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So a persistent Tagnut has been disposed of.
Now it's a contest between:
Robert 'Honest Bob' Jenrick - a man so crooked and of so few actual principles (good or bad) that he probably gets out of both sides of the bed simultaneously each morning.
James 'Jimmy Dimly' Cleverly - the embodiment of reverse nominative determination. Slow-witted, doughy and a proven misogynist who is a sitting duck for any Labour politician with an ounce of political nous.
Kemi 'Bad Enoch' Badenoch - at least twice as tetchy as Sunak, utterly crackers, and with all the charisma of an insufferable 6th former who has just been made a prefect to stop her whingeing about not being one.
It's magnificent. It is the inevitable outcome of courting Brexity populism. Utterly fantastic. 100% deserved.
It'll be Generic. And as he messes up Al J will have another go.
La crème de la crème du merde. In the way that people get the governments they deserve, the Conservative Party also appear to be electing the leadership they deserve. Bravo.
I’m in the unfortunate position of knowing one of bad Enoch’s advisors. They’re a truly awful person as well: full on legatum volunteer and latterly employee, vote leave minion and fawning Bojo groupie. The rot is not merely a show. You wouldn’t have them over to dinner. Or if you did, you’d be awfully tempted to be careless when serving their dessert.
Headbangers be headbanging!!!
Badenoch or Jenrick.
Jesus wept.
Hopefully whichever of them wins will manage to keep the Tories far from power for a good time yet.
Sweet Christmas! Never expected that!
Well if who ever is chosen stays the course then the conservatives wont get back into power at the next election. Both are as mad as a bag of badgers. They are about to be lead by another Liz Truss
They are about to be lead by another Liz Truss
Was Truss ever politically conservative rather than just economically?
Cleverly done.
And yes, you can read that in a couple of ways....
Labour’s fortunes to revive from here if that is the choice to be offered to the electorate
Phew, nearly done - at least we are closer to knowing who to get behind.
Tories and Reform will now most likely merge. Will it be after another wipeout in 2029 as the arsehole vote is split again?
Looked at like that, it might as well be Badenoch now, merge in 2027-28 and Farage takes over if it looks like Badenoch can't win at the head of a combined party.
Shit the bed. We could end up with a fully fascist party as one of the two main ones.
Was Truss ever politically conservative rather than just economically?
Do you mean "socially conservative"? Even that's a polite euphemism, isn't it.
Check her USA appearances since losing the PM position to see where she is on "social" issues.
This is hilarious
https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/1844024791759749594
Starmer, Reeves & Co will be ecstatic
The result nobody in the Tory parliamentry party wanted apart from badenoch
It's calamitous for them. But great for the lib Dems.
And of course starmer
I don't think its as clearly good news as you make thing. Conservative + Reform share of vote is more than labour in this election, and it'll likely swing further from labour (as the party in power often suffers some). If the right manages to unite, things could prove interesting come the next election
The reason they've kept Farage at arm's length is that they know that whilst approx 20% of the electorate love him and 10% could be won over the other 70% despise him with a passion. Having him join would drive away the last remnants of the socially liberal pro-business support that they've already hemorrhaged chunks of to the Lib Dems and hugely drive voter turn-out against him.
Especially now Brexit is widely regarded to be the disaster it was always going to be and he remains the enduring face of it.
Any party with him at it's head will have a certain floor in their support and almost guaranteed to be in the mix but hugely unlikely to ever have enough support to contest for No.10.
That's the electoral calculation, there's also the personal factor being that he's a weapons-grade arsehole who's spent the last 3 years lagging them all off and who will expect to run the party as his own petty fiefdom with zero bandwidth for anyone else.
I don’t think its as clearly good news as you make thing. Conservative + Reform share of vote is more than labour in this election, and it’ll likely swing further from labour (as the party in power often suffers some). If the right manages to unite, things could prove interesting come the next election
I agree somewhat, however the unknown is how many current Tory voters would stay if it lurched (further!) to the right - many have already defected to the Libs, and equally how many Reform could vote Tory, since many are disaffected Labour voters. Hard to see how they can square that circle.
