A good case study for you, Jonah. On the last day of Tony Blair’s premiership, his successor Gordon Brown has pulled off the first coup of his new ministry by persuading Tory Quentin Davies MP to defect to Labour. Mr Davies’ letter to David Cameron says,

Under your leadership the Conservative Party appears to me to have ceased collectively to believe in anything, or to stand for anything. It has no bedrock. It exists on shifting sands. A sense of mission has been replaced by a PR agenda.

The letter goes on to be pointedly personal, accusing Mr Cameron of “superficiality, unreliability and an apparent lack of any clear convictions.” This is a major blow for Project Cameron, as Mr Davies was exactly the sort of Old Tory, paternalist “wet” whom one would expect to be right behind the new leader. Coming just a few days after a poll that suggests Labour have pegged back the Tories’ lead, these are testing times for the Conservative Party’s new direction. Tim Montgomerie urges Tory activists to “fasten your seatbelts.”

Further reactions from The Spectator’s Fraser Nelson and Matthew d’Ancona and from a less-than-impressed Iain Dale.