Not sure about this – but a rumour has gone round Tory HQ that they could be looking at Cameron being installed as leader without the party membership voting on it. Which suggests another coronation following a withdrawal of names. Treat with caution.

David Heathcoat-Amory, a former supporter of Liam Fox, has not as expected gone for Davis but instead joined the Cameroonies. Other less surprising declarations come from Andrew Lansley, Stephen Dorrell, Adam Holloway, Sir George Young, Michael Jack, John Bercow, David Curry, Charles Hendry and John Horam. Sir Malcolm Rifkind declared his support for David Cameron last night.

David Heathcoat-Amory admits “I voted for Liam Fox in the first elimination round and in the final round I will be voting for the candidate I believe would make the best leader of the Conservative Party.” Charles Hendry, a former supporter of Basher campaigner David Willetts, joins Stephen Dorrell and John Bercow in their quest for shadow cabinet positions.

Guido visited the Davis campaign website. No announcements of new backers. In fact it seems to claim a couple more supporters than actually voted for Basher. So much for the “rolling thunder” strategy of continuous announcements of MPs succumbing to the unifying power of Basher, its more “rolling blunder” with rumours of Iain “whatever” Dale and Andrew Mitchell hitting each other with verbal handbags.

UPDATE: Stewart Jackson has apparently made a run to Cameron from the Davis camp (another one to cross off the list at ModernConservatives.Com).

Have some sympathy for those careerists, known contemptuosly by all the leadership camps as the “creeps”. They swarmed like lemmings to David Davis seeking future preferment. Most you don’t know, and won’t ever know since they are now up shit-creek with little talent and less chance of their man having any powers of patronage.

Some better known and not entirely talentless creeps include Damian Green and David Willets. As faces not from the right-wing they are pushed forward in the media now that the hapless Andrew Mitchell has been put in charge of making the tea. (As Basher’s former media handler he distinguished himself at a Tory conference party by asking the editor of The Times who he was and coming close to breaking down on Andrew Neil’s Daily Politics show after that Davis speech.)

Willet’s repeats a mantra that Davis can unite the party, true, the party is increasingly united in the belief that Basher is a charisma-free loser. Willet’s can think of nothing else to say with conviction. Spare a tear also for Damian Green, who tore up his TRG membership card to back Basher. A dripping wet faction fighter in the past, he switched to Basher from Ken Clarke only to see Cameron come through. You’d have to have a heart of stone not to laugh.

According to the clearly inaccurate Who Support’s David? section of Basher’s website, 66 Tory MPs were committed to him. The second-raters will now need to switch their pledges to Cameron sharpish if they want a career…

Propeller-Head Wonk Watch: Tim Montgomerie is a political operator with an ambitious agenda. Informed by a quiet Christianity that underlies the approach of his IDS-chaired Centre for Social Justice, Tim aims to win the war on poverty by “getting the government off the back of the armies of compassion”. Essentially its compassionate conservatism combined with social activism. Tim is sensitive to suggestions that he is the cutting edge of the Christian Right in Britain, going to great lengths to disassociate himself from the negative side of the American Christian Right, despite sharing much of an agenda with them. Though he forswears an anti-gay agenda, he still manages to condemn poseur multilateralist metrosexual politicians. He claims he now has nothing to do with his former berth, the Conservative Christian Fellowship and is not even a member anymore.

Tim is very busy, apart from his real job at the Centre for Social Justice, he is behind ConservativeHome.Com which has quickly become a clearing house for Tory internal debate during the leadership campaign. Well laid out (after a few early design problems) and well edited, it has become an online community of bloggers. In fact its launch was heralded by a famous (for the blogosphere) article largely written by Tim that went out under IDS’ byline in the Guardian:

Through the tradition of town hall meetings, officials were held to account by local people. Blogger communities are going to be much more powerful. They will draw together not only local people but patients who have waited and waited for NHS care. They will organise parents of disabled children who oppose Labour’s closure of special-needs schools and evangelical Christians who see their beliefs caricatured by ignorant commentators.

All this should put the fear of God into the metropolitan elites. For years there have been widening gaps between the governing class and the governed and between the publicly funded broadcasters and the broadcasted to.

Until now voters, viewers and service users have not had easy mechanisms by which to expose officialdom’s errors and inefficiencies. But, because of the internet, the masses beyond the metropolitan fringe will soon be on the move. They will expose the lazy journalists who reduce every important public policy issue to how it affects opinion-poll ratings.

Tired of being spoon-fed their politics, British voters will soon be calling virtual town hall meetings, and they will take a serious look at the messenger as well as the message. It’s going to be very rough.

