If not Dave, then who? The parlour game that might get serious

Bad polls and MPs demanding a vote of confidence: David Cameron is facing true adversity. Fraser Nelson asks a question that would have seemed ridiculous until recently: who will take over if the Conservatives lose a fourth election?

1 t is horrible to imagine It would be a tragedy, for party and country. Even contemplating it seems lurid and, given recent events, deeply mischievous. It is certainly not something for loyal Tories to discuss in public. But, in their darker moments, few Conservative politicians will have not asked themselves the question in the past turbulent week: if David Cameron were to be run over by a bus tomorrow, who would lead the Conservative party?

At Westminster, it is amazing how quickly today's parlour game can become tomorrow's leadership battle. For those who prepare properly (as the Blairites did in 1994) the rewards can be immense. In Mr Cameron's case, what is striking is the fact that there is leadership speculation at all. After the triumph of the May local elections, the Tories seemed likely to be the single largest party in the next parliament. Now, after Labour's resurgence in the polls and the Tories' shambolic performance in the Ealing by-election, a very different prospect lies ahead of Tory MPs as they depart for the summer recess: a spring general election and the ignominy of a fourth successive defeat.

It is hard to pin down what, precisely, has happened in the last few weeks. Mr Cameron has carried on as before. Gordon Brown was always expected to have a honeymoon, as New Labour orchestrated a second marriage to the electorate. But something more basic has shifted: the 'plates', as John Prescott likes to say, are moving once more. As hard-headed a commentator as the Sun's Trevor Kavanagh has already written off the next election for the Tories: 'Brown will win, and win big.' Somehow the mood of politics in Westminster has changed fundamentally.

As the Sunday Telegraph revealed at the weekend, a handful of disgruntled Conservatives have already sent letters to Sir Michael Spicer, chairman of the 1922 Committee, demanding a vote of confidence in Mr Cameron — an astonishing echo of the last days of lain Duncan Smith. Lord Kalms, a major donor and former party treasurer, has taken to the airwaves to say to Mr Cameron: 'Look, chum, we need to do some rethinking' An almighty wobble is taking place in Conservatives ranks, which runs well beyond the handful of malcontents seeking a change of leadership.

It is not that Mr Cameron is going to face a confidence vote (it takes 29 MPs to trigger such a ballot). It is that, mutedly, ruefully, and with varying degrees of anxiety, senior Tories are wondering what Life After Dave might be like. What, in other words, would happen if Mr Cameron were to succumb to the no. 137 bus? When I have put this question to shadow Cabinet members, a suspicious silence ensues, followed by protestations of loyalty. Then, eventually, their own detailed theory follows. This game of mental chess is second nature to serious politicians and, much as they may hate to admit it, the choice may not be so many moves away.

Though different in many respects from Cameron, George Osborne would be the continuity candidate: a moderniser to his fingertips. At 36, the shadow chancellor is four years younger than Mr Cameron — the same age William Hague was when he succeeded John Major. His easy charm has translated into a loyal following among party donors. He is telegenic, articulate and not deemed to be carrying much Old Tory baggage. He was privately scathing about 'hug a hoodie' and would certainly be tougher on crime and antiterror legislation than Mr Cameron.

Yet when Michael Howard initially approached Mr Osborne to stand as future leader after the last general election, he declined, telling himself he was too young, unready and risked ruining his career. Might the same calculation lead him to sit out the next leadership contest? There is no doubt that many senior Tories would urge him to stand — especially if the other obvious candidate, William Hague, proved unwilling.

The shadow foreign secretary is on record as saying that leading the Tory party once in a lifetime was enough for him Yet he is at the centre of any leadership calculations made by senior Conservatives. He has undergone a remarkable rehabilitation since he quit in 2001 and, at 46, is certainly young enough for a second shot. The question is whether he can be persuaded to step back into the spotlight.

He has carved for himself a successful life outside politics, and makes £600,000 a year from business, speaking and literary pursuits. To give this up to return to the Cabinet would be understandable. But to be leader of the opposition again, with its £130,000 salary and daily diet of torment, is little consolation. 'Would he really want to repeat his suicide mission?' asks one of his allies. Some who speak to him fear he may walk away from the front bench entirely — let alone wait to be leader again.

Against this we must set Hague's deep sense of tribal loyalty. If he were persuaded by a coalition of Cameroons and rightwingers that he alone had the clout to unite the party (Mr Osborne may fail to tame the anti-Cameron element), he might just be prevailed upon to do the job again. But Mr Brown would mercilessly pillory him, accusing the Conservatives both of returning to the past and lurching to the Right. Every error of his leadership — baseball cap, 'foreign land', 14 pints — would be dredged up. It would require precisely the type of mothto-the-flame ambition that Mr Hague plausibly claims to have exorcised.

If he refuses, the party might well consider something completely different. Many fear Mr Cameron has been fighting the last war by emulating Mr Blair — taking on his own party, and relentlessly pursuing the 'centre ground'. This raises several unwelcome questions. Might the brooding Mr Brown, against all expectation, represent more of a change than the self-styled 'heir to Blair'? And if so, should the Conservatives go for something completely different to adapt to post-Blair politics?

