THE RESULT

DAVID CAMERON: 67.6%
134,446

DAVID DAVIS: 32.4%
64,398

ConservativeHome.com's review of the leadership contest will be posted on this site at 10pm.

A new 'Everything Conservative' site will be launched tomorrow.

Comments

[Daniel Vince-Archer]

I think the BBC may be turning against Cameron already - unless the decision to follow up the report of his victory with a report about a shocking rise in cocaine-related offences was accidental?

Unlike Babs, I'll freely admit I've been drinking, have spent some of the winnings from my 10-1 insurance bet on Cameron and been enjoying a rather fine bottle of Valpolicella. Chin chin!

[Rob]

Forget Disraeli, give me Robert Peel any day, he knew what ideas were right ideas and thought less about what people thought of him and more about what was right. We should hope that David Cameron will be more like Robert Peel than Benjamin Disraeli.

Another advantage of Peel was he was from Bury and called Robert- just like me.

[ChrisH]

It was tricky for me to decide who to support for the leadership. On balance I supported Davis during the campaign. Having said that I'm sure that Cameron will be a great leader of the Party. He has the majority of the members and the MPs behind him.

He needs to give Davis a good job so that his supporters feel included and because Davis is an effective shadow cabinet member. He has removed more ministers than anyone else. I think this has been a really good process for the Tory Party and the country. We just need to use it as a base to go on and win the next election.

[Terry Keen]

I am very much delighted that DC has become leader. He will lead the party first into the 21st century and then into government if we all stay united.

Modern Britain, Modern Conservatives!
Forward Not Back
Things Can Only Get Better

[James Maskell]

Things Can Only Get Better...a Labour slogan! I know DC is copying Blair but copying Labours slogans as well....

[Goldie]

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30100-1205245,00.html

[Ed R]

Surely "Things Can Only Get Better" is pretty uncontroversial? Just like Labour batted the "Labour isn't working" poster back to the Conservatives later on, that and "Time for a change" seem perfectly sensible to take up. Huge missed opportunity not to take up those slogans, I'd have thought.

[Frank]

If Cameron turns out to be a Tory Blair there will be trouble from within the Party-but I hope the "no to yah boo politics" policy is KEPT TO; too many times a reasonable policy has been jettisoned because it has not shown immediate results.

What is problematic is the prevalence of Public School types in leadership positions-this cannot mirror modern Britain. No sign the Party sees this as a problem.

[hayek's grandad]

DVA - good for you! I've spent my money already too. I have to say having listened (not by choice) to GB today, I think DC maybe very lucky. I had him down as the 'one before next', but at this rate he could be the one!

[stephan shakespeare]

"I'm always sceptical of polls (especially 'Anything You Want Gov')"

We won damages and a retraction from The Times for saying that, so I'd withdraw it Mr Turner. It's an especially stupid thing to say on the day that our membership poll was proved correct to within 0.6%! That maintains our average error against real outcomes of 1%. Now what other company can you think of that has a record anything near?

But perhaps you think that being consistently and provenly accurate is somehow not cricket. Or perhaps you think we're only accurate in elections, that our 11 brilliant results is luck. Or maybe you don't think at all.

[Goldie]

One thing to keep an eye out for:

DC had vowed he would quit smoking today (assuming a win).

If he sticks to it, I think I'll make a fine leader.

If not....perhaps we might be in for a rough ride.

[Jack Stone]

Personally I think the party does not just need more women in Parliament but I think we need more MP`s from ethnic minorities if we are to truely look like we represent todays Britain.
I think we also have to ask ourselves as a party why the only candiadates from minorites we seem to have are in constituences with large ethnic poulations.
We will truely have grown up as a party and also as a country as well I suspect when we have black or asian MP`s not just in places like Tottenham but Tunbridge Wells as well.

[Alexander Drake]

Interesting, Goldie... I hope DC does give up smoking as a sign of the discipline he will need as leader.

When Bob Hawke became prime minister here in Australia, he gave up the grog. (Hawke also had an entry in the Guinness Book of Records for downing 2.5 pints of beer in 11 seconds.)

[Michael McGowan]

Jack, I think you have missed what has been going on. Adam Afriye is MP for Windsor. Shailesh Varah, a leading DD supporter, is MP for a Bedfordshire constituency. What we need fewer of are white male politicians of a particular kind (normally public school-educated) who are parachuted effortlessly into safe seats because of their insider friends and patrons. When those types have to compete on a level playing field, that would show that the Tory Party had genuinely embraced meritocracy. Not in my lifetime I think.

[Jack Stone]

There are still far too few ethnic minority candiadates in safe seats.A start may have been made but I think its still unacceptable that just two out of 198 MP`s are fom minorites.
The fact that David Cameron is only the second public school educated leader since Macmillian makes the point about those from public school backgrounds a bit redundant.

