Nooooo........

[Chico]

Ken Clarke is out of the Tory race!! I imagine New Labour are thinking Christmas has come early. Blair/Brown will make mincemeat of Davis/Cameron or Fox... Oh boy I say another 10 years in opposition for the Tories!!

[zathras]

Ken Clarke is out of the Tory race!! I imagine New Labour are thinking Christmas has come early. Blair/Brown will make mincemeat of Davis/Cameron or Fox... Oh boy I say another 10 years in opposition for the Tories!!

Depressing is n't it

Well it looks like I'll have to move to Cameron then.

Fox is a waste of time and Davies SNAFU'ed his Speech at conference. How is he going to to deal with the hustings and media savvy opponents

[Denny]

Jolly Spliffing What?

Ken Clarke is out of the Tory race!! I imagine New Labour are thinking Christmas has come early. Blair/Brown will make mincemeat of Davis/Cameron or Fox... Oh boy I say another 10 years in opposition for the Tories!!

I agree. Ken Clarke was the best person to oppose Brown when he takes office. I don't vote Tory but we need a strong opposition to Blair and his cronies.

I bet the predicted new Hush Puppy marketing campaign is now on hold. I don't think the other three are any good at all. I've got a sneaky feeling that Jolly Spliffing Cameron will prove vacuous and ineffective when it comes to the test and his posh boy background will soon get on everyones nerves if he does become leader. I didn't think he was very good on Question Time last week either - just full of empty rhetoric about modernisation and so on. Davis is too boring and dry even though he has content and Fox is too right wing and full of tulip too. He called Galloway 'bitter, twisted and irrelevant' a while back and then had the audacity to say a couple of sentences later that there was no point in making critical and personal remarks. Clearly, he contradicts himself at the drop of a hat.

The Tories are sunk. Clarke was their last hope and even then uniting the Tories under him was questionable because of his stance on Europe.

[Paco]

Jolly Spliffing Cameron will prove vacuous and ineffective when it comes to the test and his posh boy background will soon get on everyones nerves if he does become leader.

People keep throwing that at him, but Tony Bliar's hardly from a broken home on a council estate and it hasn't done him any harm. I don't think it will be an issue ultimately.

I'm a big fan of Ken Clarke, but I'm afraid his time has come and gone. The stupid feckers should have elected him on one of the previous two occasions and they wouldn't be in the mess they are now.

Cameron personifies everything that I can't stand about Bliar - doesn't seem to believe in anything, makes grand empty statements about change and modernisation and moving forward - but unfortunately that appears to be what the great British public want from a Prime Minister these days. So I think he is the right man for the job, a Tory Tony.

[Chico]

You would have thought that after 3 election defeats the Tories would have got the message by now its about winning elections - stupid!!! Who would the British electorate prefer as the Tory leader? - Ken Clarke. Who do the Tories choose?Anyone but Ken Clarke. Oh dear.

[TwoWolves]

It saddens me to know what a load of inverted snobs the majority of the people in the UK are.

Its so bad that Tony even toys with Estuary English in order to curry favour with the press and the masses.

Is that what it takes to make a Tory leader, the common touch?

Shame on my nation.

[Not So Wise]

Cameron personifies everything that I can't stand about Bliar - doesn't seem to believe in anything, makes grand empty statements about change and modernisation and moving forward - but unfortunately that appears to be what the great British public want from a Prime Minister these days.

Ultimatly what gets you elected is ability to stand out from the political wallpaper. Be that due to radical policy, sound bytes or even looks (not nessarly good looks) so that you can be recognised and be memorable to the non party activists and general joe blogs who has not real clue he will vote for till a day or so before the election.

Torys don't seem to get this as nearly everyone they have had leading the party over the last decade has not hit in any of the 3 categorys (Hauge was the closest on memorable looks dept) and till they do they don't stand a chance.

The next prime minister will not be chosen by the British people as a whole but rather by those to get to decide who will lead the labour party as the torys can be counted out already.

[Toad]

My money was on Boris...



sadly

[stackpole]

Cameron personifies everything that I can't stand about Bliar

Me too. Just hold your nose like the Labour party did.

I disagree with everyone about Ken Clarke though. He would be great versus Gordon Brown on the economy, but would be a disaster everywhere else.

[voron]

Cameron personifies everything that I can't stand about Bliar - doesn't seem to believe in anything, makes grand empty statements about change and modernisation and moving forward.

Playing devil's advocate, should the pm have a detailed plan to the nth degree of detail? I would argue that a PM should focus on the bigger picture, on the vision and strategy; it's for those lower down the pecking order to translate that vision into reality. After all, you wouldn't want a CEO to be writing code; that's what you have developers for. The CEO sets the strategy which leads to a new piece of software being developed.

And what is wrong with a public school background? It is only unpleasant when the person is a completely arrogant yob. The same is equally true of grammar and comprehensive school backgrounds.

My money was on Clarke, Boris, Portillo and Alan Clark.