There are much bigger stories around right now, like Gordon Brown’s tenth pre-Budget Report and the Iraq Study Group, but today does mark David Cameron’s first anniversary as Tory leader.

One year on the party’s greatest media ally, the Telegraph, is supportive but finds itself lacking any achievements to trumpet, while ConservativeHome struggles to list ten peaks. Okay there’s an opinion poll lead (about which they concede ‘Labour will not be too worried… at this stage’) and that’s about it. Much is fluff (‘David Cameron was named as the one of the sexiest men in the world,’ they boast). Then there’s his modernising the party. More fluff (window dressing to appeal to Lib Dems) and some recognition of predecessors’ mistakes (Michael Howard’s dog-whistle approach to immigration politics), but nothing exciting.

Overall having David Cameron’s lead the Tories has had little consequence. The year has seen the Tories rely on Labour being buffeted by events rather than effective opposition.

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