Cameron is still the best option

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

Fraser Nelson

25 July 2007

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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?

Looming over the debate is the figure of Nicolas Sarkozy, who was elected President of France pledging radical action and declaring that the Right had been apologising for itself for too long. Sarkozy’s trick is to be right-wing (focusing on crime and immigration) and yet look modern. For the Tory Right, sick of tree-hugging, huskies and trips to Rwanda, he is an intoxicating spectacle: a man of tough conservative principle who styles himself as unambiguously modern.
Yet in Britain, it is Mr Brown who is borrowing from the Sarkozy play-book. Yes, the new PM has delighted the Left by scuttling Tony Blair’s pro-market public service reforms. But he has also made the Right swoon with initiatives on drugs, casinos and the detention of terror suspects. He seems supremely happy to have the Tories penned into the centre ground.
If the Tories were to select a rightwing successor to Mr Cameron, they would have three options, the most obvious being David Davis. For years he was seen as keeper of the Tory knife and the man churning leadership speculation. Since the leadership contest of 2005, however, he been chief peacekeeper — persuading malcontents to keep quiet. ‘We never expected it, but David is a complete dream’, gushes a Cameroon aide. ‘You almost wonder what he wants.’ The answer, for once, seems pretty straightforward: to be Home Secretary under Prime Minister Cameron But if this option were removed by the no. 137 bus, it is hard to imagine he would not stand. His track record of political combat (he is now on his fourth home secretary) would be the basis of his pitch. He would present himself as a pugilist more than capable of confronting the Big Clunking Fist.