Entries for December 08, 2005

David Cameron, 39 years old and after just four years in Parliament, has been elected leader of Britain's Conservative Party. Cameron took the lead after his speech, delivered without notes, at the Conservative Party conference in October, and he finished first of the five competitors among Conservative MPs. He faced the second-place finisher, David Davis, shadow home secretary, in a mail ballot, and won 68 to 32 percent.

Cameron is the fourth Conservative Party leader since 1997. John Major resigned the position after the landslide victory of Tony Blair's Labor Party in the May 1997 election; he was succeeded by William Hague, who resigned after Labor won by a similar margin in May 2001; then came Iain Duncan Smith, who was forced out after two years and was followed by Michael Howard.