All male PM ballot

This is possibly a contraversial opinion, but I genuinely think the kind of women who want to hold positions of great power are precisely the type of women who should not have that kind of power at all. I can think of plenty of female Labour MPs who would make excellent leaders, and indeed PM who showed no interest in running for leadership. I don't honestly know enough about the women of the tory party to know who among them would make a good leader, but I do know the ones who wouldn't, McVey and Leadsom included. Oh and bloody Amber Rudd.

Yeah this is not a case where I am remotely grieving the female candidates are gone. Terrible, both. Rory won't win.

It's more disappointing that the only 2 female candidates were such loathsome bigots.

Yes! Perfectly put.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_cliff

Or better still, put a male ethnic minority in place so we can all pat ourselves on the back at how inclusive we are.....

Goose....The men are hardly viable either are they?. But what squishy said is very pertinent.

....with a water pistol filled with Evian.

For the avoidance of doubt.

Nine votes for McVile. That would be McVile, her fancy man Phillip Davies, and seven others who also want shooting.

(to quote Jo Brand.)

I was disappointed Amber Rudd didn’t stand

Amber Rudd would be a fairly decent candidate. I think she has a really slim majority. So she’s too risky to have as PM.

I’m not mourning the loss of McVey or Leadsom.

I really don’t like McVey, so am very pleased she’s gone.

I was disappointed Amber Rudd didn’t stand, it seeems the sensible ones are too sensible to get involved.

Neither Leadsom nor McVey was a viable candidate. Leadsom's best chance was last time out but she blew it, and Esther - well! No point in saying what I think as it'll get me deleted, but suffice it to say she's Philip Davies' girlfriend .
I don't have a vote in this particular election (Labour party member), but the only sensible human in the group is Stewart. He won't survive the next round of course.

Part of me is expecting that Boris (or whoever) ends up putting May's withdrawal deal back to parliament (rebranded as being something completely different even though it's exactly the same), getting it passed, and rolling in the glory as "The Man Who Got The EU Too Give Us What We Wanted".

Like a grand scale version of that boardroom cartoon: "great idea, could a man please rephrase that so we can all agree with him?"

Would be bloody typical.

I can't be the only person who thinks the Tories know it's in their best interests to have the worst possible candidate chosen? They're desperate to lose a general election so that Brexit will become Labour's problem, and they can blame Labour forever

That really isn't a plausible scenario.

CIasslc glass cliff scenario. Let a female have a go at an impossible and intracactable task. Push her over the glass cliff. Then put the mediocre middle class white man back in charge having surmised that females are not up to the task. Misogyny 101.

What? If there are no viable female candidates that's hardly what's happening.

CIasslc glass cliff scenario. Let a female have a go at an impossible and intracactable task. Push her over the glass cliff. Then put the mediocre middle class white man back in charge having surmised that females are not up to the task. Misogyny 101.

It's more disappointing that the only 2 female candidates were such loathsome bigots.

I couldn't care less whether there was a woman on it. I hope Gove wins. Johnston is a gift to the SNP. Gove isn't.

I think the point is, really, that yes McVey and Leadsom are dreadful, but they're no worse than the men who are still there. It's not about wanting to force there to be women on a shortlist if the women are not as good as the male candidates, in this case those two particular women weren't any more awful than the men who remain.

PS I agree wholeheartedly with Fink. It's a sorry bunch to have to choose from but entirely predictable.

Feminism is all well and good but it's time we stopped wanting to see women on shortlists or in professions simply just because they are women. If the women on offer aren't good enough, they aren't, no ifs or buts about it. Women need to be up to the task or out of the door, in the same way as we wouldn't want a man who has less to offer than a woman get the job.

I'd prefer that to a woman being on just because she is female. I'm not a fan of either of the women

I'm not remotely sorry to see Leadsom and McVey go as individuals, but to have a list of seven candidates for the most important job in the country with no women on it is so dispiriting.

McVey voted against equal marriage and both her and Leadsome support no deal. The men are all awful also, except perhaps Rory Stewart, but these women are no great loss.

Out of the 7 remaining candidates, 6 went to Oxford, of whom 5 went to independent schools (mostly big public schools) & 1 grammar school. Sajid Javid is the only one left who is state educated, non-white, non-Oxford. It was fairly obvious, IMO, that McVey and Leadsom, who are not only women but also both non-Oxford, 1 state educated, the other fostered, do not fit the mould desired by Tory MPs. I bet Dominic Raab and Sajid Javid, the two remaining slight outsider characters, don't make the final cut.

I don't like any of the candidates (but then, I don't like many Tory politicians), but I can see what Tory MPs like.

I'm not criticising people who studied at Oxford, or independent schools, or white people, or men. I am a member of 2 of those groups myself. It's just depressing when nearly everyone on the shortlist can tick the checklist on nearly every point. One or two people from a different background wouldn't hurt.

I can't be the only person who thinks the Tories know it's in their best interests to have the worst possible candidate chosen? They're desperate to lose a general election so that Brexit will become Labour's problem, and they can blame Labour forever.

Unfortunately, even at their worst, they'll still defeat Corbyn.