Forget thoughts of depriving Nick Bourne of his leadership of the Tories, at least this side of the Assembly election in 2011.
The AM for Mid and West is on a roll – all thanks to London Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the series of gaffes and problems that have been visited upon him.
Peace has descended on the Tory ranks in the Assembly, despite ambitions bubbling away slowly in the background – particularly from Jonathan Morgan (South Central) and Darran Millar (Clwyd West).
But, when the party’s going upwards rapidly, there is little point in wrecking the brew by stirring too vigorously.
Speaking to the press, Mr Bourne was blunt that expectations in the next Commons election – surely in 2010 – are no longer limited to Vale of Glamorgan (which will remove Alun Cairns from Cardiff Bay) and Cardiff North (which will remove Jonathan Evans from Brussels).
Mr Bourne said he was thinking in “double digit” terms, to embrace seats never before thought of as Tory, as well as those not held by the party for many years.
The importance of 2011 to a leadership election is that a poll at that time will bring a number of new faces into the Assembly. The change-over in faces is larger than experienced in the Commons where their first-past-the-post election system results generally in an as-you-were result.
If Mr Bourne fails to become First Minister (he is definitely in the running), all bets are off.
But if he manages to take over the big office on the fifth floor of the building currently occupied by Rhodri Morgan – where I am now working, any change in the Tory group leadership would, of course, be totally unthinkable.
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The one obstacle to the Tories doing well in 2011 and Bourne becoming First Minister is . . . Bourne himself.
He can’t shake off his anti-devolution past enough to satisfy the true believers yet, to many antis in Conservative ranks, he seems to have adopted devolution with the zeal of the recent convert.
Add to that the fact that he’s an uninspiring individual and I conclude that if the Tories do well in 2011 it will be in spite of Bourne, not because of him. Which might leave many Tories wondering how much better they might have polled with a more dynamic leader.