The Conservative Party Leadership Election - 2005 Widescreen Edition

10:41 / 18.10.05

I tend towards the opinion that Hague had entirely the wrong people around him (Amanda Platell). My sweetie is very fond of the Save the Pound campaign and often quotes Hague at that time and in hindsight I often find myself thinking that it was ultimately his downfall because it was rather like watching an absurd piece of street theatre. All of that 'man of the people' stuff in comparison to his performance at the age of 16 at the conference. They just played the election campaign completely wrong and assumed that people were ignorant of William Hague, which would be a shame if he were a decent human being. As it is he's a good politician and an eloquent speaker and they marketed him as an idiot because of his accent. Very poorly done.

Lysander Stark

10:46 / 18.10.05

I remember a strange poll that was done in which members of the public were shown clips of PMQ, usually ones in which Hague trounced Blair. And yet for some reason, the members of the public almost unanimously thought that Blair had come out on top. I felt sorry for him-- a good and, according to some, even brilliant political mind, now tainted by his time as leader, which was mistakenly portrayed and now erroneously remembered as a complete disaster. It was the administration of his leadership that was really the disaster. The Tories did show a complete lack of understanding of the situation.

One wonders if they are about to do the same again. Only a few hours before we find out which way the party is heading and who has been lopped off at the first hurdle...

sleazenation

11:45 / 18.10.05

There are a great number of fantastically intelligent people in the parlimentary conservative party - very few of them have any kind of chance of leading either their party or the country however. A situation that has been equaly true of labour...

12:40 / 18.10.05

I think that it could be revealed that BAT was responsible for the rise of Stalin and the Conservative party wouldn't care. Although issues haven't played a big part in the public side of this issue it seems no-one in the party is fooled by Ken suddenly deciding on less than wholehearted support for the European project.

15:40 / 18.10.05

Clarke's out, I continue to think that Cameron's going to win this but, dare I say it, Davis only lost 4 MPs from his original 66- are the Tories going to do it again?

15:48 / 18.10.05

1. David Davis came top with 62 votes,
2. David Cameron on 56
3. Liam Fox on 42.
4. Ken Clarke, 38.

But the BBC are pointing out that David Davis's support has nosedived. Of course, the nightmare scenario is that Davis and Fox do a deal.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

16:10 / 18.10.05

Nosedived by 4 MP's. A bit of an over-exaggeration.

16:41 / 18.10.05

With breathtaking predictability, the Conservative Party opts to deselect the only electable candidate in the first round.

Yeesh. I don't even want to vote for them and they disappoint me. It's this whole thing of democracy. Y'know. Opposition parties keeping the government working hard.

Yeesh to the power, Power to the Yeesh.

lord henry strikes back

07:53 / 19.10.05

I don't think the Cameron camp could have written a better outcome for themselves. Any momentum that Davis may have had is clearly spent, and the only other moderate candidate is out of the race. Unless the right of the party can come to an agreemnent as to how to play this, and their track record is hardly great, I can see Cameron coming out of the Thursday ballot on the happy side of 80 votes with the other two separated by only a couple of votes.

The upshot of this will be that the the final runoff will be between a shiny, unstained Cameron on one side and a just-taken-a-bit-of-a-kicking-from-the-MPs Davis or Fox on the other. However reactionary the grass roots might be I think this will be an important factor.

I'm almost ready to call this for Cameron now, assuming that neither Davis or Fox choose to pull out before tomorrow. No idea how long he'll last or whether he can turn the party around though.

17:09 / 19.10.05

Which candidate for the Conservative party leadership, a family man and so on, a staunch defender of family values, damnit, isn't, allegedly, quite all he appears to be?

17:29 / 19.10.05

And which former leader of the Conservative party also apparently, allegedly, should perhaps, arguably, have possibly thought a bit harder about party policy with regard to family values

17:51 / 19.10.05

Could everyone, please, at least try and start guessing - the information what I hav is burning a hole in my hot, stinging brain.

Bed Head

18:03 / 19.10.05

Could you not just tell us your information? I’ve been sitting around lurking this thread for half an hour now, grandma. I'm totally on tenterhooks.

18:44 / 19.10.05

No, I can't do it, sadly, Mr B. I've agreed with the source of this terrible tittle-tattle, all this ugly, seedy, muck-raking gossip, about people who after all only want to be leaders of men, and then maybe submissive after they've got home from a hard days work at the office, deploying troops randomly, dealing with the White House etc, not to say anything until Friday morning.

