The Tories’ lost leader

David Davis is the ghost at the coalition’s feast

And then, somewhere behind the arras, there is David Davis. Every Conservative party conference has an arras, and this year’s arras is a very pretty one, embroidered in sky blue and a pale yellow the shade of stale egg yolks, hardly yellow at all, depicting a touching scene from the award-winning homoerotic film Brokeback Mountain.

David Davis, a twice-failed leadership candidate, but a man somehow still in touch with the soul of the party, is somewhat less the focus of...