David Cameron has been widely blamed for the Conservatives’ current predicament, but in one sense he has saved the party – if inadvertently. It is thanks to his drive for younger candidates that Theresa May’s government has avoided succumbing to a no-confidence vote. May does not have a majority, and relied on DUP votes to help her survive a no-confidence vote last month. Yet even DUP votes would not be enough to save her were she losing her own MPs at the rate John Major did in the mid 1990s. In 1992, Major was elected with a seemingly healthy majority of 21. Yet over the course of the following five years he lost that majority entirely. Why? While he suffered three defections towards the end of the parliament – with Emma Nicholson switching to the Lib Dems, Alan Howarth to Labour and Peter Thurnham (who first sat as an independent before becoming a Lib Dem), the main cause of the erosion of Major’s majority was the death of eight MPs, each followed by defeat in subsequent by-elections.
None of those who died were exactly elderly – four were in their early 60s, two in their late fifties, one in her early 50s.
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