AT THE STARTING GATE

by RAY FLEMING
IF a racehorse drifted in the betting from being a hot favourite at 1/3 odds-on to second favourite, while another was the subject of a coup taking it from 10/1 to 11/10 favourite in a matter of minutes, the Jockey Club stewards would order an investigation regardless of which actually won the race. But something of this kind took place yesterday when David Davis was displaced as the banker favourite to take the Tory leadership and money poured on David Cameron to put him in Davis's place. Had Davis been nobbled? Had Cameron been given a shot of something to help him get his nose in front at the finishing line? The bookmakers are more often right than not, whether they're laying odds on horses, election results or book prizes; the prices they offer reflect the money they take. Even so it seems extraordinary that Mr Davis, a very hot favourite for so long, should have been displaced by Mr Cameron on the basis of a couple of 20 minute speeches. PP In fact, the race is only just beginning. What we have seen and heard this past week was just the runners cantering to the starting gate. Nominations for the leadership contest close next Thursday and will be followed five days later by the first round of voting by Conservative MPs to select the two names to be put to the constituencies. Malcolm Rifkind is likely to be the first to be eliminated, closely followed by Liam Fox. But which two names of the three then remaining, Cameron, Clarke and Davis, will eventually be put to the party in the country is now anyone's guess. PP In a dignified departure speech yesterday Michael Howard urged the campaign for the leadership to be fought without “bitterness and backbiting” and he also claimed, with complete justification, that his decision to make the party conference the launching pad of the contest to choose his successor had been a success. The immediate leadership issue aside, it has shown that there are several MPs of potential leadership quality, something that has not always been apparent on the floor of the House of Commons. One of the first tasks of whoever wins the leadership will be to tap this resource for Shadow Cabinet membership in the years immediately ahead.