Wednesday, October 29, 2003
Iain Duncan Smith looses vote of confidence and therefore leadership of the Conservative party. No surprises there. What some journalists thought to be a surprise was one of the prospective replacements, David Davis, saying he's not going to stand and saying Michael Howard should be the new leader. Davis is no idiot, neither are all the people in the party. Michael Howard is a popular replacement because the Tories know they are not going to win the next election so, providing he can't find some way to slide out of it Howard is going to be leading the party into defeat. He will then resign and then people like Davis and maybe even Portillo will stand as then they'll have a good chance of winning the 2009/2010 election. What the Tory party wouldn't want is someone like Howard being the Prime Minister in the country.
