Cameron’s downward spiral (or how Dave began to look like Gordon)

By Mark Ferguson and Marcus Roberts

A dangerous germ of an idea is now in the Tory body politic – and it will grow fast. Last week Benedict Brogan gave voice to it. The idea is that the Tories have lost the next election and Tory minds are now shifting to what that means in terms of donors, leadership, policy and, of course, ideological purity.

What’s striking about this contagion is its source of origin: Westminster. This is evident in the government’s difficulties of maintaining discipline amongst Conservative backbenchers who often feel they have little chance of promotion thanks to their gender (male) and party (not LibDem) – meaning there’s little joy is to be found beyond the government payroll vote.

This malaise is in turn mirrored by the grassroots of the Tory Party. As the barometer of Tory true blue thinking that is the grassroots survey of ConHome readers has revealed 53% of Tories sampled now expect to see Labour back in power either solo or in coalition with the LibDems come 2015.

Interestingly, the one place that this malaise does not seem to have taken hold fully is at ConHome itself where their ‘Majority Conservatism’ (the evil twin of the Fabians’ own ‘Labour’s Next Majority’) is constructively and creatively contributing ideas in terms of message, manifesto and machine which pose a far greater threat to Labour’s own hopes then the dangerous meditations on defeat that the Tory’s high priests now serve up to their rank and file through the medium of ‘all is lost’ briefings and Boris-mania.

The electorate does not reward divided parties. Doubling down on discipline and exhibiting confidence in your leadership isn’t a fashion of politics – it’s essential. Right now it seems like there’s more commitment to the idea of a Tory victory outwith Westminster then within it. If that idea takes hold of the Party writ large it will be nigh on impossible to break and come summer 2013 the Tories will likely find themselves in a death spiral of non-confidence of their own design.

Of course we know exactly how this ends. Post 2005, and especially post 2007, a huge chunk of labour MPs seemed to believe that the party had rode its luck long enough and the next election was lost. After “the election that wasn’t” the number of PLP members who thought salvation (or a less crippling defeat) would come by replacing Brown with someone (anyone) began to hobble the government. A self fulfilling prophecy. The media picked up on it. It was amplified and reinforced. Soon itt was conventional wisdom, and the 2010 election was lost before it was even begun, with Labour the political equivalent of cricketers walking onto the pitch with smashed bats.