What about David Willetts?

An interesting article by Mary Ann Sieghart in this morning's Times reviews the difficulties that the Tory modernisers have experienced in finding a candidate.

She reports that, a few days ago, Francis Maude, Stephen Dorrell and Andrew Tyrie appointed themselves as kingmakers and decided Andrew Lansley should be the modernisers' 'Stop Davis' candidate. Mr Dorrell was dispatched to tell other moderniser candidates - Alan Duncan and Damian Green - that Lansley was to be the man. Not surprisingly Ambassador Dorrell was greeted with something like - 'who do you think you are?'.

Mary Ann Sieghart briefly identifies weaknesses with all of the moderniser candidates:

Lansley is a little colourless... Tim Yeo is a blast from the past... Alan Duncan has never impressed colleagues... Damian Green lacks charisma... Osborne and Cameron are just too young...

Sieghart ends up with making something of a case for David Willetts:

"That leaves one candidate who, in my view, receives far too little coverage: Mr Willetts. Erudite he may be, but he is surprisingly normal for a man of such big brain. He has been thinking and writing cogently about the future of Conservatism for rather longer than most of his rivals. He is extremely nice and, as a grammar-school boy whose mother was a teacher and father an engineer, does not suffer from a Tory toff label. Mr Willetts might be thought too reasonable and unaggressive — but was not it those very traits that voters found appealing in Charles Kennedy? Oh yes, and he is bald. But nobody’s perfect. That is the modernisers’ problem."

Comments

[Simon C]

One of the good guys, no question. But is he a leader?

The new leader will have to be able to capture people's imagination - so that they can see him as Prime Minister. We lost out on: "Who would you prefer as Prime Minister - Blair or Howard?".

Our next leader needs to win in 2009/10 on:

"Who would you prefer as Prime Minister - Brown or (whoever)?

[Howard]

Honestly, he is a very capable man and will certainly be high up in the next Tory Cabinet. But there is a good reason he didn't feature at all in this last campaign.

Not camera friendly enough, and not a particularly captivating Commons performer.

[Edward]

I was very surprised he was overlooked for shadow chancellor.

I thought Howard would want to use Willett's skill to start to break down the Brown image, and set Osborne free to attack when he would take over in the autumn

[Jude]

It is a great pity, but unfortunately a fact of life, that we have to have a leader with media appeal, 'charisma' for want of a better word. If the powers that be decide in their infinite wisdom, to choose anyone without, then we have a big problem. It cannot be avoided, Boris is very popular in the non-political group of voters, but Osborne is beginning to be seen and heard, and signs are he is going down very well indeed. The Tory modernisers would be very stupid indeed to ignore this point. If the backbone of the PCP is seen to be excellent, with men like Willetts, Landsley, Davis etc, then the modernisers and the core vote can be satisfied. All this talk of Willetts, Clarke, etc. as leader is very worrying.

[Dominic Charles]

Always thought that Alan Duncan should get the job. He knows what needs to be done, and he has very sensible ideas on both economic and social policy.

Osborne looks like a chinless wonder to me, and I'd be surprised if he even bothered to stand.

Willetts isn't a leader, Clarke hasn't got a hope in hell (he lost to Iain Duncan-Cough. What more evidence do you need?) and Damian Green is a useless Wet.

Since I've barely even heard of Lansley before, let alone met him, I cannot pass judgement.

[Rocco]

How depressing. Names thrown in not because of who are they but because of who they are not. This is how we ended up with John Major (he wasn't Heseltine), William Hague (he wasn't Clarke) and IDS (he wasn't Portillo). Would Willets even be considered in his own right if David Davis did not exist? Of course he wouldn't. As far as I am aware his most famous trait his is intellect and sadly I can't see that as a vote winner with Sun readers!