It's terrible news. Anyone who thinks this will guarantee that Labour will win the 2029 general election is deluding themselves.
Support for Labour is currently very low, it might well significantly increase by 2029 but it won't simply be because of who is leader of Tory Party.
We will see if after the Tory leadership ballot and the new leader is appointed whether there is a sudden surge to Labour, I somehow doubt it.
It’s terrible news. Anyone who thinks this will guarantee that Labour will win the 2029 general election is deluding themselves.
Says the worlds' worse sleeper...
IMO it doesn't matter who the leader is until the year or so before the next election (but of course the Tories won't know when this will be), until then they're just 'wallpaper'.
however the unknown is how many current Tory voters would stay if it lurched (further!) to the right – many have already defected to the Libs, and equally how many Reform could vote Tory,
The Tories lost way more seats to the lib dems than to Reform, that belies the numbers obvs, but reform overperformed in specific seats.
Conservative + Reform share of vote is more than labour in this election
Polling showed that at least 1/3rd of Reform votes were never winnable by the Tories
Trying to out-farage Farage has been a disaster for the Tories and assuming that Farage will align with Badenoch or Jenrick is entirely missing the point of farage.
Cleverly was by far the best shot for the Tories, they've just blown that, Labour now have to deliver, that will determine the next GE, but this has certainly given Starmer breathing room
IMO it doesn’t matter who the leader is until the year or so before the next election
An interesting assumption that it possibly might not be the same person who leads the Tory Party for the next 5 years.
In opposition the Tories are less likely to face the same level of crises which they faced whilst in government. That unfortunate predicament now seems to be the one which Labour are facing. As we have amply seen in the first 100 days of the current Labour government.
I don't think we have to worry about the direct impact of the tories for a while, but the indirect consequences. Unfortunately as reform drag the tories further right, labour have been following.
The Tories lost way more seats to the lib dems than to Reform, that belies the numbers obvs, but reform overperformed in specific seats.
Seats not votes.
The last GE is a prime example of why PR should never be allowed.
I am reasonably sure but not 100% that the tories need to win back the lib Dem seats they lost. Having jenrick or badenoch isn't going to achieve that. In fact I'd say it would more likely have the reverse effect.
I don't think Farage will join the tories. Yes there may be some alignment but the Tory party as we have known it will I would think split further if he did. There is a lot of loathing for nige, both in parliament and across the country. But of course he doesn't need to be a Tory to manipulate politics as we know.
unfortunately as reform drag the tories further right, labour have been too
This is my concern
The last GE is a prime example of why PR should never be allowed.
Reform need to be defeated by a legislative agenda that gives working people and those in poverty real hope and belief that the government is working for them, not by a restrictive voting system that distorts democracy.
No agenda can "defeat" Reform, or whatever they'll be called next. The way that the media in the UK, and Social Media worldwide, currently operates will keep feeding their story, their agenda. The only hope is to keep them contained. As you say, hope and belief are what is needed... and those backing the likes of Reform can always offer that with the promise of quick fixes... the battle against that, with real genuine and long term improvement in people's lives is always a difficult one. See right now... "They've had a 100 days, why is my foreign looking neighbour still driving a better car than me?!? I was right to vote Reform for real change".
Do you mean “socially conservative”? Even that’s a polite euphemism, isn’t it.
Yes
Check her USA appearances since losing the PM position to see where she is on “social” issues.
I'll grant her the benefit of the doubt and allow for a difference between what she may have perhaps honestly believed pre-brexit and what she'll say for her employer as a freelance rent-a-gob.
We will see if after the Tory leadership ballot and the new leader is appointed whether there is a sudden surge to Labour, I somehow doubt it.
