The required 25 requests were in the hands of the 1922 Committee chair Sir Michael Spicer by Tuesday afternoon - less than a full day after the put-up-or-shut-up order was given. The no confidence vote was held Wednesday afternoon; members were allowed four hours to cast their votes. At the end of that time - with all 165 Conservative members of Parliament having voted - the count was 90 against and 75 supporting Mr. Duncan Smith. It was a sufficient count to oust the party leader and to disqualify him from contesting the subsequent election.
The process to select his successor may or may not prove very interesting. The day after the no confidence vote, Michael Howard announced his bid for the leadership. He immediately received endorsements from several front bench members such as David Davies, Michael Ancram, and Oliver Letwin who had been expected to enter the contest. Mr. Howard - whose previous attempts to obtain the party leadership ended with disastrously low results - began acting as if he had already won the election. He met with several potential rivals such as Kenneth Clarke who did not endorse Mr. Howard but did publicly declare that he would not enter the lists himself. Mr. Howard pledged to govern from the center and to cure the divisions that have brought the party to such unfortunate conditions.
The lists for the leadership contest close on November 6th. The first ballot will occur on November 11th. While Mr. Howard is not assured the prize - several other members are assessing their prospects as candidates - it might be worthwhile to consider what a Howard-led Tory party will be like.
To his credit, Mr. Howard has at least the potential to offer a solid policy contrast to Tony Blair's New Labour ideology. The risk is of course that Michael Howard, the front bencher with a respectable record as a former Home Secretary and shadow minister at various levels, might find himself short leashed as Michael Howard the party leader. That is always the predicament of party leadership changes: Will the new leader lead the party or will the party lead the new leader? If he truly intends to govern from the center, he will have some tough explaining to do on issues such as Europe policy and taxes, and his explanations will have to be more substantive than "I changed my mind" or that fine old classic political side stepping reason: "Circumstances have changed".
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