The Tory leadership circus begins

Already, one person has fallen at the first hurdle. Do take a moment of silence and bow your head while thinking about Suella Braverman, who failed to… sorry, no, who decided not to run for leader after all. She made it all very clear in her Daily Telegraph op-ed. 

Suella definitely had those ten nominations needed to get on the initial ballot. Who were they? Don’t be nosy. It’s unseemly. All you need to know is that they were real. Braverman is very popular and beloved. She just changed her mind. No reason. No, really, stop asking.

Anyway – the party is now left with a dirty half-dozen, consisting of Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly, Tom Tugendhat, Priti Patel, Robert Jenrick and Mel Stride. Yes, you know, Mel Stride. OK, you think you don’t know him, but the name rings a bell, doesn’t it? He was a secretary of state for a while. Bit interchangeable, as faces go, which is a shame because his name makes him sound like the lead singer of a post-punk band.

Good old Mel Stride. Once watched me try and fail to open a beer without a bottle opener in the Newsnight green room and chose not to help. That’s a grudge I’ll carry with me for a long time. On the bright side, he’s unlikely to make it to the top four, chosen by the parliamentary party over the summer.

Who will be the other person to spend their lovely, sunny recess campaigning only to get dropped by their own colleagues the moment Parliament returns? It’s hard to tell. Badenoch is currently the front-runner, which feels a tad absurd given how ill-suited she would be to the job. 

Becoming leader of the opposition after a bruising election defeat is a very specific gig, and one that entails a lot of grinning and bearing it. It doesn’t seem clear that she can do either. 

Her obsession with the culture wars is also likely to be an issue. In a recent Times column, she hit out against the left which promotes “a postmodernism that can best be described as joyless decadence”. Good luck trying to campaign on that when Labour remains relentlessly focused on infrastructure and the economy.

Elsewhere, Cleverly and Tugendhat are likely to try and relentlessly outdo each other in talking about their time in the army. Once seen as the moderates’ great hope, the latter has already said that he could countenance leaving the ECHR if needed. 

The former benefited from a largely uneventful stint as foreign secretary, but is known for his love of colourful and often tasteless jokes. They were edgy and fun when he was a backbencher, but will people find them as entertaining now he’s running for the top job?

As for the last two, well, where to start? Patel believes she can be the unity candidate, which tells you everything you need to know about where the Conservative Party is at in 2024. Jenrick, of “could honestly be anyone” fame, got glowing write-ups in the right-wing press when he cut his hair and lost a bit of weight. What he stands for seems to be “whatever noises he can make to make the members love him”.

On which note – there is a reason why the field is so unappealing, and it is because of the people they are trying to appeal to. There are approximately seven and a half Tory party members left, and a majority of them seem to be somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan. The only way to win is to pander to them. 

Of course, it does quickly end up becoming a vicious circle; the madder the Tories seem, the fewer normal right-of-centre people want to join the party. The fewer of them join, the madder the party becomes – ad nauseam.

Is there a way out? Probably, but it is unlikely that they will find it anytime soon. In the meantime, do remember to pace your drinking. The bar will only reopen at the interval.