I doubt it too, in the wilderness years of polling between elections there's going to be a huge number of "they're all *" responses, which then crystalize into "Well they're not as * as ......." on election day. Starmer might have abysmal approval ratings now, but I'd bet he could still win an election Tomorrow (just maybe not so decisively).
I agree somewhat, however the unknown is how many current Tory voters would stay if it lurched (further!) to the right – many have already defected to the Libs, and equally how many Reform could vote Tory, since many are disaffected Labour voters. Hard to see how they can square that circle.
And add to that a bit of lib/lab tactical voting, our constituency was won by a minuscule margin despite a 3-way campaign. It was a new constituency, mostly from splitting up a former Tory stronghold. One side went Lib the other Labour. Next time round I'd hope Labour and the Lib Dems might come to a quiet deal where one doesn't seriously contest the other and comes 3rd to keep the Tories out.
Reform need to be defeated by a legislative agenda that gives working people and those in poverty real hope and belief that the government is working for them, not by a restrictive voting system that distorts democracy.
The irony of this is that if Labour does a good job of delivering what they're supposed to ...........
Can't see Nige wanting to be PM, 60% pay cut, scrutiny and having to do a minimum of work. He makes look like has a work ethic.
Can’t see Nige wanting to be PM, 60% pay cut, scrutiny and having to do a minimum of work.
Boris managed it just fine.*
*I realise that "just fine" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there in as much as he was a ****ing disaster for the country but he himself did "just fine" out of it.
Every time you think the conservatives can't inflict any more damage on the country they somehow manage it. There is nothing good here at all.
Firstly the obvious, a victory for hard right nutters is never a good thing in any setting.
Secondly we now have the unenviable proposition of either happy fascist or grumpy fascist yelling populist rhetoric at the PM for (and Ernie is correct*) probably the next 5 years with the same sort of biased media coverage we are all used to.
*my caveat here is I reckon that if Kemi wins she is so unsuited to the job and so good at making enemies in her own party and pretty much anywhere she goes that she may well not last the distance to the next election. Jenrick on the other hand is a politician so will probably last out.
It's a sobering reminder that Cleverly wasn't up to the job of LOTO, let alone PM
It’s a sobering reminder that Cleverly wasn’t up to the job of LOTO, let alone PM
Never was a name more wrongly allocated.
EDIT Shamelessly stolen from BlueSky
I'm hearing that Spurs were very impressed by Cleverly's form in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory
I think the fault there was his campaign team that monumentally stuffed up by trying to rig the vote in order to get him against Jenrick in the last two rather than Kemi. Whilst this is proof that you would never employ a Tory to organise anything important (like the country for instance) it........well yes he probably would have been useless but.......versus who else?
I reckon my bet on Honest Bob is definitely going to pay out. The chinless, corrupt, morality-free, right wing, privately educated, Oxbridge, middle-aged white guy was always a shoe in
I might stick my winnings on him not leading the Tories into the next election. I give him 18 months, tops, before they’re at it again. They can’t help themselves
Not sure why people think this is a good result for Labour, Badenoch who is now the firm favourite, will cause Labour the biggest headaches of any of the candidates.
C4 news interviewed a a few conservative members who seemed very happy with the result, shame they'll most likely be 6ft under by the time the next election will be held.
I reckon my bet on Honest Bob is definitely going to pay out
Generic is likewise my prediction as above with fly tipped sofa knocking on the door in due course.
I now need to work on my explanation of how I really actually got it right when Bad Enoch walks it. Agree she's more of a threat given creating your own reality seem to be what works for the right these days.
Badenoch who is now the firm favourite, will cause Labour the biggest headaches of any of the candidates.
I think she'll cause the biggest headaches for the conservatives, she could start a brawl in a nunnery, she has an impressive ability to wind up both friends and enemies, Cleverly was a far bigger threat
Not sure why people think this is a good result for Labour, Badenoch who is now the firm favourite, will cause Labour the biggest headaches of any of the candidates
Why? She’s rat poison to most people with no redeeming qualities.
