The future of the Conservative Party

The kerfuffle over recent days about challenges to IDS's leadership makes me wonder what the Conservative Party's problem is.

I suspect it is paralysis. There are four directions they can go in:

Social Democratic with Ken Clarke
Liberal with Michael Portillo
Authoritarian with IDS (or at least that was the option)
Do nothing.

If they take one of the three "doing something" options they risk a definite split and probable electoral extinction. It is interesting to note that in the last leadership election each candidate got almost exactly the same number of votes.

If they do nothing they may also risk extinction but then again something might turn up.