First of the Gang to Die

Though ostensibly one of the better tracks on Morrissey's comeback album You are the Quarry, the above title is pertinent to the two leaders of the main political parties.  Today, Labour had its 'wobble' where though no letter did the rounds, let alone a stalking horse emerging, a collective counsel of despair developed regarding Ed Miliband's stewardship.  The Tories have been fractious ever since David Cameron failed to win a parliamentary majority and if Rochester and Strood follows the Clacton route of a turncoat Tory winning their constituency seat for UKIP, Cameron may tack even further to the xenophobic right to preserve, as he sees it, a tenuous grip on the premiership.
One of my Labour friends wept into his pint that 'we' had elected the wrong Miliband brother.  I don't see it that way.  David was as inept a Foreign Secretary as Ed, it might be argued, is as Leader of the Opposition.  Quite wooden, an attempt to lighten up with a banana backfired as disastrously as Ed tackling a bacon buttie.  David was accused of 'megaphone diplomacy' (not a compliment) and casually abandoned Britain's historic - if unexercised - duty of care towards Tibet.  Like Anthony Eden, Gordon Brown became prime minister too late after a hogging predecessor, but had David run against him in 2007 and prevailed, Labour would still have gone down to defeat in 2010.  Labour have a habit of sticking with leaders in the most dire of circumstances.
By contrast, the Conservatives are renowned for their ruthless regicide but the bloodletting has long become self-harm.  Like a dog that has bitten a human and savoured the warm flowing liquid, Tory backbenchers really should be put down or, at least, put in their place.  Cameron has never had the force of personality of Blair, let alone Thatcher - he is the archetypal 'wet' - and so seeks to appease those who will just take more and more - the 1930s parallels are as accurate as they are unedifying.  Instead of leading by example and isolating the dissenters, he has followed their siren calls and is being lured onto the electoral rocks.  It has been claimed that in Coalition, the Liberal Democrats have claimed the space (and cabinet seats) of liberalism, leaving the Tories forced to retreat to the boondocks of angry right-wing rabble-rousing so as to politically distinguish themselves from their Coalition partners but Cameron's weakness has allowed this drift to occur
Cameron is in very real anger of losing the plot.  In Europe, he is lonely, with even natural allies deserting him.  If Norway, often cited by EU-sceptics as the ideal to which to aspire, says freedom of movement cannot be tampered with at the core level, then how will Cameron win support within the EU for his nebulous reforms.  Not that he is entirely without influence.  He boasted of how he watered down an EU directive on fuel efficiency as it was 'in Britain's national interest' (a hollow and meaningless phrase rapidly replacing 'patriotism' as the last refuge of the scoundrel).  This despite AgeUK stating that cold homes are killers for the elderly and plunge others into fuel poverty - "One of the main causes of cold homes in the UK is poor insulation and the UK has some of the worst levels of home energy efficiency in Europe."  Yet Cameron cites this as an achievement - some hell it would be for the UK to be outside of the EU and run by the Conservative Party.  Allied to this, his plans with George Osborne, to cut taxes for the upper middle-class while soaking the poor in another round or four of 'welfare' (a broad term that encompasses pensions) cuts post-2015 and whether it be on 21st November when the Rochester by-election result is known or next May, Cameron (whatever the failings of Ed) has to go.