Badenoch is going too be epic to watch. I remember some people saying that after a projected election defeat the Tories would move back towards the centre which seemed unlikely to me. It's fair to say I was right, they are still going to try to out Reform, Reform.
She is going to remind everyone, whenever needed, why it was so important to remove the Tories.
I am not so sure Starmer will be able to deal with her throwing curveballs, he seams to struggle when it goes off script. It is hard to break down someone's logic when it is actually just illogical bullshit. I am the same even on subjects that I am confident in if someone starts arguing with just nonsense it is much harder to make a case back than when an actual logical argument is made.
There have been a few incidents where Starmer has been blindsided by an interview question (or kids protesting climate change) and he just doesn't have a ****ing clue what to do.
In fact if Badenoch does win, I would engineer it so the first couple of times its prime question time Raynor faces her, I reckon Raynor would give her a right kicking across the despatch box.
C4 news interviewed a a few conservative members who seemed very happy with the result,
Whereas Five Live had a focus group of Tory voters who listened to all 4 make their pitches last week. Tom Tugenhat was by far the most popular, with Cleverly second. The two Faragist nutjobs went down like a cup of cold sick
And that was a panel of specifically Tory voters, not the wider electorate
The Tory Membership are now finally going to get what they’ve craved… a nasty, reactionary, far right headbanger at the helm. And they’ll be as overjoyed as the Labour left were when they finally got their lefty messiah installed to usher in a new dawn
The repellent effect on most voters will be much the same
The Tory Party is about to have its Corbyn moment. The political wilderness beckons. It’s going to be fun to watch
https://Twitter.com/politicsjoe_uk/status/1844056187463205157?s=46&t=1lK7Dw1b6RqGJyvufO-trQ
The two Faragist nutjobs went down like a cup of cold sick. And that was a panel of specifically Tory voters, not the wider electorate
The Tory Membership are now finally going to get what they’ve craved… a nasty, reactionary, far right headbanger at the helm.
Did you just not totally contract yourself in consecutive sentences?
I agree with the Corbyn moment comment though.
Tory voters and Tory membership can be separate groups.
I was highlighting the difference between the Tory membership who want Badanoch or Honest Bob and the less unhinged, far less extreme common-or-garden Tory voter, who overwhelmingly favoured Tugenhat and Cleverly
The Tory voters in the focus group clearly thought the party should be aiming for the centre ground, whereas the party membership want to stampede off in the direction or Reform
The latter have got their way, but there’s only a few thousand of them and most will be dead by the next election anyway
"I reckon my bet on Honest Bob is definitely going to pay out. The chinless, corrupt, morality-free, right wing, privately educated, Oxbridge, middle-aged white guy was always a shoe in"
Like your 9/1 bet on Braverman eh binners???
I don't think it realy matters... any newbie is just a place holder until the next election.
Playing devils advocate, If I were a tory leader wannabe, I'd be weighing up taking the center ground from labour, or trying to out-facist UKIP/Reform or whatever incarnation they are in a few years.
They can't do both...
...well they can, but then they can join the Lib dems on the same seats as 'what do we even mean any more?'
Such is the binary bullshit of UK politics.
Like your 9/1 bet on Braverman eh binners???
I cashed that at 12 months ago and put it on Honest Bob instead.
Cruella definitely overreached and buggered it up for herself with the MPs. Otherwise the final two would have been her and Badanoch for certain and she’d have won The membership all absolutely adore her.
But when she did so, her opportunistic understudy/sock puppet just took up where she left off. They’re one of the same, her and Honest Bob.
Be under no illusions about who’ll really be pulling the strings
Guessing the Lib Dems will do even better next time as all the tories I know hate the likes of Badenoch and her BS and won't be attracted by it. They may get some reform votes back but would probably lose just as many to Lib Dem.
Any moderate tory voters who may have switched to Labour are probably already regretting it and looking for somewhere to go and that is not going to be Jenrick/Badenoch Conservative Party and not Reform.
