Dave’s going down

By now, it will be clear even to David Cameron that he is on course to lose the next general election. The British electoral system always was rigged against the Conservatives, and his hopes for changing that were dashed by Nick Clegg before the summer holidays, when he scuppered Tory plans for boundary reform. All parties are returning to a new reality: the economic recovery has evaporated, and with it the Tories’ chances of winning next time. An unprepared Labour Party is cruising towards power, under a leader who has just held a surprisingly successful party conference. Every bookmaker now agrees: Cameron is heading for a crash.

The Tory party conference, which starts in Birmingham this weekend, ought to be a crisis meeting. How did things get to this stage? Is coalition the problem, or just a convenient excuse? Where is George Osborne’s growth strategy and might this be a good time to produce one? But the Tory conference is not really about the Tory party any more. You can walk around the complex all day without encountering the word ‘Conservative’. This is a festival of government, not of politics. Any Tory party members who want frank and urgent political discussion will be coming to the wrong place.

But there is plenty to discuss. The boundary review would have given the Tories about 20 more seats. When Clegg vetoed it, in vengeance for the Conservatives’ spoiling of his Lords reform, it was an act of sabotage which, ironically, has made the coalition more stable. ‘The glue that binds both of us together now is fear of the electorate,’ says one newly promoted minister. ‘Neither of us wants an election. Cameron will do pretty much anything to stay Prime Minister and give the Lib Dems anything.’ There is a feeling that Cameron’s first loyalty is to the coalition, not the party — and that if the Tories are doomed in 2015, he doesn’t much care.