Conservative Party of the UK Leadership Election, 2022

[Torrain]

Article in the Guardian today about just how badly Truss has misrepresented her upbringing in Leeds - from a fellow alumni. Particularly embarassing as while Truss decries her school as antiquated, it crumbled under Thatcher, but was demolished and rebuilt under Blair.

Truss claims to have grown up in a “red wall” seat. This is not just a wilful anachronism, it is flatly untrue. Leeds North East, the constituency that contains both Roundhay school and the tall stone houses in which Truss and I grew up, was Conservative from 1955 to 1997 – by which time Truss had graduated from Oxford.

Roundhay school is a coeducational comprehensive. I went there at 13. It has grown to include a primary campus, but it still sits amid great green oceans of fields marked out for football, rugby and hockey. Its buildings, put up a century ago, are grand. If Truss were to say that when we were there in the early 1990s, those buildings were neglected and falling apart, she would be correct.

But to do so would be to draw attention to the fact that when we were at Roundhay, Conservatives controlled education policy and spending, and how when the school was rebuilt, Labour did. The history of the school’s official rating also tells such a tale, from “satisfactory” under the Conservatives to “outstanding” under Labour.

[omar04]

Mordant seems to have hired the team behind all those Lib Dem leaflets with the tenuous bar charts:
https://mobile.twitter.com/PennyMordaunt/status/1548990968027926530?ref_src=twsr...
*To be fair* - this is probably an appeal to MPs to pick her as the most credible anti-Sunak candidate. Doesn’t look great as a bit of political messaging though.

It adds up to 101%

[JimJamUK]

Article in the Guardian today about just how badly Truss has misrepresented her upbringing in Leeds - from a fellow alumni. Particularly embarassing as while Truss decries her school as antiquated, it crumbled under Thatcher, but was demolished and rebuilt under Blair.

Her claims that poor schooling led her to be a Tory are particularly odd given she was heavily involved in the Lib Dems at university. Of course a lot of people make the journey from one side of the political spectrum to the other via the Lib Dems, but at least be honest about it.

[DINGO Joe]

Mordant seems to have hired the team behind all those Lib Dem leaflets with the tenuous bar charts:
https://mobile.twitter.com/PennyMordaunt/status/1548990968027926530?ref_src=twsr...
*To be fair* - this is probably an appeal to MPs to pick her as the most credible anti-Sunak candidate. Doesn’t look great as a bit of political messaging though.

It adds up to 101%

Better than using decimal points

[Oryxslayer]

Mordant seems to have hired the team behind all those Lib Dem leaflets with the tenuous bar charts:
https://mobile.twitter.com/PennyMordaunt/status/1548990968027926530?ref_src=twsr...
*To be fair* - this is probably an appeal to MPs to pick her as the most credible anti-Sunak candidate. Doesn’t look great as a bit of political messaging though.

It adds up to 101%

Better than using decimal points

If you actually looked at the detailed reports, a lot of polls add up to 101% or 99% fairly often cause of unfavorable decimal rounding.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Roundhay is one of those Victorian villa suburbs that have changed a lot in recent decades - it's very much the sort of place largely inhabited by junior public sector professionals these days - but it was still a traditional bourgeois suburb when she lived there.

[Mike88]

Not sure if this was asked or responded, but at what time does the ballot starts?

[brucejoel99]

Not sure if this was asked or responded, but at what time does the ballot starts?

It started 2 hours & 15 minutes ago, & just ended 15 minutes ago. Results in 45 minutes.

[Mike88]

Not sure if this was asked or responded, but at what time does the ballot starts?

It started 2 hours & 15 minutes ago, & just ended 15 minutes ago. Results in 45 minutes.

Ah, right, thanks!   At 8pm we'll know the results.

[Coldstream]

Another pretty poor result for Truss (only gaining 7), very bad for Mordaunt (down 1), very good for Sunak.

Badenoch is likely to go out next, she got a lot of Braverman’s people but not enough and Tugendhat’s votes won’t go to her.

With Sunak’s momentum I think Tugendhat’s people might go to him rather than Mordaunt.

[brucejoel99]

So, a likely Sunak/Truss members' ballot, then?

[Coldstream]

So, a likely Sunak/Truss members' ballot, then?

Likelier than it looked this morning, it comes down to what Tugendhat’s people do - he may swing behind Sunak thinking Sunak will make him Foreign Secretary whilst Mordaunt has nothing to offer him if it looks like she’s going to finish third.

I’m still not 100% convinced Badenoch supporters will all go behind Liz Truss - they are genuine brexiteers rather than cosplayers. But the most likely situation is Truss finishing second now.

[JimJamUK]

I’d rather be Truss than Mordaunt on those numbers. The Tugendhat supporters should break for Mordaunt then Sunak (can’t imagine many going to Truss), but the much larger pool of Badenoch supporters strike me as very Truss friendly (probably a few to Sunak, but very few to Mordaunt).

