Please read the previous posts first.

So, in 1975, what to do about Ted Heath?  Margaret Thatcher stood against him.  Most people expected Heath to win easily, but Airey Neave went round whispering to MPs that 'Margaret hasn't a chance' but, if she got a decent vote, Heath would resign and Willie Whitelaw would stand in a second ballot.  The astonishing result was Thatcher 130; Heath 119; Fraser 15. Heath duly resigned and new candidates emerged for a second ballot, but now the impetus was with Thatcher after her bold challenge.  The result of the second ballot was Thatcher 146; Whitelaw 79; Howe 19; Prior 19; Peyton 11.  Mrs. Thatcher remained Conservative Party leader for 15 years.

In 1990, Mrs. Thatcher, who had become strongly Euro-sceptic, was challenged by Michael Heseltine.  The vote was as follows:  Thatcher 204; Heseltine 152; Abstentions 6; Void/Spoilt 17.  There was a strange rule that the victor needed a margin over the runner-up of 15% of the total electorate, otherwise a second ballot would be held with new candidates allowed.  Mrs. Thatcher was two votes short of achieving this margin of victory.  After pressure from her cabinet colleagues, she resigned.  John Major was her designated successor and won the second ballot: Major 185; Heseltine 131; Hurd 56 - whereupon Heseltine and Hurd withdrew. 

When John Major won the 1992 general election, party disquiet about Thatcher's removal became muted but then disaster struck.  The UK was forced out of the E.R.M. - the European Exchange Rate Mechanism - which had been the keystone of Major's economic policy.  The Tories never recovered electorally and were engulfed in rows about Europe and then sleeze.  In 1995, John Redwood (a former head of Mrs. Thatcher's No. 10 policy unit, who had become an MP) resigned from the cabinet to make a principled challenge against Major's leadership but lost the vote: Major 217; Redwood 89.  In the 1997 general election, the Tories, still led by Major were annihilated by Tony Blair.  Major then duly resigned as leader. 

A notable absentee from the 1997 contest was Michael Portillo, who had lost his Parliamentary seat in the general election.  Kenneth Clarke - a pro-European former Chancellor of the Exchequer - thus faced the Euro-sceptics John Redwood, Peter Lilley, and Michael Howard.  Howard was teamed with William Hague as his deputy.  (Hague had entered the cabinet only two years earlier on Redwood's resignation to challenge Major.)  However, Hague then reneged on this deal and stood himself.  The first round of voting was: Clarke 49; Hague 41; Redwood 27; Lilley 24; Howard 23.  The second round was: Clarke 64; Hague 62; Redwood 38.  On the third round, Hague won: Hague 90; Clarke 72. 

Hague lost heavily to Tony Blair in the 2001 general election, and promptly resigned as Tory leader. The Tories now had a new method of electing their leader.  The MPs had to produce two candidates who would then be voted upon by the entire national party membership.  Much interest centred on Portillo who had re-entered Parliament.

The first round of voting in 2001 was: Portillo 49; Iain Duncan Smith 39; Clarke 36; Michael Ancram 21; David Davis 21.  The first round then had to be repeated because the bottom two candidates had tied, and neither could be eliminated.  The re-run was: Portillo 50; Duncan Smith 42; Clarke 39; Ancram 18; Davis 17.  Davis was duly eliminated, but Ancram also withdrew.  The next round was: Clarke 59; Duncan Smith 54; Portillo 53.  Portillo thereupon retired from serious politics in a huff; and the other two went forward to a national ballot. Iain Duncan Smith polled 155,933 votes (60.76%) to Kenneth Clarke's 100,864 votes (39.28%). 

Iain Duncan Smith was never accepted by the liberal elite within his own party or the media.  They sneered and sniped at his 'unsophisticated' views.  After two years, he was abruptly removed as Conservative party leader in a coup by fellow senior MPs.  The votes of 155,933 ordinary party members counted for nothing against the opinions of the liberal elite.  Michael Howard was declared the new leader with no MP opposing him.

Howard lost the 2005 general election, but managed to reduce Labour's previously huge majority.  He then lingered on as leader long enough to promote George Osborne and David Cameron to the shadow cabinet, thus giving them a platform.  To Howard's surprise, it was Cameron rather than Osborne who challenged for the leadership.  Cameron, a professional P.R. man, made a very slick speech at the Conservative Party conference whereas the favourite, David Davis, made a limp speech.  Whether it was this that scuppered Davis' chances is a moot point.  The liberal elite had decided that Cameron was their man and the media duly built him up. 

The result of the first ballot of MPs in 2007 was Davis 62; Cameron 56; Liam Fox 42; Clarke 38.  The second ballot produced Cameron 90; Davis 57; Fox 51.  In the national ballot of party members, Cameron polled 134,446 votes (67.61%) against 64,398 votes (32.39%) for Davis.

Will future historians say that this vote for David Cameron extinguished the last hope that traditional England could be saved from take-over by a marxoid liberal elite?     

What can be said with some certainty is that the Conservative Party's history of appointing its leaders does not display infallibility or even tidiness.