When will the Tories dump the total jerk they currently have as their leader.
He seems to personify Burke's observation of Conservatives at the 'stupid party.'
Howard isn’t that bad, it’s a verdict on the lack of new talent within the Conservative Party at the moment and the inability of the Conservatives to spot what little talent there is there that he is leader at all. David Davis is about the most promising candidate for the leadership, policy wise he’s a conservative populist and despite strong support from the less than innovative rightwing of the party he has a proven record as a pragmatic politician, he does however have a marginal seat though… any other contender is too young, discredited or just not electable, David Cameron and George Osborne are potential future leaders, John Redwood (hard rightwing of the party) will run for the leadership when and if Howard goes as will Tim Yeo (Libertarian wing) and both will lose as will the openly gay libertarian MP Alan Duncan, few seem to picked up on just how strong Davis’ position within the Conservative Party and if Howard goes sometime in the next parliament Davis will be very likely to take the leadership.
On the issue of the LDs electoral chances, if you crunch the number even if they go from their 19% in 2001 to 21-23% this time around they may still remain fairly static in terms of seats. They stand to lose some to the Conservatives Torridge, Hereford, Weston Super-Mare and Norfolk North while they can probably make up for such loses with gains from the Conservatives in seats such as Taunton, Dorset West and Maidenhead and will make gains from Labour. However they are limited in number of seats they can gain from Labour because there are very few Labour/LD marginals and many of the seats where the LDs are in second place to Labour have huge Labour majorities… so I think they’ll get about 60 or so seats maybe slightly less but Kennedy will be weaker after this election despite an increased share of the vote, because he has raised expectations.