I now need to work on my explanation of how I really actually got it right when Bad Enoch walks it. Agree she’s more of a threat given creating your own reality seem to be what works for the right these days.
Trouble is they have the papers and are quite happy to rewrite history.
It’ll be Prime Minister Farage before you know it.
They will out reform reform by nicking Reforms main asset.
Unfortunately we have to rely on the Tory party members and reach of the papers dying off and people understanding what the ECHR is about and sort of not happily throwing their/our human rights away just to keep some ‘furriners’ out.
Any moderate tory voters who may have switched to Labour are probably already regretting it and looking for somewhere to go and that is not going to be Jenrick/Badenoch Conservative Party and not Reform
Pretty much what Martin Kettle is saying in the Guardian today
“The real winner today was neither Badenoch nor Jenrick. Yes, they will now fight for the job that Rishi Sunak is so keen to relinquish. But the happiest person in British politics today is surely the Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey. His ambitious dream of capturing even more Conservative seats than his party did in July is suddenly looking much more realistic.”
On a side note of throwing your rights out, heard some people on a Spanish non lucrative visa without an income but cash are having to show around €80k in the bank account for their second year renewal.
In the first year they had to show €40k and for the second it’s a double up for some odd reason.
Jenrick is not a conviction politician like Badenoch. He is a slippery chancer only interested in gaining power. He will tack to the centre quite quickly if he wins because most of the remaining Tory MPs understand that’s where you win from - that’s why Cleverly was their clear favourite till they screwed up the voting. He only needs to keep the MPs on side once he’s elected leader, they’re the only ones who can remove him, not the members. See Starmer for details.
Will be interesting to see how this plays out over the next year or two. One of the issues the Tories have had over recent years is the amount of influence the right of the party has had, so that more centrist/electable leaders have ended up compromised after having to pander to the right. Now that they're going to be electing someone from the right of the party, will we see the centre of the party being able to have as much influence (in which case they'll be electing a new leader before the next GE) or will the right dominate and take the Tories further right (possibly absorbing the Reform Party in the process)? I'm hoping for the latter but that the British public is still sane enough that the Tories get eviscerated again at the next GE...
Not sure why people think this is a good result for Labour, Badenoch who is now the firm favourite, will cause Labour the biggest headaches of any of the candidates.
You obviously see something in her I can't..., what is it exactly that you think she'll be good at as the Leader of the Opposition?
He will tack to the centre quite quickly if he wins
Its worth reading that Guardian article I posted above. He’s already on warning and he’s not even been elected yet. The nutters are not convinced of his conversion to their cause under Cruella and are already issuing threats of (another!) leadership election to depose him if he tacks to the centre
Theyre all absolutely mental! Threatening the next leadership election when they’ve not even finished this one? Completely nuts!
Labour and the Lib Dems must all be loving every single minute of this madness
They’re saying that this was a ‘clever’ exercise in lending votes that then went horribly wrong to deliver the wrong outcome
Given their time in government, that’s a quite fitting start to their time in opposition
A complete farce!
Its worth reading that Guardian article I posted above. He’s already on warning and he’s not even been elected yet. The nutters are not convinced of his conversion to their cause under Cruella and are already issuing threats of (another!) leadership election to depose him if he tacks to the centre
Yeah this. I read it last night and I'd broadly agree with what he's saying. Uggh.
On my evening commentariat round up I haven't found anyone of the usual suspects saying this is bad for labour per se. Sure, I'd agree it might drag the discourse to the right, and there's clearly an discussion about the labour position already.
But I think you have to consider the quality of the candidates too. Badenoch is very poor, has weak and frankly ridiculous positions that she is unable to justify, and when she attempts to, she gets angry and patronizes the interviewer. Jenrick? Oh come on.
