as was Clark's)... all in all very impressive but perhaps its too soon for him, certainly he seems to have recovered from his earlier set backs and Davis is stumbling.
 

Clarke!

I'd have had you down as a Cameron supporter.

[afleitch]

Cameron really, really wowed me with his speech. Even my Labour supporting mother; a teacher agreed with his condemnation of the education system. Clarke to me seems still to be the most likely banner carrier for the 'left' of the party, If however Cameron emerged victorious I would be a pleased as punch. He is a fantastic orator and a sound individual.

My own order of preference:

1. Ken Clarke
2. David Cameron (and catching up)
3. Malcolm Rifkind
4. Any other challenger from the One Nation wing who throws in their hat
5. David Davis
6. Liam Fox (He wants to tinker with abortion limits)

[Democratic Hawk]

When I hear Liam Fox banging on about the Conservative Party not shaking off their past and then banging on about Labour's "broken society", I'm rather bemused bearing in mind Margaret Thatcher famously 'abolished', or rather said there was no such thing as society. So I'm afraid, until such time as Fox repudiates Thatcher and the 1980s, he's talking a load of bullsh**t. And his opponents should be beating him up on it

Incidently, I got round to hearing Davis' speech. Strewth, I'm not surprised the race is wide open. I'd have went to sleep as well. Could we have two "moderniser's" on the final ballot or will Davis waverers switch to Fox? Politicians can be fickle, especially rats on a sinking ship

If I were a committed Conservative Party member, I'd support Cameron without question

Dave

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Fox is a hypocrite, always has been. After all, this former GP was one of the Tory MP's that helped to filibuster a certain private members bill on disability rights...

[Michael Z]

Fox wants to create a mainstream evangelical right in this country, not dissimilar to the religious right in the states. And just as Dem Hawk and Al said, he's an absolute hypocrite. He basically represents everything people have come to dislike about the Tories.

[afleitch]

Fox's father, a teacher taught my mother French at school and my aunt was at univeristy with him when he trained as a GP. Hence we have a family dislike for him!

[Joe Republic]

When do we find out the winner?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

When do we find out the winner?

November I think

[Democratic Hawk]

So what do we have when all is said and done then:

A] Cameron, Clarke and Rifkind representing the modernising or even the traditional 'One Nation' brand of conservatism

B] Davis appealing to the centre-right and Fox appealing to the right [i.e. the more Thatcherite brand]

Chances are the contest will feature one from A] and one from B] and I have a gut instinct that Cameron is gaining ground on Clarke and Fox is gaining ground on Davis. Rifkind's out of it. I'm not making any prediction as yet

Come 2009 and Labour's fourth successive electoral victory, my money's on William Hague, who seems to have outshone the whole lot of 'em

Dave

[Peter]

When do we find out the winner?

According to Wikipedia, the timetable is as follows:
    * 7 October Nominations open
    * 14 October Nominations close
    * 18 October First ballot of MPs
    * 20 October Second ballot of MPs
    * Subsequent Tuesdays and Thurdays - Further ballots of MPs until only two candidates remain
    * 5 December Members' ballot closes
    * 6 December Result announced

[afleitch]

On 'This Week' Michael Portillo suggests that we could end up with Clarke v Cameron

[Dave from Michigan]

I know 2009 is far off but do any of these candidates even have a chance at leading the conservatives to victory, you need like 330ish for a majority and if i recall they have around 200.

[Jake]

Clarke's been mentioned from the limited amount I've read, but even then...

The Brits can handle this one better than I can.

[Peter]

I know 2009 is far off but do any of these candidates even have a chance at leading the conservatives to victory, you need like 330ish for a majority and if i recall they have around 200.

In short, he may not be able to make the strict majority, but anything approaching 300 and you can basically guarantee that the Tories are the plurality party. Then either the Tories go into coalition with the Lib Dems, or do as they did in 96/7 and come to some arrangement with the Unionists.

Soon enough I'll start going over what seats are winnable from all three directions, so once I'm done with that I should be able to give you a better answer.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

O/c it's going to be harder for the Tories to gain more than a few seats next election than it was last one due to the boundary changes. Basically they are going to gain 10 to 20 seats notionally but have their hopes screwed in so, so many others... have a look at the new map for Northants

[Јas]

On 'This Week' Michael Portillo suggests that we could end up with Clarke v Cameron

He said that the Davis camp were reporting to have the backing of 66MPs, and certainly had more besides.
He also said that Cameron had around 28, Clarke around 22, with 60/70 unknowns.