20:21 / 19.10.05

Is it David Davis, Liam Fox or David Cameron?

sleazenation

20:27 / 19.10.05

Well John Major would fit that description...

21:53 / 19.10.05

Our Lady of the Ashes;

It's one of those guys, definitely.

Sleazenation;

Yes, he would. However, is John Major now, or has he ever been, to use the somewhat indelicate phrase as quoted by my source with regard to all this (ze'd had a lot to drink,) 'as gay as a window'?

01:55 / 20.10.05

For crying out loud. Grandma, please email your information to popbitch. I'm sure they'd be delighted to print it. Then we can actually get back to the matter in hand.

lord henry strikes back

08:28 / 20.10.05

Is this like the Dr. Kelly thing? If we guess the right name(s), will you confirm?

If so, my money's on Fox and IDS. Not for any good reason, I'm just giving it a shot.

09:59 / 20.10.05

And let's not even go into the whole Cameron drugs story and the real reason for it.

11:25 / 20.10.05

Wellll, there's Liam Fox hitting out at 'gay smears' (and not lesbians being tested for cervical cancer). He's quoted in today's Standard as gesturing toward his upcoming nuptials to a fellow medic, a real live laydee:

Asked why he refused to deny the smears outright, Dr Fix said his engagement to Dr Baird was a complete and full answer: "I think the answer is very clear. We have a very happy relationship that we intend to take forward to the rest of our lives. I think that is as important and full a statement you can make."

Because, obviously, marriage is proof-positive of 100% heterosexuality. Ask Oscar.

11:51 / 20.10.05

Yes, marriage to a woman you've known since childhood definitely indicates that you're as straight as a man can be.

12:35 / 20.10.05

And there you have it. I've been slightly puzzled by the apparent weakness of Fox's candidacy - he's about the right age, he looks the part, he's got a reasonable amount of experience, and if his views are a bit too far to the right for the current party mood (as they do seem to be,) he could have easily softened them in the run up to the election. Except it now seems as if whatever he did, his candidacy was always going to be fatally flawed - If by some unforseen turn of events Fox wins the top job, it's apparently all going to come out, so to speak, which as far as I can see won't really be too good for Tory morale. I wonder what he was thinking.

Oh, and the other (less reliable, admittedly) rumours are about William Hague.

13:11 / 20.10.05

If by some unforseen turn of events Fox wins the top job, it's apparently all going to come out, so to speak, which as far as I can see won't really be too good for Tory morale. I wonder what he was thinking.

I might've had a smidgeonly iota of sympathy for him if he didn't have a history of making the most appallingly smug, even borderline-homophobic 'pro-family' statements. There's definitely something trollish about Fox.

13:42 / 20.10.05

Well this is it. It's one thing to be (as turns out not actually all that) secretly gay, but to then attempt to win support from the wing of the party that seems least likely to be sympathetic when the rumours start flying looks like an almost willed act of political suicide. Very strange.

13:44 / 20.10.05

In my (admittedly limited) experience of politicos, many have a tendency to process their sexuality in the most arcane ways...

14:19 / 20.10.05

Yes, marriage to a woman you've known since childhood definitely indicates that you're as straight as a man can be.

Alternatively, try Katie Holmes.

Smoothly

16:13 / 20.10.05

I'm free!

16:47 / 20.10.05

Well, Cameron won resoundingly and a YouGov poll for the Torygraph today suggests he's the most popular man in the field, if Michael Howard truly wanted an 'anyone but Davis' candidate he'll probably have cause for gloating as he sucks the blood of a virgin tonight. But I suspect Davis's chums may well decide that that drugs rumour needs to be brought back up again between now and the election in December.

17:28 / 20.10.05

I'd have thought so, yes.

51 votes for Liam Fox though - If for whatever reason Cameron had decided not to stand... the mind doesn't so much boggle, as crawl off quietly into a corner, whimpering to itself.

19:44 / 20.10.05

Well for those of you that don't know, that drugs rumour is based around the fact that a member of his family is a recovered heroin addict allegedly, hence the amount of press attention it's been getting. They're really talking about whether he's tried it himself. Oddly enough only the Standard has been explicit enough to mention her alleged addiction and they treated it with kid gloves but I think there are some things that political journalists steer clear of and usually it's something big about a family member of a politician. Considering the nature of the story and the fact that it's not really been reported in full I think that it's bound to resurface.

19:46 / 20.10.05

Presumably David Davis has some deep, dark rock 'n' roll secret.