Cameron is still the best option

If not Dave, then who? The parlour game that might get serious

28 July 2007

It is horrible to imagine. It would be a tragedy, for party and country. Even contemplating it seems lurid and, given recent events, deeply mischievous. It is certainly not something for loyal Tories to discuss in public. But, in their darker moments, few Conservative politicians will have not asked themselves the question in the past turbulent week: if David Cameron were to be run over by a bus tomorrow, who would lead the Conservative party?

He has carved for himself a successful life outside politics, and makes £600,000 a year from business, speaking and literary pursuits. To give this up to return to the Cabinet would be understandable. But to be leader of the opposition again, with its £130,000 salary and daily diet of torment, is little consolation. ‘Would he really want to repeat his suicide mission?’ asks one of his allies. Some who speak to him fear he may walk away from the front bench entirely — let alone wait to be leader again.
Against this we must set Hague’s deep sense of tribal loyalty. If he were persuaded by a coalition of Cameroons and right-wingers that he alone had the clout to unite the party (Mr Osborne may fail to tame the anti-Cameron element), he might just be prevailed upon to do the job again. But Mr Brown would mercilessly pillory him, accusing the Conservatives both of returning to the past and lurching to the Right. Every error of his leadership — baseball cap, ‘foreign land’, 14 pints — would be dredged up. It would require precisely the type of moth-to-the-flame ambition that Mr Hague plausibly claims to have exorcised.
If he refuses, the party might well consider something completely different. Many fear Mr Cameron has been fighting the last war by emulating Mr Blair — taking on his own party, and relentlessly pursuing the ‘centre ground’. This raises several unwelcome questions. Might the brooding Mr Brown, against all expectation, represent more of a change than the self-styled ‘heir to Blair’? And if so, should the Conservatives go for something completely different to adapt to post-Blair politics?
Two alternate models present themselves, the first under a mop of blond hair. Even Boris Johnson’s admirers would hesitate before putting him in No. 10 just yet. Part of our former editor’s charm is that he comes across as the type of chap who might accidentally rest his suitcase on the nuclear button. The Greater London Assembly, luckily, doesn’t have one. Yet his mayoral campaign is already a standing reproach to the idea that successful political candidates nowadays must be meticulously scripted, choreographed and Blair-like.