[Baki]

So, a likely Sunak/Truss members' ballot, then?

That sounds....terrible.

[wesmoorenerd]

All I feel comfortable predicting is that Badenoch is out next and Sunak is obviously in. I feel like Tugendhat and Badenoch's support could split between the three frontrunners in unexpected ways.

[brucejoel99]

https://twitter.com/christopherhope/status/1549111964093349893

[omar04]

What happened with Sunak gaining? A Guardian article I read mentioned one of his supporters saying to not expect him to gain any votes or even lose one or two this round.

[omar04]

https://twitter.com/PennyMordaunt/status/1549130737726767107

[brucejoel99]

What happened with Sunak gaining? A Guardian article I read mentioned one of his supporters saying to not expect him to gain any votes or even lose one or two this round.

There were 27 Braverman votes to be redistributed, 1 less abstention than on the last ballot, & Mordaunt & Tugendhat lost 1 each for a total of 30 new votes up for grabs. Sunak gained 14, Badenoch 9, & Truss 7. Presuming that the Badenoch/Truss 16 were all Braverman supporters, & that the 3 Mordaunt/Tugendhat/abstainer votes all went for Sunak, what seems to have happened is that 11 Braverman supporters switched to Sunak once she was out.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

It's pretty clear now that there was some level of Sunak lending votes to Braverman in the last ballot in an attempt to keep her in (to spike Truss) and to knock Tugendhat out.

This leads into my other suspicion that while the ballot today was very good for Truss on the face of it, she will still face difficulty in overtaking Mordaunt if Sunak has in fact enough room to tip the scales for the latter. It may be that even now Sunak's support is being understated.

[omar04]

What happened with Sunak gaining? A Guardian article I read mentioned one of his supporters saying to not expect him to gain any votes or even lose one or two this round.

There were 27 Braverman votes to be redistributed, 1 less abstention than on the last ballot, & Mordaunt & Tugendhat lost 1 each for a total of 30 new votes up for grabs. Sunak gained 14, Badenoch 9, & Truss 7. Presuming that the Badenoch/Truss 16 were all Braverman supporters, & that the 3 Mordaunt/Tugendhat/abstainer votes all went for Sunak, what seems to have happened is that 11 Braverman supporters switched to Sunak once she was out.

Thanks, I see that Braverman ended up endorsing Truss. Sunak's backer probably thought that most of her supporters would have gone that way.

[Pericles]

https://twitter.com/PennyMordaunt/status/1549130737726767107

Her Twitter profile picture makes her look like a villain imo. Though it's not as unflattering as Donald Trump's, but that was on-message for him.

There could be a big incentive for an MP with a bit of heft to back either Truss or Mordaunt, because both are in a very close race to get to the membership vote while Sunak has a place on the ballot in the bag. They have so much more leverage than over Sunak that they could get a good cabinet position out of backing one candidate at the right time.

[Torrain]

Team Sunak have been briefing that they want to run against Truss. But I don’t think I believe that anymore. Polling has now shown Sunak ahead of Mordaunt, and a combination of her weird Turkey veto contortion, and the Mail’s fixation on stopping Penny, based on her previous support for gender self ID, means that Sunak might actually have some political leeway in a head-to-head.

If he keeps focusing on his economic experience, and can paint Mordaunt as non-serious or untested in comparison, he might still pull through. And there’s the added benefit that the ERG/Steve Baker types have no real candidate in a Mordaunt-Sunak race, so he won’t face a consolidated campaign against from those in that camp.

If it is that pair - I’d expect to see stories painting Mordaunt as unserious pop up everywhere. And a bunch of clips from the speech in this story: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/penny-mordaunt-speech-parliament-bet-b2122671.html?amp

[Coldstream]

Team Sunak have been briefing that they want to run against Truss. But I don’t think I believe that anymore. Polling has now shown Sunak ahead of Mordaunt, and a combination of her weird Turkey veto contortion, and the Mail’s fixation on stopping Penny, based on her previous support for gender self ID, means that Sunak might actually have some political leeway in a head-to-head.

If he keeps focusing on his economic experience, and can paint Mordaunt as non-serious or untested in comparison, he might still pull through. And there’s the added benefit that the ERG/Steve Baker types have no real candidate in a Mordaunt-Sunak race, so he won’t face a consolidated campaign against from those in that camp.

If it is that pair - I’d expect to see stories painting Mordaunt as unserious pop up everywhere. And a bunch of clips from the speech in this story: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/penny-mordaunt-speech-parliament-bet-b2122671.html?amp

That story is the first thing I thought of when I saw Mordaunt gaining momentum, she’s a fundamentally unserious person. I think she could beat Sunak still, but Sunak definitely has a path against her.

[brucejoel99]

https://twitter.com/peston/status/1549142666297987072