Team source says Davis failed to use his “killer sound-bites”?

The general view, backed up by the opinion polls, was that David Davis was the clear winner of the Question Time debate between the two contenders the week before last – and there’s little doubt that his performance put new life into his campaign.

But word has reached PB.C that those advising David Davis were very disappointed by what their man did in the debate with David Cameron and that he had failed to capitalise on half a dozen “clear shots at goal” which he had been prepared for.

In the run-up to a week last Thursday Camp Davis put an enormous amount of effort getting their candidate prepared for what was always going to be a key show-down – particularly as it was broadcast on the eve of the ballot mailing going out. Team members realised that not only had they to stop the Cameron band-wagon but there had to be clear blows that would undermine the old-Etonian’s campaign. Ideally there should have been a knock out punch.

So two things were put into place – Davis was given a lot of performance coaching while skilled writers sought to anticipate how the debate would go and prepare “killer” sound-bites aimed at Cameron. The Shadow Home Secretary then rehearsed these many times so he could maximise the impact.

The first aspect worked very well and there was no doubt that a confident candidate appeared before the audience in Nottingham where the programme was recorded. But, according to our source who was very close to the whole process, Davis simply failed to use the “killer sound-bites” – even though he had learned them by heart and the course of the the debate gave him the ideal opportunity.

Meanwhile Sunday saw some of the heaviest betting in the Tory leadership race since the contest started with a lot of money going on Cameron from punters trying to cash on on what is now seen as a near certainty. The total that has been matched on him on the Betfair betting exchange alone is touching the £1m mark – more than half of that coming in the past week.

We’ve got to a stage where gambling investors are dominating the market and they tend to chase favourites when they can sniff a sure thing- at whatever the price.

Mike Smithson