Conservative Party of the UK Leadership Election, 2022

[Torrain]

What's Wallace's story? I like a lot of what he's said and done with regards to Ukraine, but I've also vaguely heard he's pretty unpleasant (from my ideological and aesthetic point of view) otherwise.

Wallace is a bit of an enigma. He started off in the army (and unlike most MPs, never went to university).

Interviews with a fellow soldier paint a picture of a younger man fond of a heavy night out, which hold a few embarrassing stories they swear they won’t tell. I’ve seen a couple of anecdotes that all read like the following quote:
“He’s great company. A good mimic. He sends people up. He sends deeply inappropriate memes on WhatsApp. I could tell you about the time he was serving in Northern Ireland…”

He served in the British Army in Northern Ireland during the Troubles (and was awarded a distinction for his role capturing an IRA cell whilst they were setting up an explosive) - which would be *interesting* for negotiations with Sinn Fein.

He then spent a single term in the Scottish Parliament, before joining the House of Commons in 2005, and was anonymous for a decade.

He supported the campaign to remain in the EU, but pivoted to Team Boris almost immediately afterwards. This shift in loyalties led to a rare public outburst when Michael Gove backstabbed Johnson and ended his leadership bid (which Wallace ran) - with Wallace using a Game of Thrones reference to publicly suggest he wanted to castrate Gove:
https://mobile.twitter.com/bwallacemp/status/748856442132819969

He’s kept a low profile since Johnson won the leadership in 2019, but has built a reputation as a respected Defence Minister. Although it was Ukraine that brought him into the public consciousness, he had already won plaudits for being the only “adult in the room” during the Afghanistan withdrawal - which elsewhere led to scandal for both Boris Johnson, and then Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who was forced to resign over his refusal to end his holiday early and address the crisis from London:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/08/27/praise-ben-wallace-adult-room/

Politically, he’s known to be more socially conservative than recent PMs. Unlike May and Cameron, he voted against the legalisation of same sex marriage in 2013. (Johnson in contrast wasn’t an MP at the time, but was Mayor, and in his most socially liberal phase).

He’s also the guy who let slip that Johnson’s prorogation of Parliament in 2019 (later found illegal by the Supreme Court) was an active attempt to stymie the Commons from voting against the government’s policy.
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/ben-wallace-boris-johnson-brexit-prorogation-dominic-cummings-coup-a9084321.html?amp

[Torrain]

So it turns out Sunak registered his "Ready for Rishi" website domain back in December 2021.

I guess I'll be interested to see whether this comes up in the hustings, as a way to undercut his resignation as the final step in a leadership plan that's been planned for a while - or if Sunak's long-term machinations have already been priced in by MPs.

[Torrain]

In today's contribution to farce - Rehman Chishti seems to believe the best way to hint at a leadership campaign is to tweet slightly-blurry screenshots of a BBC News story about your own ambitions:

https://twitter.com/Rehman_Chishti/status/1545662572958953472

[Torrain]

Just about credible enough to post (she's a former deputy editor of The Spectator), but it would be extraordinary even for him.

https://twitter.com/PetronellaWyatt/status/1545755462292971520?s=20&t=GCQ_2Xf5Ha9jEDJ9fCPb2A

This would not be permitted under current party rules - which were changed after John Major took this exact gamble in 1995. See this passage from the Conservative Party Constitution:

SCHEDULE 2
RULES FOR THE ELECTION OF THE LEADER

• The Leader shall be elected by the Party Members and Scottish Party Members.
• A Leader resigning from the Leadership of the Party is not eligible for re-nomination in the consequent Leadership election.

[/list]

[Torrain]

Shapps is in:
https://twitter.com/Gabriel_Pogrund/status/1545800504810373122

[Torrain]

Truss in - as an explicitly anti-Sunak candidate. The op-ed she's launching her campaign with is behind a Mail+ registration paywall, which is a choice.
https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/1545816963099803648

[Torrain]

I'm not sure that the Zahawi news is an accident. An article has been posted in the Times this evening, suggesting that the party is dumping all it's dirt in the open, as the leadership race comes to the boil:

That may explain how today saw circulation of:
- The news about Zahawi's tax investigation.
- This embarrassing clip of a young Rishi Sunak.

Thing is, there's a lot of public dirt on the candidates already.
- Zahawi using public funds to keep his horses warm in their stable.
- Liz Truss having to fight to avoid deselection in 2009 after revelations of an extramarital affair.
- Sunak's Fixed Penalty Notice.
Just to name a few. So if this is public, what's going on in private?

[Torrain]

This is interesting. Wonder if he offered her a Great Office of State.
https://mobile.twitter.com/ShippersUnbound/status/1545879515632586752

[Torrain]

Truss allies have tried to highlight her contained loyalty to Johnson, in contrast to Sunak. In an effort to undermine this, someone, seemingly close to either the Scottish Secretary or Chief Whip have leaked a story to the Times about chief Truss ally Kwasi Kwartang asking for support for her leadership campaign back in January:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/liz-truss-promises-of-low-tax-and-defence-spending-launch-her-into-third-place-mjtdb7hl3

[Torrain]

Mordaunt in - with a video that consists of three minute of stock footage, voiced over by some old chap telling us to be proud of Britain, while ‘I Vow to Thee, My Country’ plays in the background.

https://mobile.twitter.com/PennyMordaunt/status/1546049184373121024

Say what you will about ‘ReadyForRishi’, but at least that launch video had some actual detail about the candidate.

