David Cameron: 2005 To Present
David Cameron won the subsequent leadership campaign on 6 December 2005. Cameron beat his closest rival David Davis by a margin of more than two to one, taking 134,446 votes to 64,398, and announced his intention to reform and realign the Conservative Party in a manner similar to that achieved by the Labour Party in opposition under Tony Blair. As part of this he distanced from himself from the much hated Conservative Party of the past, for example apologising for Section 28, and focused in on modern environmental issues.
In April 2006 the party set out to deliver a promise by Cameron to modernize its parliamentary representation. A central candidates' committee reduced some five hundred aspiring politicians on the party's list of approved parliamentary candidates to an "A-list" of between 100 and 150 priority candidates. More than half of the names on the resulting list proved to be female, and several were of non-Establishment figures of various kinds.
After the party had led in opinion polls for most of Cameron's time in office, a hung parliament was achieved in the 2010 General Election, with the Conservatives achieving the most votes and largest number of seats in parliament. This outcome had been widely predicted and was largely due to a surge in support for the Liberal Democrats. Cameron successfully negotiated with the Liberal Democrats on forming a coalition government.
Read more about this topic: History Of The British Conservative Party
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