Tomorrow's Tory top man?

There is a rising star in the ranks of Britain's Conservative Party. Mark him well, because despite being in Parliament just two years he has designs on the Tory leadership and, at 38 has time on his side.

Dominic Raab wants to re-brand the Conservatives in his own image - and for many in Britain that picture would not be pleasant. He wants to truncate unfair dismissal laws, abolish the minimum wage and renegotiate The United Kingdom's membership of the European Union with a list of demands that would probably end with it leaving the EU altogether.

The current David Cameron-led Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition is failing. Two years of  tough economic measures since its election in the wake of the global financial crisis appear to have brought little benefit. The economy stagnates, unemployment is high (for Britain) and the perennial anger with the European Union is reaching high water marks. On top of this there is talk that the Liberal Democrats, who have seen their popularity plunge since joining the coalition, may leave and go into opposition in the hope of regaining lost popularity. This has led to widespread speculation that the Government will not last until the end of its term in 2015.

If that is the case an early election would almost certainly see the return of a Labour Government that narrowly lost in 2010. It would not take much of a swing in voter sentiment to bring this about, but how Labour might deal with the malaise it inherits is problematic and there would certainly be very little in the way of a honeymoon period from an electorate remembering the last dismal years of the Blair-Brown administration.

This is where Raab may seize his chance to grab the Conservative leadership with a campaign rather like the Thatcher call for action in the late 1970s. A weak and indecisive Labour Government would be a juicy target and who would bet against a return of a new look, right-wing Tory party around 2018?

A lot of what Raab says is sheer nonsense. Britons are not, as he claims, among the worst idlers in the world, working among the lowest hours, retiring too early and with no interest in bettering themselves. Britain's work rates compare favourably with many of those in the EU and, further afield, Australia and New Zealand. The unions do not dominate working life in the way they might have done 30 years ago However, Raab's simplistic catch cries are music to the ears of the Tory faithful and - of course - to the big business the party needs to mount a successful election campaign.

Should Raab ever climb the greasy pole he will moderate his views in office. There hasn't been a Prime Minister in recent times who has not faced the need to compromise. But just how far he will be prepared to go - and whether he take his party and a majority of the nation with him - will be interesting fodder for speculation over the next decade.