And then there were three... Tory Party leadership contenders

That’s why Ed Davey will be weeping tears of joy.

Cleverly voters in the Commons just messed this up big time. They don’t have a middle of the road candidate now and the Tories don’t have the brains they used to have. They needed to work hard to get the Tugendgat votes and instead actually lost votes. A right of centre Tory has no one now and they should be really scared about the direction of travel. The Reform votes are transient. As Brexit votes were. Merging with loud mouth Farage would be repugnant to many and that’s why they needed a centre right leader. Having said that, dealing with Badenoch and her tribe would be a nightmare.

It’s interesting to see The Telegraph and Times letters columns stuffed with Tory party members resigning their membership or refusing to vote because they can’t support either.

Yes, that's Jenrick's whole plan to win next time. Talk tough on immigration, hope Farage buggers off to do something else and Reform are left with a less popular leader and, er, that's it.

It's a thin premise but he's a bit thin as a candidate. Another pink-cheeked chap from the Tory shires, private school then Cambridge, offering Conservative members an easy way to make a conservative choice. All he's really offering to do is steady the ship and hope for more favourable winds.

Not read the full thread, but what would be the chances of a merger... Conservative-Reform Alliance Party. CRAP for short...

The RW vote has split. I doubt the Tory Party will be able to get those votes back in the next five years or ever.

There are many Tories who want the Refotm votes back. Therefore a lurch to the right looks appealing, except it vacates the middle ground where must voters reside. They are ignoring getting votes back from Lsbour and that will be a mistake. Cleverly at least understood that,

I agree with you there

All of this supposes that Starmer performs well in person - which he hasn’t so far - and that his government gets good results, which is entirely unknown.

A ‘no’ in either - or more importantly both - of those and whoever’s Tory leader could do well, or at least well enough to make progress and continue in the post after the next GE.

I really don’t think the public is crying out for centre left or left government. They flung out the Tories because they were sick of squabbling losers, not because the Tories were too right wing.

Yes, Cleverly was clearly better than the others at conference.

The indications are that Cleverly's team thought, probably correctly, that there man would stand more chance with the members if he was up against Jenrick rather than Badenoch, so they lent some votes to Jenrick to try and make that happen. However, if that is the case, it has clearly backfired spectacularly.

The bookies now have Badenoch as the hot favourite. Given the available information on members' preferences, that is likely to be correct.

Whoever is elected, we won't find out if they are any good (and whether the parliamentary party will get properly behind them) until they are actually doing the job.

I can understand if you really wanted Cleverly the vote the other day gave false hope

To me it seemed an odd bounce anyway given previous votes

Although it was billed to the conference performance which I missed, not sure if he was stand out

And it seems the party was “playing” with votes to try and manipulate who Cleverly would be up against and it’s all spectacularly backfired.

When oh when will they learn that people aren’t interested in all their internal squabbling and backstabbing. We’ve just had a bunch of years of this in displacing May, then Boris, then Truss, then not getting behind Sunak …. And now this fiasco. Do they not realise how utterly stupid they look?

We need a stable and strong opposition party, this isn’t going to be one.
As a Tory supporter I’m horrified at their continuing incompetence and infighting which presumably is just going to continue going forward. It will no doubt only be a matter of time before they’re trying to dispose of whichever leader is voted in from these two poor candidates who don’t have much experience or gravitas to lead the party. Cleverly was the one with the most experience and had at least held some posts of note. Not to mention being more central standing within the party. Talk about a cock up of massive proportion that’s on top of the recent past cocktail of cock ups.

Already Labour have lost ground in ratings and it hasn’t been long.

Five years is ages

I prefer someone who can hold Starmer to account, directly

Hague was good at PMQs. Ir made no difference. Badenoch might be excellent too. But it doesn’t win you votes

I don't think it's a Corbyn moment. It's a 1997 moment when William Hague became leader, far too young and inexperienced, because he was ideologically on the right of the party and the members who were allowed to make the choice are more right-wing than the average Tory voter.

The members will elect Badenoch who has far more substance than Jenrick, but she just isn't ready for the job - too candid, too willing to pick fights. She seems genuinely intelligent and I think will mellow into a successful, respected politician just like Hague did. But for now, four years of meaningless "wins" at PMQs eagerly retweeted by the converted, an overambitious right-wing manifesto, hardly any seats gained, replaced in 2029.

She has obvious potential. So did Hague. It won't make any difference.

42 (B), 41 (J), 37 (C). So that was 34.7%, 33.9% and 30.6% respectively . So that’s roughly 1/3 of votes each. So no leading candidate and it’s a split party. Yet again. Cleverly’s vote and share of vote went down. Odd “tactical” voting probably but he was the least worst.

Neither has a ringing endorsement from the MPs.

Why do you say this? What were the votes?

There seemed to be a split between membership and MPs last time but not this time?

The anti Tory rhetoric was very strong at the last election and the Lib Dems made some gains. However they will really struggle to get rid of most Tory seats. @BIossomtoes Gains are often protest votes where people won’t vote Labour and prefer a Labour lite Lib Dem candidate. They don’t like the Cons at the moment and who can blame them.

Cons are likely to lurch right. Look at what Jenrick now talks about, and Badenoch. It’s not attractive to the middle ground who they need to attract. Neither has a ringing endorsement from the MPs. We all know what that means. More scrapping behind the scenes. Whoever wins could be a short term leader like IDS. The Tories are ruthless.

They'll be a stand in I think. Five years before the next election. I wouldn't have stood now

The same general argument has come up on another thread. My question there, and now here, is how is Badenoch (if she wins the leadership) too far to the right for the average voter?

As far as I can see she’s cast as being on the right of the Tory party (and courts that perception) only because she’s a social conservative. That seems pretty mainstream to me.

I think there will always be a section of the electorate that the far right will appeal to, but if Kemi Badenoch or Robert Jenrick go down the route of trying to out-Reform Reform, I think they will alienate a lot of centre right voters who simply won't find that palatable. They didn't only lose votes to Reform in the last election - they lost loads of seats to the Libdems as well.

My prediction for the next election is that there will be no overall majority and we'll end up with hung parliaments and coalition governments for the foreseeable future. Unless Labour suddenly gets its act together and really delivers or a new, credible centrist party emerges.

I’m not sure about that last line. Look where they are after a few months.

I see the argument but I disagree with the premise.

The Tories weren’t hurled out because they were too right wing for the public. They were punished for not delivering and for sleaze.

If the present parliamentary Tories don’t completely disappear up their own fundaments and can present a plausible clean-up by the time of the next election, a poorly performing government could shed votes to them.

I’m still fairly sure there will be two terms of Labour, though.

I doubt people in chats are much cop for what will happen

Look at the EU as pp said

And Labour seem to be losing ground already

Looking to Labour voters for which leader doesn’t make much sense anyway

I had an interesting convo with a person who should definitely be a Tory voter on the grounds of her income. But she is repulsed by their rhetoric on immigration and human rights. She is not the only one who thinks like this in our social group (high earners) so I reckon this group of liberal Tories are just being further alienated