Tories 'must reform like Labour', page 1

They must, that's true.
But they're a weird and deeply strange lot.

There is the small matter of them having a big bust-up over the coming rule changes (the local party organisations are begining to make it clear they are not just going to meekly pass the policy decisions and selection processes over to the Parliamentary MP's).

Then they have their leader to select (cue another row or four).

Then they have the 'directional' changes to decide and implement (cue several more rows).

It's going to be several more rough years ahead for the tory party IMO and even then they are set to lose to Brown when they have made their minds up.

(Their latest idea is that the economy is set to go very wrong for Labour - but then they have been predicting this since day of the Labour gov in 1997 - in their minds that somehow this makes a tory gov a certainty.....
.....not that the fact that their own experience (the 2 deepest most damaging post war recessions) failed to get them slung out straight away seems to have entered their heads.

They've become a group of straw clutchers in need of a severe reality check IMO.

That coupled with the developing and widespread delusion that a 0.5 - 0.6% increase in their poll is a "very good result" probably makes them themselves the biggest barrier to any real change and chance next time.

As Michael Heseltine said they gained 33 seats this time; they need another 150 to be the gov.