When you are dealing with the world's least trustworthy electorate - the Conservative Parliamentary Party - there are many candidates for this award but I've restricted myself to three awards (and four individuals).
In joint third place are MPs John Maples and Anne Main. Mr Maples actually wrote an endorsement of DD for this site and was responsible for planning Mr Davis' Blackpool programme... but he failed to vote for the Shadow Home Secretary. New MP Anne Main also defected from Camp Davis. She announced her defection on Radio 4 and without even telling Mr Davis.
In second place is John Bercow. At the end of September Mr Bercow said that "Eton, hunting, shooting and lunch at Whites" made David Cameron the wrong man for the job. Mr Bercow was then supporting Ken Clarke. Guess who he supported soon afterwards?
But the overall winner is Alan Duncan. Today's Sun reminds us of his shameless opportunism. Remember that attack on Mr Cameron as having overreached himself?
Mr Duncan's advice to Mr Cameron was "go away and leave it to the big boys". At that time Mr Duncan was privately backing Mr Davis. After DC's Blackpool speech Mr Duncan obviously decided that Mr Cameron had grown up and threw his weight behind the new frontrunner.
AD might get his reward in the next 48 hours...
Duncan certainly is the right winner for this one, I hope his reward isn't too big, keeping his current job should be enough.
I am inclined to disagree with Anne Main being in this list, she is my MP and I had an email exchange with her before she changed her mind. I asked her to explain why she was backing Davis and she did so very quickly and in some depth. She also explained that she was very impressed by Cameron as well (this was before the MPs vote).
I like to think I did my bit as a constituent to bring her over to camp Cameron;)
Posted by: RobD | 05 December 2005 at 15:19
I think you're being unfair on Alan. You're forgetting that he shares genuine beliefs with DC about drug liberalisation (Saturn's Children; Select Committee Report) and other anti-social conservatism things (both are anti-"Tory Taliban" for instance) so there is more common ground between them than there was between him and DD.
Posted by: I Love DC | 05 December 2005 at 15:23
An award for Opportunism, and no reference to the EPP?
Posted by: Disappointed Eurosceptic | 05 December 2005 at 15:31
Surely there should be a special award to Mr Willets - who though being held hostage in DD territory on some Yorkshire Moor - managed to sneak out a message that although featured in DD literature he was at heart a loyal DC supporter.
Thus managing to at least one brain in each camp....
Posted by: Ted | 05 December 2005 at 15:43
Rob, Nice to meet a fellow constituent on here :D I was glad when I saw Anne had swapped to supporting Cameron, but to be honest it probabaly was for career purposes. After all a brand new MP in Westminster needs to be seen to back the winner, unfortunately she jumped the gun on the leadership contest pledging allegiance to DD before giving DC a chance to shine.
Posted by: Chris | 05 December 2005 at 15:53
"Saturn's Children" is (drug leglisation aside) an extremely socially conservative book. Which I think, makes this award all the more justified.
Posted by: Sean Fear | 05 December 2005 at 15:54
That's a lovely photo of John Bercow BTW.
Posted by: Sean Fear | 05 December 2005 at 15:57
Isn't the point about Alan Duncan that he changed sides EARLY ahead of the game. To beat Blair we're going to need to move fast to occupy the middle ground and we'll need a nimble-footed team that can do that. He's earned his promotion.
Posted by: Adrian Smith | 05 December 2005 at 16:03
Chris - yes, I agree it was almost certainly done for career purposes but at least she confirmed to me before the vote that she also like Cameron. So far she has proved to be a more than adequate Constituency MP for St Albans, hopefully she will concentrate on this for the next few years and then get promoted on merit rather than as a favour.
At least she didn't insult David prior to joining him in the same way as Bercow and Duncan did.
Posted by: RobD | 05 December 2005 at 16:08
"a nimble-footed team" - what a lovely term for a bunch of flip flopping, wishy washy, change with the wind liberals.
Posted by: a-tracy | 05 December 2005 at 16:35
Surely Nadine Dorries trumps them all - nominated Davis and then defected to Cameron in the second round. If that is what we can expect of new women MPs, God help us!
Posted by: Selsdon Man | 05 December 2005 at 16:41
You are forgetting that Alan Duncan said that if he could not get backing for his own candidacy, he would vote for his "friend" David Cameron. When he pulled out he reneged on that promise and suggested that he was going to vote for Davis (before switching to Cameron after Davis's speech). Nice - as they say in the Big Apple!
Posted by: Selsdon Man | 05 December 2005 at 16:45
I cannot find the Duncan quote in my files so perhaps I was confusing him with George Osborne.
Posted by: Selsdon Man | 05 December 2005 at 16:50
Duncan admitted he said those things about Cameron just because he was jelous.
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