Hague coming out for Cameron seems to have mortally undermined the spirit of Wat Tyler over at David Davis for Leader. Nothing before has put him off his enthusiasm, polls that gave Cameron as much as a 4 to 1 lead were dismissed as faulty, polls that gave him a mere 2 to 1 lead were also faulty. Now he talks about Cameron’s shadow-cabinet choices, the prospect of Tory show-trials in the search for a Clause 4 Moment. Its all so very depressing for Wat.

The Hague endorsement follows on the heels of Doc Fox’s prescription for Cameron, Clarke’s begrudging endorsement of wonder-boy as well as the media falling in behind Cameron. The Daily Mail’s endorsement was unexpected, but the Indy, Economist and Sunday Times were in the bag. The FT fell in when Clarke fell out of the race. The Toryraph is holding its vote, but you can bet that the Torygraph will give its blessing eventually. Boris at the The Speccie endorsed Cameron early and often, made him Parliamentarian of the Year and generally grovelled for a shadow-cabinet job.

It seems almost cruel to drag this out for another month, but the hustings may yet possibly produce some upsets. Expect tough “spontaneous” questions from the rank and file remnants of Basher’s support. Never mind, Wat can cheer himself up by looking forward to our pre-Christmas meal at Simpsons, the bill for which increasingly looks like being his…