Karl Rove is right. The internet could do more to change the level of political engagement than all the breast-beating of introspective politicians and commentators. A 21st century political revolution is now only a few mouse clicks away.

Tim rejects the Tory-Taliban-Lite tag, he is backing Liam Fox, but says he would have backed David Willets had he stood. He also keeps his distance from the headcases of the Cornerstone group and US Moral Majority types such as Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell, claiming they lack a vision for social and international justice with too much focus on homosexuality. Bachelor Tim prefers a pro-family, rather than anti-gay stance.

Tim is nice with spin, it was in no small way due to Tim’s repeated references to Cameron and cannabis that the issue seeped into the mainstream long before Cameron was asked about it on the Tory party conference fringe. It was the Mail group and Tim who publicly and repeatedly, again and again linked Cameron’s liberal comments to the Home Affairs Select Committee on drugs with his personal history. Tim boasted that his

“post of Sunday on ‘Cameron and cannabis’ produced more than 160 reactions (at the time of writing this) and the subject is interesting commentators, too. Pundits are seeing Mr Cameron’s unwillingness to talk about his experience with illegal drugs as a betrayal of ‘the new kind of politics’ that they hope he might represent.”

This lived up to Tim (and Karl Rove’s) hope that right-wing blogging will change the way we engage in the political process. Tim protests to Guido that he was not trying to smear Cameron. Maybe not, but when Cameron placed an article in the Daily Mail defending himself on the subject, Guido hears the Cameron team went to the trouble of alerting Tim to it. Cameron’s people seemed to think it important to engage with him on the issue.

Tim Montgomerie is a wonk to watch, his agenda is gaining traction, its sophisticated and savvy. As the Conservative party seeks big ideas, Tim may find success repackaging American compassionate conservatism for British tastes.

Damian Green – who has an unbroken record of backing every losing Tory leadership campaign – was spinning for Basher’s team immediately post the result. On the BBC he blamed the dismal declining Basher vote on tactical voting for Liam Fox to keep out Clarke. The spectacle of ultra-wet Damian Green arguing that right-wingers backed Fox to keep out Clarke was toe-curling, and a little bit humiliating. Oh, the irony.

Does somebody know or is it just crazy gambling? Has Michael Spicer been on to his bookie?

Fox odds have collapsed, Clarke odds have more than halved to 11/1. Punters reckon Fox is a certainty to be out…

UPDATE: And then it reversed. Small panic amongst the punters for ten minutes when they thought Fox was toast. You could have had Fox @ 33/1 for a moment…

Last time the Tories elected a leader the betting markets knew the result before the newswires. Spicer has said that if votes are in before 5.20pm he’ll close up shop early.

Guido has just laid Cameron, perhaps out of boredom, possibly stupidity, but mainly because I suspect his price is too short.

Remember what matters chaps: its not the winning, its the taking pot*

Talking to my City gambler source this morning, he points out that money is moving even further away from Davis – he is now 4/1 and odds are lengthening – if he gets less than the 66 he claims are in the bag, he will be in real trouble. Ken Clarke is being written off (37/1), possibly a little prematurely. Guido has no bets on at the moment, but if Basher does badly, the cunning Fox will be worth a punt at 12/1 (if he is still in)…

*As a letter to the Guardian said.

The Sun says Coronation Street star Adam Rickitt is on his way to becoming a Tory MP. The actor was spotted at the Tory conference in Blackpool and CCO confirms he is on the candidates’ list. Gay pin-up Adam, 27, is a Tory wannabee who wants to fight for a Commons seat at the next General Election.

If elected, he is not expected to join the Cornerstone Group.

Adam, who has appeared in gay mag Attitude, shared Coronation Street’s first gay kiss with Todd Grimshaw, played by co-star Bruno Langley. He quit the Street in 1999 for a pop career but it failed. In 2002 he returned briefly for mum Gail’s wedding.

(Adam is not the first ex-Corrie star to stand for the Tories. James Gaddas, who played barman Vinny Sorrell, unsuccessfully contested Stockton South at this year’s election.)

Mrs Fawkes reckons he’ll make a good member.

Yesterday Stephen Byers apologised to parliament for “an inadvertent error” that had caused him to give “factually inaccurate” evidence to the transport select committee. He even lies about lying.

A few months ago he said it was “not a truthful statement and I apologise for that.” Now its just factually inaccurate, in a few months time it will have become an honest answer at this rate.

Inadvertent my arse, it was the political equivalent of a footballer’s professional foul, what a pathetic liar.

UPDATE: The Speaker has given leave for MPs to give him a kicking.