He is indispensable to the country

He is indispensable to the country.” How many will say that of Mr Blair?Sean O’Grady. That measure outlawed some of the worst excesses of rotten boroughs and paid-for seats. Peel, even as Tory leader, pledged to uphold its reforms even though his approach was “the maintenance of our settled institutions in Church and State”.But British politics was still a far from democratic affair. In it Peel, like Tony Blair today, acknowledges the importance of trust and suggests that this is why he needs to make a “frank exposition of general principles and views” in a manifesto: “You are entitled to this, from the nature of the trust which I again solicit.”The 1835 election could be said to be the first modern contest, coming so soon after the bitterly contested Great Reform Bill of 1832.

He appealed to both the “right” and to moderate opinion, and won the election.After Peel’s resignation in April 1835, the diarist Charles Greville wrote: “He has raised his reputation to such a height during this session … Women were not to receive equal voting for almost another century.Nonetheless Peel’s leadership of his party sought to gain the widest possible measure of support and his party leadership was marked by a willingness to attract talent from all wings of opinion such as the young Disraeli and Gladstone. Under the 1832 Act the electorate rose from 435,000 to 652,000 or from 3.1 per cent of the population to 4.7 per cent, limited by various property ownership qualifications. It has been unhealthy for a democracy to lack a serious political opposition for so long. That is why, whatever party we support at the ballot box, we should welcome a more credible Leader of the Opposition.. The Royal Mail is in the privileged and increasingly unusual position of being a state-owned company protected from the market place.

In this respect it is not clear why Mr Howard’s accession advances the Conservative cause much further He is a Eurosceptic and socially conservative. At the age of 62, he is unlikely to change his views greatly now that he is leader of his party.At least the Conservatives have a leader who will keep this government on its toes. The sense of drift and sloppiness under New Labour has several causes, but one of them has been the lack of an effective opposition. Would the government have got away with its rushed and ill-thought through proposals on foundation hospitals if it feared scrutiny from a sharper Leader of the Opposition? The Prime Minister might have taken more care in the erratic preparation of that and other policies if he had been facing Mr Howard at the despatch box rather than the hopeless Mr Duncan Smith. In the end, the views of a leader and the policies he advocates matter more than the ability to score points against opponents.