The key to No. 10

There is a piquancy. Back in 1997, Michael Howard launched a confident challenge for the Tory leadership. He had influential supporters, a good team and a strong case: that his experience and political stance made him the best qualified candidate. Yet his campaign never left the runway. The plane had too much baggage.

Suppose he had won. In organisational matters, he would have done a better job than William Hague. Could that have translated itself into serious electoral gains? Almost certainly not. The 2001 election was lost sometime around 1995. Indeed, unlike Mr Hague, Mr Howard had no illusions about the fate awaiting the new Tory leader of the opposition. He was content to volunteer to catch the hospital pass and to try to minimise the scale of the inevitable defeat.

If Michael Howard had led the Tories in 2001, William Hague would have taken over as leader and everyone would be saying that when they got back in, dear old Michael must have his reward. Leader of the Lords, perhaps, certainly a CH. He would be acclaimed as a Knight Grand Cross of the Most Noble Order of Good Eggs.

Instead, he can now have a crack at winning the omelette. If Tory euphoria could be transmuted into electoral momentum, he would already be battering on the door of No. 10. Michael Howard will do everything he can to address his party’s short-term weaknesses. It remains to be seen whether he can solve the longer-term problems and, with them, the greatest electoral mystery of the past 40 years: the Tories’ failure to turn demography into hegemony.

It is possible to explain the Tories’ decade-long difficulties solely by reference to events, men and a woman. By 1990, Margaret Thatcher was politically exhausted, but her demise was always likely to be traumatic.