Conservative members have decided to jump a generation and elect 39 year old David Cameron to succeed Michael Howard as new Leader of the Party.
The Shadow Education Secretary takes over the top Party post after emerging victorious from the final run-off ballot in a leadership contest which has been underway for months.
He defeated rival David Davis, clocking up an impressive 134,446 votes of Party members (68%), compared with the 64,398 (32%) won by the 56 year old Shadow Home Secretary.
Two other contenders – Dr Liam Fox and Kenneth Clarke – were eliminated in earlier ballots which involved the Party’s 198 MPs.
The 70,048 majority result in favour of Mr Cameron was declared by Sir Michael Spicer, chairman of the 1922 Committee of Conservative MPs, during a special ceremony at the Royal Academy of Arts in Central London.
Sir Michael told an audience of MPs, peers, Party activists, donors and journalists that of the 253,689 Party members entitled to vote in the final stage of the leadership ballot, some 198,844 did so – equivalent to 78 per cent of the electorate.