Starting Over, Again

They like to call themselves the "natural party of government," a bit of swagger that could be justified when Conservatives held power for 35 of the years between 1950 and 2000. But now that Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour Party has given them two straight drubbings, the Tories are searching uneasily for a new raison d'être and, this week, a new leader to help them find one. To judge from the bitter contest, the leadership vote will not end the Tories' internal fights but may actually accentuate them, leaving the victor with bloody ideological rifts to stitch up as he also...