[Torrain]

https://mobile.twitter.com/SebastianEPayne/status/1546057232923631619

[Torrain]

Interested to get other peoples’ take on Hunt announcing he wants Esther McVey as Deputy PM. I get that he’s trying to broaden his appeal, but I think there’s a natural limit to how far you can plausibly stretch your ideology, before you lose credibility and alienate your own base.

I’m reminded of John Redwood endorsing Ken Clark over William Hague in 1997, in return for being named Shadow Chancellor, and tanking Clark’s credibility in the process.

[Torrain]

https://twitter.com/christopherhope/status/1546103271739252738

[Torrain]

I'm sure we'll eventually have a day when an embarrassing clip of a Tory candidate doesn't do the rounds online. However, that day is not today:
https://twitter.com/chrisshipitv/status/1546043499631591426

[Torrain]

Mordaunt has had to rerelease her launch video, removing the clip that included Oscar Pistorious, and UK Paralympian Jonnie Peacock, who asked for his image not be used to promote the Conservative Party.

[Torrain]

At this point Patel seems more likely than not to run, all the people coming out today supporting her must be reasonably convinced she is, otherwise they’ve needlessly irritated all the other candidates.

Good call:
https://mobile.twitter.com/steven_swinford/status/1546201092425400322?s=21&t...

[Torrain]

The other interesting news of the evening (from the Financial Times) is that the 1922 seem to want to make the barrier to run really quite high:

Senior Tories want to rapidly thin out the field of leadership candidates

One senior MP close to 1922 committee it was “likely” candidates must secure the support of at least 10% of the parliamentary party to get on to the ballot paper - 36 MPs. Another senior MP suggested the threshold may be 20 MPs. But such high thresholds are controversial.

One senior backbencher warned: “There’s going to be a big backlash if the nomination is 10 per cent. People want to have a broad range of candidates.”

Individuals close to Sir Graham Brady, chair of the 1922 committee, said he wanted a “rapid parliamentary stage to get this sorted quickly. Graham would like no more than two or three shortlisting rounds.”

Nine candidates may be two very soon

36 nominations would really shake-up this field - I’d imagine you’d struggle to see more than 4-5 candidates max. Sunak and Mordaunt seem like they’d get in without too much bother, Truss will probably be fine, and you’d assume the ERG would consolidate around a single candidate.

[Torrain]

https://mobile.twitter.com/kateferguson4/status/1546219768411209729

[Torrain]

Truss is in officially now - mere minutes before the 10 O’Clock news.
I’ve been curious to find out whether her anaemic support in the nominations so far is genuine, or whether now that she’s announced, we’ll see a wave of pre-planned endorsements.

[Torrain]

Ladies and gentlemen, our very own Jim Gilmore has entered the race:
https://mobile.twitter.com/Rehman_Chishti/status/1546240922043695107

[Torrain]

Interesting just how many of the candidates appear to be non-white. That happening in say the Republican Party (in a country with a bigger non-white population) would be unthinkable.

It’s definitely an interesting dynamic, and one that was actively sought by an earlier version of the party. Many of these candidates were first elected in 2010, or 2015, under the leadership of David Cameron.

One of Cameron’s first big ideas as leader was something called the ‘A-list’, which sought to identify interesting and talented candidates for Parliament, with a focus on women and ethnic minorities, and try and get them selected, over the typical candidates picked by local parties, (long-serving local councillors, etc).That list includes a range of cabinet ministers, from the now departed, like Justine Greening and Amber Rudd, to current big beasts of the party like Sajid Javid and Priti Patel.

That spike in representation seems to have largely broken the old party dogma, and candidates from ethnic-minority backgrounds are now commonplace, (including the last few Tory by-election candidates, specifically in Wakeford and Shropshire).

The Tories, Labour, Lib Dems and SNP also have a significant number of LGBT members (60/650 MPs at last count).

It’s a far cry from the 20th century, where Parliament was almost 100% white until a wave of Labour candidates were elected in 1987*. One of the few black Tory candidates in 1992, John Taylor lost a seat that had been Tory since the 50s to the Lib Dems seemingly because of the furore in his local party over his selection as candidate.

*Although a small number of non-white members were elected in the 18th and 19th century, largely due to imperial ties with South Asia, and some migration between here and there. 

[Torrain]

*snip*

36 nominations is a bad way of doing it, it’s better from a party management perspective to say they need 36 votes to get past round 1 - that way everyone gets a chance to put themselves forward and it reduces the need for endless rounds. The way they did it in 2019 was actually pretty good imo.

That’s fair - it would certainly allow more candidates to have their say in the first round, which would be no bad thing. And you avoid frustrating the MPs who want a contest as open as 2019.

Just slightly curious about what bizarre alliances we would see form if this race was narrowed right at the gate like that. Things like a Tugendhat-Mordaunt ticket, Badenoch suddenly endorsing Sunak etc etc.

[Torrain]

Truss has a launch video out. Lots of footage from her attendance at summits and NATO meetings.
https://mobile.twitter.com/trussliz/status/1546399020754550784

[Torrain]

Shapps also has a launch video. But it’s succinct, perhaps to a fault.
https://mobile.twitter.com/grantshapps/status/1546406437567463424

[Torrain]

Worth noting that with 48% of MPs declared so far, Sunak has just passed 35 MPs in suppport (including himself), making him the first candidate to garner 10% of the total party, and 20% of the declared MPs. Pretty commanding lead.

In contrast, Mordaunt comes second with 6% of all MPs, and Truss is stuck with the second-tier candidates at 4% of all MPs.

I guess Truss is still among the best-placed to pick up crossover support, but the lack of enthusiasm for her candidacy has surprised me. She’s really not my preferred candidate, but I assumed, given months of discussion of her as the grassroots favourite, that she’d perform better.