Cameron wins landslide leadership victory
David Cameron tonight promised radical change for the British Conservative Party after being overwhelmingly elected its fourth leader since Labour came to power in 1997.
He trounced his rival David Davis by a margin of more than two to one, gathering 134,446 votes to 64,398.
After Mr Cameron’s triumph was announced by chairman of the Tory MPs’ backbench 1922 Committee Sir Michael Spicer, the 39-year-old former shadow education secretary made plain his desire to end Labour’s grip on power.
Speaking without notes, in his trademark style, he told cheering supporters: “I said when I launched my campaign that we needed to change in order to win.
“Now that I’ve won we will change. We will change the way we look. Nine out of 10 Conservative MPs, like me, are white men.
“We need to change the scandalous under representation of women in the Conservative Party and we’ll do that.
“We need to change the way we feel. No more grumbling about modern Britain. I love this country as it is, not as it was, and I believe our best days lie ahead.
“We need to change the way we think. It’s not enough just to talk about tackling problems in our inner cites, we have to have all of the right ideas for turning those communities around.
“And we need to change, and we will change, the way we behave.”
He added: “I want us to give this country a modern compassionate Conservatism that is right for our times and right for our country.”
He swiftly promised Mr Davis would be a “a vital part of the team in the future”, but made only one Shadow Cabinet appointment tonight.
West Derbyshire MP Patrick McLoughlin will become Chief Whip – moving up from deputy – replace David Maclean, who has a long-standing illness.
The rest of Mr Cameron’s appointments are expected to come some time after his first crunch Commons clash with Prime Minister Tony Blair at Question Time tomorrow.
The coronation of Mr Cameron marked the end of the Conservatives’ longest-ever leadership contest, stretching from outgoing leader Michael Howard’s indication he would resign the day after Labour’s May 5 election victory.
In a show of unity, defeated candidate Mr Davis said the contest had not just been for the leadership of the Tory party.
He said it was also the “preamble towards the next general election”.
And he insisted: “The most important thing about this contest has been that it has shown our party as democratic, intelligent, civilised, thoughtful, mature. A party of principles, a party of ideas. In short a party fit for government.”
He then hailed Mr Cameron as the new leader of the party and “the next Conservative Prime Minister”.
Mr Cameron used his acceptance address to hammer home his determination to win the next election.
“That is the goal, that is what I am standing here to try to achieve,” he said.
“That is the whole aim of this job. That is what I am going to devote the next four years of my life to doing. And I think we can do it. I’ve sensed in the last weeks and months, going round the country, that there is something in the air.
“This is the time that people are saying ‘I’m going to look at the Conservative Party again. I’m going to join the Conservative Party. I want to be part of the change that this party can bring’.
“That is the leadership that I offer. That is what I am looking forward to with every breath in my body, delivering with all the help of all my colleagues over the next four years.
“It is going to be a huge challenge. We have a vast mountain to climb.
“But if we are united, if we have a clear view about what needs to change, if we make those changes and we meet those big challenges the country faces – not with sound-bites but with the hard work of getting policies right in the long-term – we can be a constructive opposition and we can be that good government that this country clearly needs.”
Labour was contemptuous, fielding its former general election co-ordinator Fraser Kemp to say: “David Cameron is a Conservative and stands for Conservative values. He has always chosen public spending cuts over investment in public services and opposed policies such as the New Deal and tax credits.
“Voters know the Tories have deserted the centre ground of British politics and show no real understanding of how to move forward.”
Liberal Democrat President Simon Hughes said: “We obviously congratulate David Cameron on his election, but he is now the fourth Tory leader in just four years.
“The Conservatives’ problem is not their salesman – it’s their product. Mr Cameron has yet to set out many detailed policy initiatives but we do know he wrote the Conservative manifesto for the 2005 general election.
“We know he is a convinced anti-European, a keen supporter of tuition fees and is likely to back the Government on nuclear power.
“If that is the definition of modern Conservatism, they will continue to struggle to emerge from the political wilderness.”
