Prompted by Boris Johnson’s now-infamous interview with Eddie Mair on The Andrew Marr Show, the Telegraph has run a column today by its Deputy Editor, Benedict Brogan, which explores the possibility that David Cameron’s tenure as Tory Party leader is near its end.
The threat of plots against [Cameron] has dissipated in recent weeks, in part because even the most irreconcilable MPs accept that defenestrating a prime minister in the middle of an economic crisis would be not just bad for the party, but for the nation. Mentally, though, Tories behave as if Mr Cameron has already been ushered into the departure lounge. Those with ambition are willingly taking part in the beauty contest that has been underway for months. If we added up every MP who has at some point urged a friend to let it be known – “quietly, you understand” – that if the circumstances were right . . . then we would reach 20 without too much difficulty.
The Conservative conversation is no longer about Mr Cameron, but about who will succeed him in a leadership contest now predicated on defeat in 2015, and whether that person will be the one to put Britain back on its feet.
He heavily implies that the Telegraph has intelligence that the 20 MPs required to trigger a leadership contest are already assembled, and are now just waiting for a good time and an emerging alternative. He goes on to consider Boris Johnson, Theresa May and MPs of the 2010 intake as possible challengers for Cameron’s crown, and eventually concludes that “unless he can win back his party’s attention, the search for his successor will only intensify”.
Coming from such an established right-wing commentator as Brogan, it’s not hard to see how his identification of a “post-Dave” state of mind in the party will stick. The implication, too, is that if you are a Tory MP and you’re considering a leadership challenge, the Telegraph would like to hear from you.
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