The choice is between someone the mps don't trust, and someone else who gets angry and nobody likes
I see the man-frog has come out and stated the bleedin’ obvious. Clearly a message they don’t want to hear, but he’s right
https://Twitter.com/politlcsuk/status/1843678922124517777?s=46&t=1lK7Dw1b6RqGJyvufO-trQ
Yes the 19 letters thing is a weak point in my reasoning. I wonder if that low threshold will prompt a rule change in the name of stability and recent past experiences.
The Malevolent Penfold Marc Francois and his chums love a leadership crisis nearly as much as Labour loves to brief against itself.
No agenda can “defeat” Reform, or whatever they’ll be called next.
Of course there is. People considering voting reform will do so on the simple assessment of whether they can get a GP appointment, not have to wait months for hospital treatment, if their kids can go to the local school, and afford the weekly shop and be able to pay their rent/mortgage. If they can do all those things by the time the next election comes around and be reassured that govt acts in their interests, they will forget all the stuff about immigrants and will be much less likely to vote for Farage. If the govt carries on telling them these things aren't possible though or attempts to make excuses, Farage is nailed on to be in govt in some form (perhaps as PM) next time around.
Hoping for a Reform - Conservative merger of any sort is nihilistic in the extreme, do we really want the Conservatives to turn into The Front Nationale? Those Labour supporters licking their lips at such a prospect should be careful what they wish for.
What Badenoch has in her favour is consistency, something both her admirers and detractors can agree on. The result isn't even in yet already the conversation, from both the left and the right is how Jenrick will flip-flop at the first opportunity.
I don't know about you but I'd rather the far right stay in the margins of British politics. Badenoch will divide a Reform Party that like a wolf in a dog's costume have preyed upon voter disaffection based (amongst other things) on what they see as a lack of consistency from the political classes.
It might be good for the political health of the country if a clearer offer were made to them:
Labour=Left Wing.:
Conservatives = Right Wing:
Reform = Far right.
Greens = Far left
(Apologies to the Scots and Northern Irish, whose voting patterns follow a more complcated route)
Hoping for a Reform – Conservative merger of any sort is nihilistic in the extreme
Don't understand it either. If they merge (or more likely agree a non-aggression pact) they could win the next election, probably with Farage as leader. I know Ed Davey has fantasies of the libdems becoming the official opposition, but they're just that, a fantasy. It's much more likely that the labour and libdem vote will be split and the combined tory and reform vote will be larger, putting them in govt.
I think you’re massively underestimating the animosity between Farage, Tice and the rest of the Reform mob and their contempt for the present Tories. They’ve never forgiven them for what they consider to be Borises Betrayal over Brexit and consider them to be a bunch of (relative) socialists.
A merger, or any electoral pact, will simply never happen. Once bitten and all that
Thats not to say that Farage wouldn’t want to see himself as the next (or one after) Tory party leader, whereupon Reform would collapse like UKIP before it
If that does happen, then that would finally split the Tory party as the right wingers would welcome him like Richard Burgon welcomed Corbyn, while anyone sane left in the Tory Party (are any left?) would be off
they could win the next election
I think equally likely is that Reform will pull itself apart. There's any numbers of folks from any of his previous vehicles/parties that have been discarded in the wake of Farage's narcissistic megalomania, will tell you that as far as he's concerned he IS the show, and will not tolerate any form of individualism, or treading on his ground, or sharing his spotlight. Any party with him, Tice and associated hangers on in it is probably hours away every single week from being explosively destroyed like the morning after a "10 pints and a curry" night out.
I think you’re massively underestimating the animosity between Farage
Possibly. But the prospect of acquiring power has enormous potential to resolve disagreements and personal grudges. We know from history that the tories are experts at adapting and reacting to the political landscape to win power. They've done it time and again and will this time. They'll dangle some irresistable temptations in front of Farage and Tice and they won't be able to resist.
while anyone sane left in the Tory Party (are any left?) would be off
I'm not sure there are many moderates left in the tory party after Johnson's purges. The assumption that centrists will leave the party split and marginalised is probably overegged.