Blogging from the Highlands of Scotland
'From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step' - Diderot

Thursday 9 October 2003

Is this the end-game for Iain Duncan Smith, present Conservative Leader?

Iain Duncan Smith will deliver his keynote speech to the Conservative Party conference at Blackpool tomorrow (Thursday). If all the media (broadcast and newspaper) are to be believed, he will have to deliver a blockbuster of a speech to stifle, even temporarily, the growing chorus of discontent with his leadership. As this article in tomorrow's Independent confirms, even grass-roots Conservatives are now prepared to say in public what would until recently have been unthinkable - that they are not happy with their Leader's performance and don't think they can ever win an election with him in control.

The Party seems now finally to be catching up with my own views. I resigned from the Party within days of him become Leader, seeing him as an electoral liability - quite apart from the fact that I consider him to be a reactionary homophobe. Nothing I have heard or seen of this man since he became Leader in September 2001 has caused me to have the slightest doubt of my earlier assessment. This desperate individual is, however, unlikely to go quietly - he was a divisive influence on the Party during the last Conservative government (1992-97) and is unlikely to be any different if his Leadership is openly challenged. Depressed as I am about this whole situation, the membership of the Party has only itself to blame for their foolhardiness and short-sightedness in electing this mediocre man to be their Leader. What a farce!

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