THE NEWS is all about bombers and bombs. These perils are immediate. But beneath the clamour, other conversations continue, and one of these is rather important.

It is not clear that Gordon Brown will win a general election in England, or do well enough elsewhere to tip the balance in his favour. If not, the man or woman chosen as the Conservative leader a little later this year may be prime minister in about four years’ time; it is more possible that in eight years he will. That person will probably be called David.

But which David? If that is the Tory quandary then there are worse quandaries to be in. Both David Davis and David Cameron are strong, appealing candidates and credible future leaders. It is possible to prefer one of them unhesitatingly without seeing the other as less than viable alternative.

David Davis is quick-thinking, tough-minded, modern, plain-speaking, direct and brave. He also has an ability often overlooked but never unimportant in politics, a talent Margaret Thatcher hardly advertised but depended on until it finally deserted her, whereupon she sunk. I mean the ability to learn. I’ve watched Davis grow into jobs. I’ve written some of the rudest things that have been said about his skills in public speaking. He was dreadful when he started. Now he is never less than solid as an orator, and impressive as an interviewee.

As a loner he has not always been good at selecting and captaining a team but nor was Margaret Thatcher at first, and she learnt — there is no reason to think David Davis would not. As for policy, voters will not elect a Tory government because they want to pay more tax, an observation that seems to have escaped some enthusiasts for “modernised” Conservatism. Davis’s worry about public spending is prescient, as will soon become evident.

Lord Kalms, a significant Tory donor and supporter of Davis, remarked that if there existed anyone whose leadership talents matched or exceeded those of his preferred candidate, then the party would be lucky indeed in the store of talent it had to choose from. He was right. The Tories are lucky. There is David Cameron.

I surprise myself by having no doubt at all that were I still a Conservative MP I would unhesitatingly support Mr Cameron for the leadership. More to the point, that is the way that opinion is moving among ordinary members of the Conservative party, though maybe not yet in the Commons.

Why? David Davis ought to be my choice. I know no ill of him. His background is an advantage. He has been tested and proved. Cameron has not.

Davis is tough on tax. Cameron and his friends are still mumbling about high taxes being an inescapable part of our future. Cameron has never made a big speech in his life and may well disappoint at the party conference this October. He is young, wet behind the ears, knows nothing of a ministerial porfolio, rates Tony Blair, has close friends in new Labour, has yet to come up with anything you could call a big idea, holds no known views on a range of important subjects and mistakes a warm cloud of happy thoughts on “modern Britain” for a political creed. Cameron excites the suspicion that (with a single exception) he is one of those people, and mixes with those people, for whom it has all been rather easy: young men and women unacquainted with failure and despair.

It is hard not to feel that Cameron hasn’t earned it yet; that Davis has; and that if Davis does not get it there will be something unfair in the outcome.

As for Eton and all that, and though I know some good people who were at the school, the whole public-school thing disgusts me. To me, a top public school raises against a man the presumption that he is less than he appears, a presumption which has to be rebutted.

But I would vote for Cameron. I believe he can do it — Downing Street, that is — and with David Davis something whispers doubt.

Reasons for confidence in Cameron do not leap to the page in a bold, bullet-point list. They seem somewhat wispy yet my political antennae point me more clearly than for many years to the wisdom of this choice. I sense the same instincts will point voters, including doubtful Conservative voters, the same way.

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