NEWS IDS Duncan Smith - leader of Tories

Tory membership is old, their ideas have run aground, and new labour have many policies that are centre-right.

I agree it's unlikely, but I wouldn't completely dismiss the possibility as one could with the last election. It's a long time away and if recession kicks in hard, who knows?

LD makes me think of Len Deighton, for some reason.

*Joke stolen from Emma Hamilton

One only has to think back to last September's fuel protests to be reminded how quickly this country can go bonkers. If they *do* get in in 2005/6 with as right-wing a cabinet as one might suppose, I'm doing an anti-Lloyd Webber and emigrating.

The Blair government is losing popularity by the month. There are already chilly economy winds and Tuesday's events will severly shake the global economy. Brown's modest proposals for public investment could shrivel into dust whilst public union anger over PFI look useful conducts for wider disatisfaction. By 2005 Labour coud well be in serious trouble. Unfortunately it is still the Tories who stand most to benefit.

PS During the fag-end of the Major govt I did emigrate. 'Love' was the principle reason; despair and disillusionment at the state of the country, and it's self-chosen wretched goverment wasn't far behind.

Robin - you mentioned my constituency (Twickenham). Vincent Cable (Lib-Dem) is a reasonable MP, especially compared to the truly loathsome Toby Jessel, his predecessor. However he is no shoo-in next time, even with a weak Tory party. (Labour effectively doesn't contest this seat). So far he's managed to distance himself from the increasingly disliked Lib-Dem Richmond council, but more and more residents are waking up to the fact that they're weak and useless. They continue to avoid any policy on the main local issues (Terminal 5, riverside development etc) The influx of yuppies and rising house prices (250% in the last 6 years) means that the demographic has changed slightly away from the older, mainly Tory residents, which in itself may explain the swing leftwards.

Mike mentions the fuel protests - well, exactly, but it's notable how short-lived that moment of madness was, and that within a couple of months Labour had recovered a commanding lead in the polls (the Tories' other supposed trump cards, foot and mouth and foxhunting, will probably not be issues at the next election because I reckon Blair will have invoked the Parliament Act to overrule the Lords and ban hunting by then). I know there are still people out there whose fears and gut reactions he could play on, but I'm not sure whether there are *enough* such people to return the Tories to government (which *is* the key factor).

Tom comments that Hague tried to appear more right-wing than he was: well, exactly, he showed his inexperience and naivety by falling for the please-the-hardcore messages he got from certain advisers rather than sticking with the slow, unobtrusive "modernising" streak he had to begin with. IDS, unlike Hague, is an ideologue, though it's interesting and perhaps surprising that he's put people as pro-Euro as David Curry (who refused to serve under Hague) and Ian Taylor in his shadow cabinet - clearly it won't be the absolute hardliners-only zone some had suspected. Still, the best the Tories can hope for, from this distance, is a continuation of their current resurgence on local councils (it'll be interesting to see what happens in the London borough council elections next May) and to regain a good few marginals, resulting in the noticeably reduced Labour majority that many thought would have come this year.

Of course things could change ...

He was also an accomplished classical pianist, and gave outdoor concerts each summer in a riverside park.

That's beautiful, it really is. I laughed for ages. Go on, which one of you was it, really?

No, I just think of them as the stupid party. The extent to which the Tories on Usenet contradict themselves every day without knowing it is something to behold. Incidentally, if a certain Stephen Horgan (Tory candidate in Liverpool Walton last time - both Con and Lab parties have always tried out prospective future MPs in dead-loss seats, cf Tony Blair standing in the 1982 Beaconsfield by-election) is candidate in a safe Tory seat (or what passes for one these days) when the sitting MP retires at the next election, give him a slap from me. He'll know me from our Usenet battles :).

I stand by what I said more than a year ago: my constituency is a naturally Tory area which the Conservatives will always hold with a decent majority if they're a coherent, successful party. That they don't hold it is an indictment of their present state.