David Cameron's parliamentary support reaches 100

David Cameron how enjoys the public backing of half of the parliamentary party following today's declaration of support from ten more MPs.  The ten are:

1. Peter Bone* (Wellingborough)
2. David Burrowes* (Enfield Southgate)
3. Bill Cash* (Stone)
4. Stephen Crabb* (Preseli Pembrokeshire)
5. Robert Goodwill* (Scarborough and Whitby)
6. Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon)
7. Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham)
8. Brooks Newmark (Braintree)
9. Gary Streeter (Devon SW)
10. Desmond Swayne* (New Forest W).

All previously supporters of Liam Fox, six of the ten are Cornerstone Group MPs (marked with an asterisk).  The inclination of Cornerstone MPs towards Mr Cameron was noted yesterday on this blog. 

If the MPs write the sort of letter penned by Robert Key MP to the Salisbury Association they could help to widen Mr Cameron's grassroots lead over Mr Davis.  That lead was confirmed by two weekend polls.

Editor's note: "Reaching the magic level of half of the parliamentary party is significant in one other important respect.  Mr Davis has said that the final round for the leadership election should ideally be an-MPs-only-affair.  He has consistently argued that the next Tory leader should enjoy the support of half of the parliamentary party.  At the time of writing it is Mr Cameron who enjoys that confidence."

Comments

[michael]

Justin, it's a good point. A united start would be a good start for David Cameron. I hope this will be a strong factor in encouraging those who have yet to decide to vote for him.

[Justin Hinchcliffe]

Thought my last contribution was fair.

[Ben O]

I am surprised nobody has commented (or maybe they have but I haven't noticed) on the story of our estimated Editor on Guido's site:

www.order-order.com

[Guido Fawkes]

Not as surprised as I am :)

http://5thnovember.blogspot.com/2005/10/how-much-tax-would-jesus-cut.html

[John Coulson]

I should like to announce to Cllr Lindley that I am back.

[Henry Cook]

Can't you go away and stop bullying people?

[John Coulson]

I haven't done anything Cook.

The problem the party has at the moment is based on direction and image. The image I wish the party to portray is that of a servant to the people. Michael Howard was achieving this slowly, yet surely. We must not let the public believe that we are only in the game to add prefixes to our names or so we can order people about.

[James Maskell]

We dont blame you Justin for voting for the reforms. It was your choice and none of us are going to hold it against you. I certainly hope no-one here will do that.

[Jack Stone]

People should not be surprised by the total nonsense a lot of Davis supporters are writing on this site about David Cameron.
One minute he hasn`t got any policies than as soon as he announces some we are told these are virtual socialist.Even when new supporters are announced or opinion polls are announced that show DC way out in the lead we are laughingly told that basically people are backing him by mistake.
This sort of nonsense is being put about because they know they are going to lose. My message to them is grow up, do the decent thing for the party and vote Cameron, so on December 6th the party can start off a new era with a leader who as the biggest endorsement any leader of this party as ever had.

[John Coulson]

We see one policy that DC keeps peddling, the specialist schools one. It is an admirable policy, but it is such peripheral issue. DC cannot be atacked on this policy and so it is actually quite a devilish thing to keep on referring to.

Davis made one bad speech, so what? In 4 years time no one will care. Conference was wonderful, it allowed Tories a week of political indulgence - it should not be the basis for picking a leader. We need someone who has a track record of upsetting opponents (Hughes and Blunkett), someone who has a clear idea of policy (Chair of Public Accounts, success as a minister), and someone who can out manoeuvre the Labour spin machine (so amny examples I wont even try!).

This man is DD. He isn't young, he isn't a moderniser, he isn't a populist, he isn't Oxbridge, he isn't middle class but he's a Tory, a self-made Tory and a Tory with a vision of Britain that can win us an election.

Also Lindley is voting DD, perhaps the single best reason to vote DD - to cancel his vote!

[John Coulson]

Sorry Lindley is voting DC!

[Ted]

Editor - pleased to see the Spectator online leadership blog gives this site a plug.

[loyal_tory]

Surely it is legitimate for the members of this party to try to discover Cameron's intentions? He hasn't made this easy. In those circumstances, surely it makes sense for people to judge him according to the few policy specifics (eg special school funding, the environment quango etc) he has announced. For the record, many MPs have found it difficult to get answers out of him.

Cameron's extreme reluctance to give answers about his intentions make all the more curious the claim of some of his supporters that it should be obvious to the party that he has the answers to our party's problems.

[Daniel Vince-Archer]

John Coulson, are you trying to set some kind of Mandelsonesque record for being banned from a blog twice? Do you really think your persistent unpleasant attacks on Iain are productive? Why don't you just accept that if Iain wishes to post under the name Cllr Iain Lindley, then that's his prerogative?

[James Maskell]

I think that is out of order by John Coulson. Iain Lindley is a Councillor and is perfectly entitled to use the prefix Cllr as he wishes. If I am elected in May 2007 I will use the prefix.

[Yet another Anon]

>>>>>If the Parliamentary Party is 50%+ in favour of DC and the Membership vote for Davis (which they still could), then we'd be back to the bad old days of IDS (Clarke won the majority of MPs and they felt that they couldn't work with IDS). That's why I voted for Howard's reforms to avoid this kind of outcome.<<<<<
Kenneth Clarke has never been backed by even 50% of Conservative MP's, in fact he seems to have been opposed actively by a large number with in the most recent elections a few David Davis supporters having voted tactically for Liam Fox in order to ensure that KC didn't get into the later rounds.

Kenneth Clarke lead amoing MP's in both the 1997 and 2001 elections until it came to the final vote, in 1997 it was always obviously ridiculous to suppose that many backers of John Redwood would endorse Kenneth Clarke which is why William Hague eventually won, equally in 2001 if the final vote had still been among MP's then most of the backers of Michael Portillo would have gone for IDS and IDS (whose support grew throughout the campaign) would have won, the notion that IDS wouldn't have won in 2001 under the old system is propoganda by the MP's who wanted to get rid of him while saying it wasn't their fault and instead blaming Conservative Party members for something they would have done anyway.

[Yet another Anon]

Andrew Rosindell MP, for example quite openly said that he backed David Davis throughout but voted for Liam Fox in Round 1 because his primary concern was to stop any chances of Kenneth Clarke becoming leader - people have talked about tactical voting being about getting their favourite choice elected but actually it has also been about stopping the people they want least.

[Mike 18]

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