Who will rid us of these troublesome letter writers?

Today's Sunday Telegraph carries the story that between 2 and 6 Conservative MP's have written to Sir Michael Spicer, the Chairman of the 1922 committee calling for a vote of no confidence in David Cameron.

Not only have they done that they have also sought to brief the press on the matter as well.

This is daft. I do not care a jot why they have written to Sir Michael, or in fact that they have, but what sets my blood boiling is that they chose to make their dissent public in a very damaging way.

As the leader in today's Telegraph, headlined "These foolish letter writers":

They have not learned one of the most glaringly obvious political lessons: the only outcome of division is disaster.

These MP's probably come from safe constituencies and obviously do not give a stuff about less safe seats or target seats and obviously do not want to get into government.

There is much discussion on this on politicalbetting.com of which there are some priceless quotes, one from Punter:

I heard Cameron on radio today. Although recorded before news of the letters, I bet he knew of them. He certainly didn’t sound like a man who was going to roll over. In fact he sounded far more steely than I’ve ever heard of him. Crucially also I think Andrew Mitchell a key member of the Davis sensible right faction also came out swinging in support. I think this grouping and the Cameroons are now essentially joined at the hip, at least in the view that the Leigh tendency poses a mortal threat, and that whatever differences they have that grouping needs to be slapped down and slapped down so hard they never get up again

And this from Stonch who is a little left of center (and writes about beer here):

Cameron is the first Tory leader since 97 to succeed in leading Labour in the opinion polls. He led his party to a result in the local elections not even the most fervent of Tories believed would happen.

Cameron and his crew have made one massive mistake, and it’s coming to a head now - they believed their own propaganda. Gordon Brown is not a bumbling, mentally retarded wierdo. He’s a cunning politician who has bided his time for years and clearly wasn’t going to come unstuck immediately upon assuming office.

However, the Brown bounce will wear off. So the Tories lost two by-elections? Yes it makes Cameron look foolish - his own fault. But they were always going to lose them, and there’s everything to play for going forward.

If Brown had the balls to call an autumn election, he’d almost certainly take a narrow majority and have a rough time ahead. If he doesn’t, I suspect the pendulum will swing back and forth in the months and years to come, and he won’t be certain of a fresh mandate. That’s what normal politics is like, we should embrace it.

If David Cameron is challenged by any of these head banger right wingers, the rest of the party should boot them out. I don’t like Cameron at the moment because the homogenity his inner circle scares me and I think he comes over as two-faced, but even I can recognise he’s the right leader for them at the moment - and anyway, he’s all they’ve got.

Lets not have a one party state, people.

These troublesome letter writers need to be dealt with and fast. Their constituency associations need to have a word. Private dissent is fine, public dissent like this ensures defeat.