From that I understood that Davis was still probably safe, at the minute, within the party, and so make the second round.

I didn't see any of the speeches or the conference, however from the general media vibe, particularly last night's Question Time and This Week, it seems that while Davis failed to impress he has solid and strong core support within the parliamentary party, and the Cameron really impressed in the conference, impressing ordinary party members and politics watchers generally. Will it be enough? As yet unclear.

BTW, did anyone else see David Starkey on Question Time calling Douglas Alexander a "stupid little twit" (or words to that effect)?

[minionofmidas]

Doesn't have to be one of these three...but apparently they are the only ones out of the trap yet?

[Јas]

Doesn't have to be one of these three...but apparently they are the only ones out of the trap yet?

Outside these three, the only other one to keep an eye on is Fox, who is liekly to eat into Davis's support.

Rifkind is also declared but a rank outsider.

[Peter]

O/c it's going to be harder for the Tories to gain more than a few seats next election than it was last one due to the boundary changes. Basically they are going to gain 10 to 20 seats notionally but have their hopes screwed in so, so many others... have a look at the new map for Northants

Do we have any idea of when the wonks will produce a notional set of results as they did pre-97 and pre-05 for Scotland?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Do we have any idea of when the wonks will produce a notional set of results as they did pre-97 and pre-05 for Scotland?

Quite a while; the new map for Greater Manchester will only be finished in just under a year IIRC.
Mind you, a lot of Rallings and Thrasher's notional results for the new Scottish seats and the current UK seats were terrible so

A lot of people have been giving it a bit of a go themselves, often making sooooo many mistakes it's not funny; part of the problem is the fact that results for General Elections are not released by ward (I do know roughly how a couple of wards in the West Midlands voted, but none of that is even close to being official) so they have to use local elections. Voting patterns for local elections are o/c very, very different to General Elections in some areas... a lot of wishful thinking going on as well.

[Ben.]

O/c it's going to be harder for the Tories to gain more than a few seats next election than it was last one due to the boundary changes. Basically they are going to gain 10 to 20 seats notionally but have their hopes screwed in so, so many others... have a look at the new map for Northants

Do we have any idea of when the wonks will produce a notional set of results as they did pre-97 and pre-05 for Scotland?

Anthony Wells’ now does the YouGov polling sites’ webblog, but before that he had a blog of his own and produced a very detailed and impressive analysis of what the notional result for the various seats would be based both on the 05 general election results and the local election results in those areas… he had Labour’s majority down to about 45-50 I seem to remember.

Interesting fact is that the new Sheffield Central Seat will be notionally a LibDem seat, based on local elections with all the Labour seats losing their LibDem wards and areas to it… some other strange new seats emerging too.

As for the Tory leadership race, With Fox they’d get a disaster IMHO, more of the same at best but baring a Labour collapse nothing more, with Davis I think you’d have pretty lackusta leadership and again more of the same, with Clark you’d see progress but new problems might present themselves, with Cameron you’d get new problems as well but against a Brown lead Labour Party both Cameron and Clark could win and I think of the two Cameron would be very very well placed.           

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Anthony Wells’ now does the YouGov polling sites’ webblog, but before that he had a blog of his own and produced a very detailed and impressive analysis of what the notional result for the various seats would be based both on the 05 general election results and the local election results in those areas… he had Labour’s majority down to about 45-50 I seem to remember.

It was impressive for sure... but also very innacurate in places

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Yes, it would have been... but Labour was able to change the seat back to it's normal self (more or less) in the inquiry that always goes with the boundary review. IIRC the LibDems weren't happy either as it made Hallam into a marginal
The boundary commision do throw up some decidedly dodgy seats each review; they usually get killed in the inquiry, but not always. In Havering they tried to gerrymander Rosindell out by adding the Harold Hill estate to Romford and taking out some more middle class areas. Sadly he spotted it and it was changed back in the review...

[Јas]

Inspired by Democratic Hawk and the US Presidency 2008,
Here are Paddy Power's odds on the Tory leadership.

David Cameron   5 - 6   
 
David Davis   13 - 8   
 
Ken Clarke   9 - 2   
 
Liam Fox   12 - 1   
 
Malcolm Rifkind   80 - 1 

[Michael Z]

Fox's father, a teacher taught my mother French at school and my aunt was at univeristy with him when he trained as a GP. Hence we have a family dislike for him!

Well, at last we agree on something.

[Democratic Hawk]

Apparently, Davis is losing support from waverers to both Cameron and Fox

Dave