Two alternate models present themselves, the first under a mop of blond hair. Even Boris Johnson's admirers would hesitate before putting him in No. 10 just yet. Part of our former editor's charm is that he comes across as the type of chap who might accidentally rest his suitcase on the nuclear button. The Greater London Assembly, luckily, doesn't have one. Yet his mayoral campaign is already a standing reproach to the idea that successful political candidates nowadays must be meticulously scripted, choreographed and Blair-like.

Looming over the debate is the figure of Nicolas Sarkozy, who was elected President of France pledging radical action and declaring that the Right had been apologising for itself for too long. Sarkozy's trick is to be right-wing (focusing on crime and immigration) and yet look modern. For the Tory Right, sick of tree-hugging, huskies and trips to Rwanda, he is an intoxicating spectacle: a man of tough conservative principle who styles himself as unambiguously modern.

Yet in Britain, it is Mr Brown who is borrowing from the Sarkozy play-book. Yes, the new PM has delighted the Left by scuttling Tony Blair's pro-market public service reforms. But he has also made the Right swoon with initiatives on drugs, casinos and the detention of terror suspects. He seems supremely happy to have the Tories penned into the centre ground.

If the Tories were to select a rightwing successor to Mr Cameron, they would have three options, the most obvious being David Davis. For years he was seen as keeper of the Tory knife and the man churning leadership speculation. Since the leadership contest of 2005, however, he been chief peacekeeper — persuading malcontents to keep quiet. 'We never expected it, but David is a complete dream', gushes a Cameroon aide. 'You almost wonder what he wants.' The answer, for once, seems pretty straightforward: to be Home Secretary under Prime Minister Cameron But if this option were removed by the no. 137 bus, it is hard to imagine he would not stand. His track record of political combat (he is now on his fourth home secretary) would be the basis of his pitch. He would present himself as a pugilist more than capable of confronting the Big Clunking Fist.

Davis's main rival for the affections of the Tory Right would probably be Liam Fox, already being named in this week's gossip columns as the likely contender and pin-up for Mr Cameron's tiny group of would-be assassins. Since he became shadow defence secretary, we have heard relatively little from Dr Fox. He has made speeches on the emerging menace of Russia, the weakness of Nato in Afghanistan and energy security — all arguments that turned out to be prescient. But few yielded much personal political capital for Fox. This seems not to bother him unduly, which suggests the absence of a leadership plan to dust down. 'You can only presume that his ambition now lies way, way in the future,' said one supporter from his 2005 campaign.

That said, he has a distinct and robust position which would make him a plausible contender. His speeches regularly sound a different note from the Cameroon leadership — although always under licence so to do. In a speech on Monday, he swatted aside the idea of quality of life, a favourite Cameroon theme, and focused instead on Churchill's 'ladder of opportunity'. This was all at Mr Cameron's behest, part of an attempt to stop Mr Brown colonising the social mobility issue. Yet it will do Dr Fox's status no harm to be seen as the one leading the charge on this defining issue. One modernising member of the shadow Cabinet says: 'He is clearly positioning himself and I would put a fiver on him getting the job. Sly little sod.'

The outside candidate is a member of the Cameron inner circle who has also managed to reach out to the grassroots, not least because of his formidable talents as a public speaker. Michael Gove has only been an MP for two years, but he has already made his name in parliamentary combat as shadow housing minister. Meanwhile his book, Celsius 717, has become a set text for neocons on both sides of the Atlantic. And he is at home on the couches of television arts programmes or amusing readers of his Times column as he is denouncing what he regards as the appeasement of Muslim fundamentalists.

Being named Channel 4's rising star of the year has triggered speculation that he may be a future prime minister. But, aged 39, he has plenty of future to wait for. He may be reluctant to make his move so early, and if he suspects Labour has another election victory left inside it, might be inclined to sit the next contest out. But he is an ambitious man who knows that opportunity does not knock as often as we might like.

Yet the more Tories ponder the alternatives, the clearer it becomes that there is no better option than the incumbent. Strikingly, no one I spoke to disputes this. One shadow Cabinet member told me that, should Mr Cameron be run over by a bus, `I'd kill the bus driver.' The party has only just emerged from 15 years of civil war — and fear of returning to such mutinous horrors makes Mr Hague the most likely alternative. Mr Cameron's departure, followed by a vote for two finalists to put to the grassroots members, would have a truly destructive effect: after a fourth defeat, the party would be hard pushed to repeat the good-humoured experience of the 2005 contest. As most Tories will admit, the alternative to the Boy Wonder, for all his flaws, may not be unity under any candidate but five years of chaos.

Yet if there is an election in the spring, or earlier, and Labour wins again, then the bus will not be imaginary and the parlour game will be all too real. Opposition leaders do not survive failed election attempts in modern politics. Mr Cameron may plead an exception, in that he will barely have had two years at the helm. He may just as likely conclude that there is no more he can do, and that his time would be better spent with the family to which he is so obviously devoted.

For now, this is all hypothesis: no phone lines are being installed, or lists drawn up. But a year from now, the Conservatives, to their horror, may be playing the game for real.

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