Conservative Party of the UK Leadership Election, 2022

[Conservatopia]

Reports that some MPs will publicly switch their support from Rishi to Truss starting from this afternoon and drawn out over the week to make it look like a wave.

May not be true.

[Cassius]

Sunak should drop out given how badly he’s s*** the bed. Personally I think the rules should be changed to scrap the membership vote, at the very least for periods when the party is in office, but he’s clearly not going to win so another month of this ‘campaign’ is going to be a massive waste of time.

Sigh, the Bride of Chucky has it.

[CumbrianLefty]

He's not going to withdraw now that he thinks he has Truss on the defensive over the coming crisis.

Of course this almost certainly isn't going to make any difference to who wins, but there is more (or at least there should be) to a leadership contest than that.

[Conservatopia]

Reports that some MPs will publicly switch their support from Rishi to Truss starting from this afternoon and drawn out over the week to make it look like a wave.

May not be true.

Chris Skidmore, a centrist MP, has switched from Sunak to Truss. More will follow over the week.

[Zinneke]

My understanding of the Department for Levelling Up is that it was the new name for the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship?

There’s an excellent comedy just waiting to be written about a Department for Levelling Up, that’s for sure.

Somehow, Peter Mannion would be a better choice for leader than Liz or Rishi.

Not surprising : Mannion is actually a very human character.

[CumbrianLefty]

Reports that some MPs will publicly switch their support from Rishi to Truss starting from this afternoon and drawn out over the week to make it look like a wave.

May not be true.

Chris Skidmore, a centrist MP, has switched from Sunak to Truss. More will follow over the week.

Ah, the sheer principle and sincerity just oozes out of him

Apparently cites a Sunak "u-turn" as justification for his switch.

He does know who he is now endorsing, right?

[JimJamUK]

Chris Skidmore, a centrist MP, has switched from Sunak to Truss. More will follow over the week.

One of the most vocal advocates of Net Zero which makes a Truss endorsement slightly odd (though he did co-write Britannia Unchained so perhaps not).

[Boobs]

Truss obviously wants to be Thatcher, but she seems like a less sour Nicola Murray. Cheese speech was her fourth sector.

[Torrain]

Skidmore: “I see your U-turn, and raise you a U-turn from one U-turner to another U-turner.”

Remarkable.

[GoTfan]

Skidmore: “I see your U-turn, and raise you a U-turn from one U-turner to another U-turner.”

Remarkable.

I was going to make a clever NASCAR joke there, but I realised I'm not from the southeast US. I'll give it a pass.

Also, can someone please explain to me what the Department of Levelling Up actually entails? What it actually does?

[Torrain]

Also, can someone please explain to me what the Department of Levelling Up actually entails? What it actually does?

The department was formerly (and is likely to return to being) the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government. A lot of its work is supposed to be housing policy, but Tory backbench concerns about building projects (if I was being less charitable, I’d call it NIMBYism) have stalled a lot of that.

If you want a brief review of “levelling up” itself, the link below will take you to my answer a few pages back.

Snip

[CumbrianLefty]

Truss becomes ever more outlandish with each passing day.

[Torrain]

Truss referring to “setting up your own business” as a specifically “Jewish value” feels clumsy.

Doing it in a speech accusing the civil service of “woke antisemitism” - something she refused to elaborate on, is just embarrassing.

[CumbrianLefty]

She's actually managed to annoy Stephen Pollard.

(admittedly, those who do not avidly follow UK politics may not fully grasp how amazing this is)

[JimJamUK]

Opinium have it 61-39 in favour of Truss. Not as bad as some other polls, but a significant minority have voted and most of the rest say they’ve made their mind up so there’s basically no hope for Sunak. They also asked about why people are supporting each candidate and 2/3 of the top Truss reasons had nothing to with her (she’s not Sunak and she backed Johnson to the end). Both candidates would lose to Johnson in a landslide if he was allowed to stand.

[Pericles]

Opinium have it 61-39 in favour of Truss. Not as bad as some other polls, but a significant minority have voted and most of the rest say they’ve made their mind up so there’s basically no hope for Sunak. They also asked about why people are supporting each candidate and 2/3 of the top Truss reasons had nothing to with her (she’s not Sunak and she backed Johnson to the end). Both candidates would lose to Johnson in a landslide if he was allowed to stand.

Tory MPs are really grateful they don't have the Labour Party's rules at the moment.

[CumbrianLefty]

How so? Even the 2016 Labour leadership election wasn't the same as standing for it again after *having already resigned*. Corbyn would have been ineligible had he did that then (which is of course a major reason why he didn't)

Major did of course do that with the Tories in 1995, after which said loophole was closed.

[Blair]

Tory rules could have imho seen Badenoch win

[Pericles]

How so? Even the 2016 Labour leadership election wasn't the same as somebody standing again after *having already resigned*. Corbyn would have been ineligible had he did that then (which is of course a major reason why he didn't)

Major did of course do that with the Tories in 1995, after which said loophole was closed.

Boris would have not resigned but stood again if he had any way to stay leader, he clearly wanted it so badly.

[Joe Republic]

Are there any kind of demographic statistics on the makeup of the Tory membership?  Old and white, I'm sure, but numbers are always nice to look at.

[JimJamUK]

Really dire numbers all round. I mean, our next Conservative prime minister in waiting is -46% net confidence on the economy!

https://twitter.com/yougov/status/1559476384988381187?s=21&t=VEX8dwHsLvBs13U...

[Boobs]

It doesn't really appear to be a problem specific to Truss, though. Seems like the population has suddenly smartened up to the fact that the Tories have been in power for over a decade and have effectively run out of new ideas and/or people to blame for issues. It's a tired party that needs time in opposition to clean house.

[CumbrianLefty]

Some are contrasting these dire findings with Truss leading Starmer for "best PM" in other polls.

Many are quick to claim this shows what a dud SKS is, but there are other explanations (not least cos some surveys show implausibly large numbers of Lab/LibDem voters "backing" her)

[Conservatopia]

The most likely explanation is perhaps the most scary:

There's a significant number of people who think Truss will be a poor PM, yet they don't care and support her anyway.

[JimJamUK]

There’s been a leaked recording of Truss saying British workers don’t work hard enough. Less discussed is that she also says that we need to stop blaming the EU and migrants for our problems and instead work harder ourselves. This was after she had supposedly converted to the Brexit cause. She also praises the ‘working culture’ of China, probably not a vote winner.