In her Guardian column today Jenni Russell says that the Tory party's commitment to David Cameron's brand of "progressive" conservatism is very weak and she wonders how many of Cameron's colleagues truly believe in it. She reveals that, when she asked this question in Conservative circles, one insider said it was just the shadow cabinet, while another suggested that even they weren't all on board, and that the answer was just 10.
Actually, according to Tim Montgomerie, who runs ConservativeHome, the number of Cameron devotees is even smaller than that. He reckons there are only six people who are fully behind Cameron's "new Toryism", and that's including Cameron himself. So, if we're talking about supporters, we're down to five.
Here's his list:
1. David Cameron, of course.
2. George Osborne, more socially liberal and more hawkish than DC but the tactical brain of the whole project.
3. Steve Hilton, the strategic brain responsible for the decontamination project, for the emphasis on green issues and social responsibility.
4. Edward Llewellyn, Cameron's chief of staff, gatekeeper and hugely influential in the evolution towards "realpolitik" in foreign policy.
5. Oliver Letwin, responsible for putting together the overall policy programme of the next government and intellectually its Gandalf.
6. Michael Gove, hugely trusted by David Cameron and responsible for the education brief that is intended to be the most radical of his government.
I'm not sure how much this matters. If anyone had sat down in 1996 and tried to produce a list of people in the Labour party who were both influential and 100% committed to the Blairite New Labour project, they would also have struggled to get into double figures. But that did not hold New Labour back. Maybe half a dozen people at the top is all you need.
