Are Labour clutching at straws in the wind and why the Conservatives should take note.

Maybe my thoughts are not as random as irrelevant as I thought? This story seems to confirm my earlier post below about the name recognition of the so called 'major runners and riders'.

This article in the Independent is also worth reading. I have long held the view that Jack Straw would be a competent Prime Minister, purely because he is the most senior member of the Government / Labour Party left. I once expressed this view in an interview I had with a well known polling company and was amused when the eye balls nearly fell out of the Directors head, as his eyebrows shot to the skies.

However, he would be no more than a stop gap, like Michael Howard was for the Conservatives in 2003, as I suspect he knows only too well. Would he make that much of a difference? Probably not to be honest - Labour have made their bed and now they all need to lie in it as peacefully as possible until atfer the election.

David Cameron and the Conservatives should not be laughing too much however. There are real lessons to be learned for David Cameron. If Tony Blair ran a proper system of Cabinet Government with discussion as opposed to dictates, viable alternatives to Gordon Brown would have emerged as Prime Minister when he stood down. Thatcher and Major did it, in contrasting ways granted, but they allowed differing figures such as Howard, Portillio, Clarke, Heseltine, and Hague to emerge.

David Cameron must consider this as he prepares to take over as PM: if he fell under a bus who would take over from him? Hague, Davis, Osbourne, Gove? Is that who he wants? If not he needs to cultivate them in cabinet in order to protect his parties position and keep Labour in opposistion for over a decade.