Those who have followed the Conservative party's descent into neurosis since the defenestration of Margaret Thatcher had cause in last week's UK election to hope that the patient might be staging a recovery. The party ran a focused, professional campaign on its (admittedly few) strong issues. It maintained a self-disciplined unity. And, though it lost, its condition stabilised at one-third of the popular vote in a three-and-a-half party system. In other words, rumours of the Tory party's strange death are greatly exaggerated.

Unfortunately, the decision by Michael Howard, Tory leader, to resign - honourable though it was - may abort this recovery. An outbreak of Conservative philosophising in the media looks like an early symptom of vicious party infighting. A long battle to install a new leadership system and then a new leader might make this condition chronic. Two remedies seem obvious: first, elect the new leader quickly even if it means reforming the electoral system afterwards. Second, examine the voting results, which should have a moderately soothing effect: Labour's 66-vote majority is the product of a pronounced anti-Tory bias in Britain's voting system. That bias will, at the very least, be reduced next time.