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The members who are actively 'plotting' are keepint themselves well hidden, but the Party as a whole realises that they are unelectable with IDS in charge. Either the current issue of secretarial expensestopples him, or they allow him to lose the next election, and the get rid, or they cut to the chase and remove him now, to have a hope of winning at the next election. It doesn't really matter, because New Labour could loose 50% of its last vote and still rimp home, so the Tories must fret and fight for a while longer. On the basis that Maggie wanted someone inferior to herself, and got Major, who wanted someone inferior, and got Haig, who wanted someone inferior, and got IDS - where do they go from here?
The Times today took delight in John Maples chatting in a bar with the Chief Whip. What is going on? Maples is supposed to be the ace plotter but is not now someone whom the Chief Whip is to summon to explain himself. Fact is that the Whip is not going to scare anyone whose own constituency party doesn't/didn't want IDS so the whole heavy handed stuff is likely to fail and make IDS look sillier. Sadly the Party is now just as Labour once were; the choice of leader is in the hands of typical members who are wholly unrepresentative ( typical Tory one is female and over 60) either of the modern supporter of the party or of the electors who might return to support them .So they will remain unelectable.
I completely agree with you, Fred, in what you say about the 'Blue-rinse Brigade'. On the other hand, they are the party membership, so who should they represent but themselves? Thus they acquired the leader they have. The average golf club committee doesn't much care either about the views of local ramblers or whoever else might stray onto their territory.
The simple truth is that there just aren't enough of what you call "the modern supporter of the party" who are supportive enough actually to join what 'The Times' political sketch-writer now aptly calls "the family from hell".
True, Quizmonster, they are the membership, so they can select their leader and they chose one in their image. However, unlike a golf club, to serve their purpose (ie. getting elected) they need to appeal to the public at large. Unfortunately they prefer to be (as they see it) ideologically "pure" rather than appealing to the electorate and so they elected Haig and IDS rather than Clarke or Portillo (either of whom would have, according to polls, had more appeal to the public) - very like Labour in the 80s.
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