Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Josquius]

Lewis Goodall
@lewis_goodall
Key takeaways from this (mainly Conservative inclined group)

-terror/fury about economy, about winter to come.
-short shrift for 'culture war' issues in that context: "what's that got to do with me?" Sole focus cost of living

Sounds promising. This is the way to defeat the Tories.
Ignore their attempts to make petty bollocks about transexuals and the like a thing. Focus on the important stuff.

[Sheilbh]

Braverman out - last round in brackets:
Badenoch - 49 (40)
Braverman - 27 (32)
Mordaunt - 83 (67)
Sunak - 101 (88)
Truss - 64 (50)
Tugendhat - 32 (37)

Tugendhat might drop out now, but I can equally see him wanting to go for the debates over the weekend.

Key question now is whether those Braverman votes go to Truss or Badenoch. I'm not sure which way it'll go. The sense I get is that the Badenoch and Braverman teams are closer and more aligned - and I get the sense there's less conviction than many thought that Truss is the best candidate than the right (only the Mail is really pushing it in the Tory press, for example).

Edit: It feels likely that Sunak v Mordaunt will be the final two though. And while I can't get a grip on Mordaunt at all - I don't think anyone was expecting a final two that didn't include a candidate from the right. Truss might still make it - but I think she's really underwhelmed.

[crazy canuck]

I think the point about Truss and the memes is really interesting. She might be the first candidate to have memed herself out of a contest because despite being in the cabinet for years she's mainly known to most people as a bit weird because of these

Two other things popped up on my twitter feed about her today - one recalled the time she said that barking dogs would scare away drones.  The other is a video of her getting lost trying to find her way out of a room where she had just given a speech.

[Sheilbh]

The lost after her speech was today at her leadership campaign launch.

It is one of the things that MPs worry about with her. From reporters they say that MPs mention that she is just quite an odd/weird person - and to an extent everyone in politics is. But it comes up with Truss a lot.

Edit: Suella Braverman on being knocked out, the Princess Di of the parliamentary Tory party: "I am absolutely blown away by the support that I got from lots of members of parliament, if not in their votes, then definitely in their hearts."

[Sheilbh]

Interesting piece from Henry Hill who as Deputy Editor of Conservative Home should have a better idea than most about Mordaunt. But he also isn't really sure about her politics, neither are her colleagues and he basically agrees she's also a bit of a vibes based candidate:

Rishi, eat your heart out: the Conservative grassroots already have their darling
Henry Hill
Members indicate their new leader should be a competent unity candidate who preferably wasn't in Johnson's cabinet
Thu 14 Jul 2022 13.02 BST
Last modified on Thu 14 Jul 2022 14.00 BST

There are six challengers remaining in the race to be the next leader of the Conservative party. A week hence, there will be two. It is impossible to predict exactly what will happen between now and then, as Tory MPs, sometimes described as "the most sophisticated electorate in the world", thin the herd.

But as things stand, there seem to be three candidates who could plausibly get into the final two: Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss and Penny Mordaunt.

The former chancellor spent long enough as the dauphin that when someone else finally made the decision to quit, a decision that led to Boris Johnson being brought down, he had the campaign machinery in place to hit the ground running. He is now leading on endorsements and, unless he stumbles, seems to have a place in the final sewn up.

His positioning as the establishment, "grown-up" candidate has created a bun fight on the right, whence the challenger is likely to emerge. The foreign secretary, Liz Truss, is their leading candidate, and it seems likely that most MPs supporting Suella Braverman (and perhaps Kemi Badenoch, although this is less certain) would switch their support to her in the event that those women get knocked out.

Mordaunt is the dark horse. I don't think anybody predicted she would be second-placed after the first ballot, after a rocky launch. The thing that seems to have propelled her there is her newly minted status as darling of the grassroots.

We first got an inkling of this when ConservativeHome's survey of party activists found her in first place, not just topping the list of preferences but also winning every one of a long list of possible head-to-head second-round matchups. This has now been backed up by polling from YouGov. Not every pollster agrees, but there's definitely a pattern emerging.

This is casting a shadow over the first stage of the contest; MPs, whether making their choice from high motivations or base, want to back a winner. If Mordaunt looks like the most likely candidate to defeat Sunak, it could give her a path to the final two if "anyone but Rishi" votes start to pile in behind her.

We shall see if further polling reinforces or undermines this picture. But if it holds up, it would suggest that Conservative members are keen enough for a clean break from Boris Johnson that they attach a premium to not having served in his cabinet; both our survey and YouGov show Kemi Badenoch, who has never held a cabinet post, in second place.

Available evidence also suggests that MPs are misjudging the moment by focusing the early stages of the campaign so heavily on tax cuts and wokery, let alone the vicious mudslinging that characterised the phoney war over the weekend. What members actually want is a candidate who is a) competent, b) able to unite the party behind them and c) able to win the next election.

Given that there are at most about two years until Britain next goes to the polls, that means an utterly ruthless focus on the cost of living crisis. Big-picture debates about military rearmament and state capacity are important (as indeed are fundamental questions about the role of the state), but they will be entirely academic if the Tories get blamed for tanking living standards and Labour takes office in 2024.

