Is a Conservative majority in 2010 actually possible?

Thinking about it further, perhaps David Davis winning the 2005 leadership election by a squeaker could help him here? I know this seems to vialate the idea of a Cameron-lead Tory government, but here me out-say Davis wins, but he resigns as leader of the opposition at around the same time he left the Shadow cabinet in OTL, for simelar reasons? If Brown and Clegg come in at around the same time as OTL, Davis might seem stail by then. Combine this with a disagreement in regards to the ID Bill and Davis might chuck in the towell in June 2008 (it's a stretch I know).

If this happens though, Cameron (having just lost out in 2005) would be in a strong position to become leader then. This means he'd be the newest party leader by the time the 2010 election roles around. His Leadership victory would also come at around the same time Obama mania was making it's way over here-he'd just clinched the dem nomination at this point. Cameron and Obama won't be singing from the same hymn sheet, but vague asociation with Obama amongst voters over here certainly won't hert him.
 
- The utterly mystefying decision to obsess over shoe-horning the UUP into an electoral pact at the same time as totally ignoring Scotland. Cameron should have pushed major reform of the Scottish Tories after 2007 - and yes, whether they bloody well liked it or not - using the emergence as Salmond as a wake-up call. This was a major, major error and a terrible missed opportunity. What can be said - David Cameron will never, ever understand post-Thatcher Scotland, and the UK may yet pay the price for that still.

What I was coming in to say actually. The UUP alliance was an odd bit that seemed intent on little more than a nostalgic reunion. It was money sunk into a dead party. Though frankly I cant see how the Scottish Conservatives could have performed much better. Anger at Labour now has the SNP as a conduit. Although a social democratic party on the whole, the SNP seem happy to play up to Tory voters to win where they count.

In general, EdT and VJ's suggestion of a punchier campaign is obvious. From a purely personal stand point, I read the Conservative manifesto and almost slipped into a coma. It was list of minor budget reforms that were all well and good but seemed more a civil servant 'to-do' list than a programme for a five year government. That and th Big Society didn't exactly set the country alight. :rolleyes:
 
As indicated earlier, Cameron's trouble was that he wasn't the "new kid on the block" anymore.

This rather ignores the fact that the Tories' biggest leads were well after Cameron had become leader, and in any case I think falls too easily into the trap that midterm polling at arbitrary points was the 'correct' polling. Why is this anymore true about the last Parliament than it is about the midterm leads Labour enjoyed in the eighties?

If there was a 'new kid on the block' problem then it was one which was created by Cameron self-consciously taking the break off modernisation, and as such, was one which was entirely capable of being remedied by him.
 
The expenses scandal was a huge momentum killer for the Tories, while it was Labour MP's who were probably the biggest abusers, mainly due to the fact that there were more of them, disastrously for Cameron the things that stuck in the public's memory were Douglas Hogg's moat and the guy with the duck house. Forcing those guys to step down also strained relations with the grass roots as many of those MP's were highly popular with local associations. It also disrupted their European Parliament campaign and may well have helped UKIP dodge a bullet, until then the expectation was the Tories would gain seats at UKIP's expense. Instead UKIP held their seats and were able to benefit from unhappiness at Cameron's supposed U-turn over the Lisbon Treaty. Ed Balls' survival was probably mostly down to UKIP taking votes off the Tory candidate.
 
2010 Redux...

My first thought on this is to simply have no debates at all in the campaign. The financial advantages enjoyed by the Conservatives would have been far more effective than in OTL - the attacks on Clegg and the LDs weren't really part of the Conservative strategy.

As I recall, the ICM poll on the Monday before the Icelandic volcano erupted was something like 39-33-18. From there, it's not impossible to imagine 41-31-18 which would provide a small Conservative majority.

A majority of 10-15 seats would be much harder for Cameron to manage than the current Coalition. Clegg would lead a smaller Lib Dem group in Parliament (maybe 30-35 MPs) but without the compromises on tuition fees and other issues such as have occurred in OTL, the LDs would re-assert their role as "protest vote" party.
 
The easiest start would be to reduce the size of the mountain the Conservatives had to climb in the first place. The Tory Parliamentary party in 2010 was tiny compared to its present state. Michael Howard did an excellent job of restoring stability to the party, but results in 2005 were disappointing to say the least- give him another dozen or so seats like Medway and Selby and the Tories would be able to concentrate on seats that just eluded them five years later.

That seems very doable to me - if you look at the smallest Labour majorities from 2005, just 3,500 extra votes in the right places would have given the Tories 12 more seats (Crawley, Sittingbourne, Harlow, Battersea, Medway, Gillingham, Warwick & Leamington, Stroud, Stourbridge, Hove, Selby, and either Thanet South or Dartford).

It would have taken only 27,000 people (0.1% of the turnout) voting differently to deliver a hung parliament in 2005 (with the Tories getting 26 extra seats, the Lib Dems an extra five, plus one each for the SNP and Plaid). Of course, the butterflies of that (I suspect for starters a grand coalition with Howard as Blair's DPM, since I can't see Kennedy or any of the minor party leaders wanting to work with Blair by that point) would completely change the 2010 election (and probably bring it forward a few years).
 
A good point about reducing the electoral mountain, and you can go right back to Hague as well if you fancy on that one. Mind you, as pointed out, it's a very fine thing between more seats in 2005 for the Tories and a hung parliament which would radically change the 2005-2010 situation.

Of course, the butterflies of that (I suspect for starters a grand coalition with Howard as Blair's DPM, since I can't see Kennedy or any of the minor party leaders wanting to work with Blair by that point) would completely change the 2010 election (and probably bring it forward a few years).

Nah, Howard would just stand back and watch Labour implode (Not sure if Blair would survive a hung parliament situation, but the pressure on Brown to take over would be intense from pretty much as soon as the votes were counted) before the Tories chose their best moment to call a vote of confidence.
 
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