[Jules]

Jack - perhaps the candidates should actually represent the seats they stand in.

You wouldn't want lets say a Southern barrister who happened to be Asian in a Northern seat with a tiny ethnic population would you? Wouldn't that just send the message of the Tories sending another "typical Tory" to a seat??

[James Hellyer]

I'd agree that local candidates are a better way to go if we want to create a representative party. The risk of a drive to just get "more women" or "more people from ethnic minorities" is that the party would just recruit them from the same source as most other candidates. A rich black barrister is a still a rich barrister. That's not real diversity.

[Jonathan Sheppard]

Im sure whoever the new Chairman is will be spending considerable time on the issue of candidates.

In the past the party has been awful and having candidates who could conceivably represent the areas they stand in. I wouldnt want to be penalised because I am white, male and just turned 30. Yet I do think coming from the North and having worked most of my career in the public sector I can represent certain seats fairly well.

When we talk about being respresentative - we cant just equate that to sex or the colour of a persons skin. The electorate is far more sophisticated these days!

[James Hellyer]

"When we talk about being respresentative - we cant just equate that to sex or the colour of a persons skin"

I agree, but the issue does seem to be framed in just those terms. Remember the day after Michael Howard's keynote speech at the Conference, Theresa May was on Radio r saying that the Party was sexist and unrepresentative becuase it didn't have enough women MPs!

"When we talk about being respresentative - we cant just equate that to sex or the colour of a persons skin. The electorate is far more sophisticated these days!"

That's right diversity means much more than more women, more ethnic minority, more openly gay candidates etc--although we need more of all of these too. It also means more local candidates, more candidates from non-traditional pre-MP jobs, and more candidates from less well off backgrounds.

Party reform is going to be one of the biggest jobs that anyone has to do over the next few months and years. The person who is party chairman is going to need a huge amount of personal resourcefulness, flair and political skill and possess an ability to get things done while being fair to candidates of every type and background.

It really needs a political heavyweight whom the new leadership and the party can trust. DC ought to think hardest about this job. It is his first promise. He will be judged on how he handles and delivers this, making this appointment probably more important than any other.

[John Hustings]

I think this topic is given a disproportionate amount of attention. I do not think that whether a candidate is black, female or gay is top of voters' priorities. Nor should it be. But as it happens, I think that openly gay candidates (Iain Dale for example) actually have a record of being less popular than more popular.

I say this not to suggest that we shouldn't have openly gay MPs (or women, or ethnic). I say this to suggest that it is so very far from a panacea to our electoral problems.

Cameroons are foolish if they think that that is what the public want.

As it happens, I think if Cameron does actually succeed as a leader it will be because he sounds upbeat: something I think is a very good tactic.

The idea, however, that this election victory is a "mandate for change" (the words of both George Osborne and Oliver Letwin) is false. People were not voting for Cameron because they wanted to be more PC and have lots more blacks, gays and women. They voted for him because he is upbeat, fluent and has a youthful image. Nothing else. Certainly nothing to do with ideas. They were not voting to sacrifice previous policy or principles.

As for Jack Stone's suggestion that we *must* have ethnic minorities representing constituencies where the population is almost totally white, I find *that* to be racist. Not only is it discriminatory, but it just shows how shallow and fatuous modernisation is. And the electorate would know!

[hayek's grandad]

I think the real question is "if we have to force ourselves to be representative then do we deserve to be in government".

[Biodun]

"When we talk about being respresentative - we cant just equate that to sex or the colour of a persons skin. The electorate is far more sophisticated these days!"

Exactly Jonathan. There seems to be an assumption of homogenous minority groups, who all have the same views and issues.

That's why I like Adam Afriyie. You know he'd still be an MP whether he was black or not.

There's nothing more irritating than a 3rd rate minority candidate (be it a gender, sexuality, or ethnicity). It just makes everyone look bad.

[Daniel Vince-Archer]

"DVA - good for you! I've spent my money already too. I have to say having listened (not by choice) to GB today, I think DC maybe very lucky. I had him down as the 'one before next', but at this rate he could be the one!"

For an instructive indication of how Gordon will fare against the new regime, I suggest you look at how effortlessly he swatted aside Osborne yesterday, largely aided and abetted by none other than Osborne himself. Having witnessed Gordon taking Tweedledee apart, I've already got the popcorn in for Blair vs Tweedledumb tomorrow.

[Andy Stidwill]

I'm shocked by the total number of votes cast.

Everyone in the Conservative Party has been saying how the membership has been increasing over the last few years. Well, why on earth were there 58,000 fewer votes cast compared to 2001, when the turnout was virtually identical (78% to 79%)?