Does Mordaunt fit this competent, unifying, election-winning image? She's certainly trying, but I don't really know. Nobody does. Even politicians who have worked alongside her for years claim to have no real idea what she thinks. Her campaign is less a crusade than a vibe in search of a destiny.

Perhaps the hard scrutiny of the next week will make that position impossible to sustain. If so, the prize most likely awaits the candidate who steps into that space; who promises to assemble a broad and talented cabinet, and sets them to work on the hard but eminently achievable task of returning another Conservative majority by delivering on the issues voters actually care about.

The speed at which the candidates work this out is a different matter. For the sake of the party, let alone the nation, I hope it's soon.

    Henry Hill is deputy editor of ConservativeHome

As ever I think there's the perception from people on the left - and, indeed, Tory MPs - that the Tory membership are "swivel-eyed loons" but I think that really underestimates their general pragmatism and desire to win. They're obviously more right-wing than normal but underpinning it all, I think, is a recognition that first you need to win the election.

Interesting that after a flurry of candidates promising massive tax cuts etc none of that seems to have cut through in the polling of the members who basically seem to prefer a relatively fresh face candidate who is "clean" and not closely associated with Johnson/the cabinet. They seem more keen on that than any ideological/policy position - I guess because they, probably rightly, think anyone in government has been tainted and will struggle to win the next election.

I thought they'd like Penny Mordaunt and she might be a dark horse but I'm surprised how much and how quickly they've taken to her. It looks more likely than not there won't be a candidate from the right in the final two (but I think Sunak's vote - which will includes lots of ambitious types attracted to inevitability - may disintegrate quickly if it comes under pressure). Again that's a bit of a surprise.

Edit: Also I'd expect a lot of hostile briefing about Mordaunt over the next few days now she's doing so well - already had Lords Frost and Moylan (both Truss supporters) attack her. I think a Truss-backing MP was on TV saying it was striking how a third of the cabinet backed Liz Truss, while I don't think Mordaunt has an cabinet endorsements - only for another Tory MP to note that it's under this cabinet that the Tories are polling under 30% It's going to get more brutal than that with blue-on-blue - which is why I'm not totally ruling out Badenoch. At the minute there's calls (from Truss supporters) for her to endorse Truss, but I think if she does well in the debates (especially if Truss does poorly) then she might be the one to try and become the candidate of the right because at the minute it looks like Truss is floundering and her support might go backwards..

[Jacob]

Are Tory MPs sometimes describes as "the most sophisticated electorate of the world"? By whom?

[Sheilbh]

Are Tory MPs sometimes describes as "the most sophisticated electorate of the world"? By whom?

Mainly themselves.

[Jacob]

Are Tory MPs sometimes describes as "the most sophisticated electorate of the world"? By whom?

Mainly themselves.

That makes sense. They'd know. Given how sophisticated they are, I mean.

[crazy canuck]

The lost after her speech was today at her leadership campaign launch.

Very sophisticated

[Sheilbh]

Well her campaign is floundering

[HVC]

Looks like Boris is team "anyone but sunak"

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11015807/Anyone-Rishi-Boris-Johnson-urging-defeated-Tory-candidates-Sunaks-rivals.html

[Sheilbh]

I see that Penny Mordaunt, in addition to blocking an interconnector with France that could provide 5% of our power because it would "ruin" the view from a cottage in her constituency, has now come out against housing targets.

I think she's now probably the candidate I least want to win - lots of vibes and the only policy I can see is ultra-NIMBYism. No doubt the nation will now be swept with Mordmentum as she secures another ten years of government for the Tory party

Edit: Also turns out that much as I like Tom Tugendhat on foreign policy he is, in fact and rather regrettably, a Conservative MP:

"We know what a Labour solution to housing would be... concreting over the countryside and renting socialist homes from the state" says Tom Tugendhat

I wish

I've been calling for concreting over the countryside for years

[Legbiter]

I see that Penny Mordaunt, in addition to blocking an interconnector with France that could provide 5% of our power because it would "ruin" the view from a cottage in her constituency...

[Sheilbh]

Looks like Boris is team "anyone but sunak"

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11015807/Anyone-Rishi-Boris-Johnson-urging-defeated-Tory-candidates-Sunaks-rivals.html

Yeah - not really a surprise. Sunak's clearly been eyeing up and building a team for a leadership challenge for at least six months (I think he may have left it too late). And I think anyone at that level in politics probably has a fairly well developed taste for revenge.

It just hits home how extraordinary Johnson's fall is. Two and a half years ago he won their best result since 87 and an 80 seat majority. That should make a leader more or less untouchable and planning for two terms. It's a sign of how badly he handled things and was as PM that within three years the public and party had turned so much he needed to go

[Sheilbh]

Question 1 in the debate: is Boris Johnson honest? 
https://twitter.com/channel4news/status/1548020397332783105?s=21&t=m7WJmHdn9OsAiYlEy872BQ

Edit: Incidentally I'm not actually watching it (somehow even worse, just sitting in an airport hoping my flight's not cancelled). But I don't think I've ever seen a wider spread of opinions among pundits etc. Really striking - and I'm not sure why. Interesting to see the snap polls and focus groups.