The closet radical

David Cameron’s path towards power has been long and winding, and may twist and turn yet more before the general election. Tony Blair’s march to Number 10 between 1994 and 1997 was relatively linear. Mr Cameron, in contrast, was underdog in his party’s leadership race in 2005, wobbled badly in the summer of 2007, recovered after the election-that-never-was and then faced a resurgent Gordon Brown as the scale of the global downturn became clear last September.

In the course of this political rollercoaster ride, it has been easy to lose sight of what ought to be the most important fact in British politics: namely that Mr Cameron is still likely to be the next Prime Minister. In recent weeks, that likelihood has hardened into high probability, as a string of opinion polls has shown the Tory leader enjoying a steady and substantial lead over Mr Brown — culminating in Tuesday’s Ipsos-Mori survey, which had the Tories on 48 points, with Labour 20 points behind.