The Torygraph is having some editorial difficulties. Guido awaits the inevitable call to consider the editor’s position. It mirrors the Tory party’s generational split, the aged Barclay brothers are sympathetic to fellow grandfather, David Davis. The younger staff writers are sympathetic to the young father (with another on the way), Cameron.

Stephen Glover in the Indy mentions the troubles the Torygraph has being so in-the-bed with the Conservative Party. Tory leader Michael Howard’s ex-spin doctor, Guy Black, handles corporate affairs for the Telegraph Group, but has taken to interfering in editorial affairs, according to Glover

Mr Black recently issued an instruction to editorial that Daily Telegraph columnists were not to make too much of the attack by Rebekah Wade on her husband. (Mr Black is a close friend of both parties.)

Which is odd, since they are both Labour supporters…

Sir Robert Atkins MEP, the Belgian native and Tory deputy – leader in the Euro-Parliament, has been heard muttering by a Guido operative that Cameron’s decision to leave the EPP will most likely result in a rebellion against the plan. They plan to tell Cameron there are other, more important fights for him to fight. Belgian Bob reckons its “wrong to appease Bill Cash”, he prefers instead to appease Jacques Chirac.

The Notting Hill crowd reckon this is a battle worth fighting – the Tory MEPs could form the future base of a pan-European Altanticist “New Europe”, free trade and free markets faction. But leaving the large EPP faction would involve the immediate loss of some privileges, perhaps fewer MEP family members on the payroll, maybe Belgian Bob would no longer be in charge of the European Committee on Stationery Control Technology.

Guido reckons the loss of Tory influence in the EPP would be welcome. The Tories always seem to be influenced in one direction – towards the inertia and corrupt ways of their fellow Euro-politicians. The European parliament seems like a vast international student union debating society funded by Europe’s taxpayers. Who knows, the Tories might even gain influence, with the horse-trading and compromises going in their direction for a change.

Guido is pleased to remind readers that Labour’s biggest donor of 2004, and coincidentally subsequently enobled, Lord Drayson is the subject of a television special tonight. The Irresistible Rise of Tony’s Crony: A Money Programme Special. BBC TWO at 10pm on Monday 21 November.

Labour sleaze : its John Major time all over again. Previous posts.

Apparently Cameron has promised Bill Cash and Daniel Hannan that Tory MEPs will be out of the EPP by the end of Cameron’s first week as leader. If wet Europhile Tory MEPs want to make an issue of it – all the better – a fight with them will be a pleasure. A move that will undermine UKIP to the point of extinction and pacify a right-wing base that is a little nervous about where Cameron is going to take them. The talk is that David Davis will be offered defence.

UPDATE : from a blog reading source “overheard a senior Tory MEP discussing Cameron’s decision to leave the EPP. He said that they will most likely rebel against the plan and tell Cameron there are other, more important fights for him to fight. It was said that it is wrong to appease the Eurosceptic likes of Bill Cash.”

Guido was at a wonk-fest dinner Saturday night (the after dinner speaker was an amusing Stephen Pollard), talk around the table was how wonks from big-government Demos to the tax-cutting Reform were going to re-align themselves towards Cameron. On the right, pictures of Davis were being deleted from their websites, former Davis campaign volunteers had found pressing commitments back at the office, ideological pontoon bridges were being rapidly erected towards Cameron.

So many MPs have publicly dumped their support for Davis its embarrassing, although entirely in keeping with Tory tradition. One case intrigues Guido: who was the Davis campaign team MP who told Denis MacShane in Brussels when asked why he wasn’t back in Westminster campaigning for Basher, that “there was no point in flogging a dead horse”? (A tale recounted gleefully to Andrew Marr).

David Canzini was drafted in late to convince the Tory core to vote for Basher – his spin skills are frankly debatable – he is not thought to be the person to win everyone over. The debate over Sunday lunch around his mother’s table must be very interesting, Helen Canzini is listed as a Cameron supporter on www.CameronCampaign.Org.

Brown looks even grumpier than normal. Blair just can’t be shifted (yet), unemployment is up, growth is down and now the Tories have got Blair II. Younger, more trusted and fresh – in short a nightmare for Gordon, who looks, and is, old and stale in comparison. Cameron facing down Paxman shows that they are dealing with someone who will not be easily crushed by a Scottish steamroller at the dispatch box.

Dig for dirt is the message from the Treasury to Old Queen Street. Various Labour sources tell me implausibly that they have “dirt” on Cameron. The nature of it varies, lately its been more sex than drugs, probably because the drugs thing has been lanced, but who cares about girls when he was younger? Even if it were to come out that Cameron was involved in gay sex orgies its doubtful it would make much difference. So long as he has been a good husband and father – and everything suggests he has – they will not be able to break him. But they will try, Labour can do little else. Cameron is the Brownite’s nightmare, he even claims their greatest enemy’s mantle – that he will continue the Blairite project, more choice, more private sector reforms of the welfare state, and something they can’t match – tax reductions.

UPDATE : The Sunday Torygraph has picked up the same vibe from the Treasury - with them getting a strangely worded decline of a Freedom of Information request. The article reports that the “Government’s treatment of the request has fuelled fears in the Cameron camp that officials are digging for dirt in preparation for a Cameron victory.” You bet they are. Never mind, he did actually pass positive vetting. Mind you, so did Guido once…

The dwindling demoralised band of Bloggers for Davis complained bitterly that their idol was stitched up by the pinko BBC bias of Newsnight, positioning him in the old Carlton Club in front of a picture of Maggie. Typical trickery from the Beeb’s liberal conspiracy of coked-up chattering metropolitan elites they said.

Newsnight’s editor, Peter Barron, emails Guido to say it wasn’t quite like that:

Does he? Hasn’t he just totally mis-judged the party’s mood, even last night he weirdly conjoined a hard line on immigration with help for Africa in his supposedly compassionate development speech to the Centre for Social Justice. This core-votes tune shows he is tone deaf to the mood music of his own party. The speech was in any case a me-too speech – even down to picking up on Cameron’s attack on Christian Aid’s out of control propaganda spewing from its loony-left Trade Policy Unit (CA-TPU).

If Cameron wins by a landslide – and the Davis campaign team are now merely battling to avoid that humiliation – it will signal to the public that the nasty party is history. That should translate into more votes rather than core votes.

News from the David Davis Campaign
How to beat the LibDems
David spoke at a meeting in Winchester this morning – a Liberal Democrat held seat in the battleground county of Hampshire.

He was able to draw on his own experiences in fighting the LibDems to set out how the Conservative Party can tackle the threat they pose in the coming years.

“I know how to beat LibDems. I did it in my own constituency. They boasted they would decapitate me. Instead I trebled my majority”, he said.

That email was sent out from Basher’s bunker yesterday, much to the irritation of a Guido operative armed with a calculator. He points out that Basher originally won the seat in 1997 with a reduced majority of 7,514 over the LibDems (a swing against Davis to the LibDems of 9.5%). Such was his effectiveness as a campaigner against the LibDems that in 2001 his was majority was further slashed to 1,903 (another swing from Davis to the LibDems of 5.4%).

So 2005 was a panic in the face of that trend, Basher plagued CCO for support and resources were poured into the constituency to bolster his campaign. Tory HQ was bullied into mounting a hugely disproportionate effort into what was once a safe Tory seat. It worked, his majority was increased to 5,118, a swing back of 4.2%. But still well down on the majority he inherited originally. How can Basher claim he knows how to beat the Libdems when he has succeeded only in reducing his majority over them?