THE TELEGRAPH: Dave Cameron abandoned conservatism five years ago because he believed it would get his party elected. It didn't.
Dave had to fight a widely despised Prime Minister leading a Government incompetent and destructive on a scale unseen in living memory. Seldom has there been a softer target; but seldom has one been missed so unnecessarily. With just 36 per cent of the vote, the Tories stood almost still since 2005. They are now on their knees to their other enemy, the Lib Dems.
Gordon Brown, predicted to cause his party's greatest defeat since 1918, was instead still in office and giving an entirely accurate constitutional lecture to the nation. So low were expectations of him that he looks as though he has done remarkably well. He remains Prime Minister. It is his duty to carry on the Queen's government. Like Baldwin, defeated in 1923, he can stay until he meets parliament with a Queen's Speech. Unless forced out by his party, he need not resign yet. Dave cannot even try to form a government while there is an incumbent prime minister. And there will be an incumbent prime minister until Mr Brown is convinced that the combined forces of the Lib Dems and Tories can defeat him on a motion of confidence or a Loyal Address.
It should not have come to this. As I rang round Tory MPs some were incandescent at the conduct not just of the campaign, but of the whole anti-core vote strategy that has alienated many natural Tory voters. George Osborne, both as campaign co-ordinator and also as an inept shadow chancellor, was quickly selected as the scapegoat. But let us not forget that the roots of this problem go back to 2005. The party has chosen to mimic and validate the policies of its opponents, with the result that the public found little to choose between the main parties. This was exemplified in the television debates, in which the leaders fell over themselves to agree not only with any contention put to them by the public, but even with each other. >>> Simon Heffer | Friday, May 07, 2010
