Alex Wickham@alexwickham
Lot of chatter among MPs this morning about Rory Stewart being a “suicide bomber” for Michael Gove
Suspicion is that despite the fun twitter vids Rory is a not a genuine candidate, his pitch is not seriously designed to win and he has next to no MPs
MPs think his sole intention is to attack Brexiteers and make Gove look like a moderate unifier
Rory and Gove are friends and both their campaigns are closely linked to the Onward think tank. It is widely expected Rory will endorse Gove when he is knocked out in the first round
A Raab backing MP says of Rory: “He’s turning his fire on Boris for now but we expect it will be Dom next. He calls himself a unifying candidate while attacking the views of half the Tory party. Once he’s done his dirty work we expect him to back Gove and be offered a plum job."
(Goes without saying this is all denied by team Gove)
It's getting nasty already.
And its highly unlikely that Stewart would ever back Johnson nor Raab regardless of whether its a deliberate strategy.
Plus it could be a reverse preemptive smear upon Stewart and Gove by Teams Johnson and Raab, because Gove and Stewart represent things that they themselves don't possess.
I don't really care who is doing it to who tbh. It's obvious its a reality v ideology argument that's going to colour everything throughout the contest and is no different to the last 3 and half years.