Duncan-Smith faces confidence vote (bbc.co.uk)

Any views? As someone who is essentially non-partisan, immensely dis-satisfied with Labour, probably qualifies as "middle class" and is under 30 (a constituency to which I believe most parties would be looking to appeal), I would have to say that IDS makes no appeal to me whatsoever. I can see why traditional Tory Party members would vote for him: the military career, conventional family background, etc, but could never see him gaining the support of people who fall outside of this rather narrow band and I believe that the majority of the parliamentary Conservative party can see that. In short, I'm of the opinion that he'll go.
Whither the replacement? Well, I hardly think that the arch right-winger Michael Howard would fare much better in the voter popularity stakes, whilst David Davies would appear to suffer from "who's he" syndrome. Ancram seems to be a Bunteresque, Old Etonian figure, the like of which is irrelevant outside of the old boys network that is the City of London. Portillo, well possibly although I doubt he'd stand given what happened last time and the basically homophobic attitude of a large part of the Tory Party membership: addtionally, for me he's still somewhat haunted by the ghost of the strident Thatcherite he once was. The only Conservative politician who could possibly hope to win my vote would be Ken Clarke - a realist on Europe and in other matters possibly to the left of Blair - unlikely to sit well with the scions of the Tory Constituency Associations though!

I have the radio on - here is the answer to the vote when it was supposed to be announced-
"The result will be announced at 1 minute to 7 "
trying to type as they speak (and failing miserably - so here is a precis)-

Order Ladies and Gentlemen!
75 in favour
90 not confident
(Sir Michael Spicer announced)
Mr. Duncan-Smith must resign as Leader.
Nominations for leader must be lodged by Thursday 6th November
Elections for Leader will be held the following week.

Will he now fight the new election? There's nothing to stop him doing it and he seems to be highly regarded by the Constituency Members and could possibly win!.

It would be hard to find another Maggie, now there was a woman and a half.

It would appear that Michael Howard's succession is regarded as a fait accompli - good news for the Lib Dems I would imagine as the man once voted "The Most Odious Politician in Britain" takes the helm.
If anyone read today's Guardian, then for the record I agree with the G2 piece: Boris Johnson for Tory Party leader!

Now that would be really funny, or not! I haven't worked out how he got elected as an MP, then I have only seen him on HIGNFY and he can barely string two words together when he is on that.

For anyone who's wondering, think of your archetype upper class twit, add some, add a little bit more and you've got Boris. A national treasure, nonetheless!

The man himself!

Edited to provide a link to the image rather than an image itself - that image is subject to copyright even if we didn't like people to post images in threads.