It's going to be Rishi or Liz!!

[SirSamVimesCityWatch]

Mordaunt knocked out. Phew.

A pity in many ways, but she shouldn’t have pissed off so many women. It was arrogant and short-sighted.

I’m glad she’s gone! Shes a proven liar and we’ve just got rid of one of them.

So glad she’s gone.

Thank fuck. I was really worried she was going to get in.

So on the upside it looks like we just announced who our third woman pm will be (ok it's a stretch but I'm looking hard for a silver lining) and the tory party are working hard to disprove the adage that for a woman to get the promotion she needs to be twice as good as the male contender.

Either way, it's another 'not a white male' that's going to be leader of the Tory party and PM. Labour are really getting left in the dust on diversity of party leaders.

Sorry I'm with Kenan Malik on this. I'd rather someone pale male and stale who didn't have his boot on my face than some diversity fascist.

That wasn’t why she lost.

Me too, but I do find it amusing that while Labour make a lot of noise about diversity (while happily throwing women's rights out the window) the Tories are the ones with the track record of electing party leaders who are NOT white males.

Actions speak louder than words, and all that.

It'll be Truss. Remember the final arbiters are the rank and file Tory party members and they are more racist than sexist.

Notice how - 3 years after it was "done" and over 6 years after that fecking vote, "Brexit" is still a powerful influence on things.

I'm quite relieved to be back to my usual position of not feeling hugely invested in who the next Tory leader is. Obviously I wouldn't be on the thread if I wasn't interested - they'll be Prime Minister with a pretty hefty majority. But now Mordaunt has gone, I don't feel any skin in the game over the remaining two.
I think it's more important to take nothing for granted. I'm assuming whoever wins will be subject to intense TRA lobbying, regardless of anything they've said previously. I think we should watch them, and the makeup of their new cabinet, very closely - Stonewall certainly will.

I would actually prefer Rishi - not that I particularly like either (or would ever vote for them).

I think with Liz - she's not the most competent and I suspect BJ will still be pulling the strings.

I think Rishi would do better on the international stage.

I am happier to pay higher taxes as long as those who need it most get some extra help.

Agree. It's really getting quite embarrassing now for Labour. But the idea of Angela Rayner as PM is possibly even worse than Truss!

I thought she did really well on LBC and I was warning to her - then the Trans caller came on and she threw woman under the bus.

I hope it's Liz. I really think the Tory party needs to move away from having these ultra-rich, ultra-privileged leaders who are so out of touch with the lives of the majority of the people they represent. I don't want the husband of an heiress as the next PM. We had that with Cameron and look where that got us, then we had another toff with Boris and I'm sick of the entitlement and the knowledge that whatever happens, they'll be okay.

Yes, that must be why Kemi Badenoch topped the Conservative Home poll and, indeed, ended up as MP for Saffron Walden.

I think it'll be Truss, but I think that because Rishi Sunak has now got a reputation as a spend, spend, spend Chancellor and Conservative members tend to be more fiscally conservative. The membership are also more likely to be up-to-date on Truss's less glamourous work creating post-Brexit trade deals. She's been bounding about the world like a geography teacher on a grant - Conservative members are likely to both like the 'hard-working' image and the aura that the hard work was to 'get Brexit done'.

Saying that Rishi won't get the PM slot because he's brown sounds pretty racist when it's easy to judge the candidates on what they've done, and what is likely to appeal to the membership.

The membership are also more likely to be up-to-date on Truss's less glamourous work creating post-Brexit trade deals.

Work that took all of five seconds - it was done in between photo shoots.

To be fair, the requirements to prove that you're twice as good probably don't apply when you're white and the male candidate isn't.

Lot of the 'culture of low expectations' on here. My recommendation for Rishi would be to watch Kemi Adeyoke's TedX talk on it

and then just say 'to heck with all the people saying I can't win because I'm not white.'

Truss announced her plan for tax cuts of £ 30 billion. This is not irresponsible because the economist Patrick Minford supports her.

Although he also said that the car industry , like coal , steel and farming, would cease to exist post Brexit - which he fully supports also.

As a Labour supporter no longer living in the UK I'm half hoping she wins. But then my boring , sane and rational side takes over.

Edit : not the car industry but ' manufacturing '.
It's no better is it. Barking.

That's a heck of an assumption @SerendipityJane - you know the members personally and can vouch for that can you? It is funny because every poll done of the Tory members said Kemi Badenoch would wipe the floor with the everyone else. So there is no evidence for what you say at all.

I am sick of the lazy pigeon-holing of the Conservatives (and the parallel letting Labour off their bigotries). I am sick of people chucking the concept of racism around to suit themselves and their own prejudices. Just because you like to think Tories are racist it does not make it so. That attitude makes a mockery of genuine racism.

You realise that Truss voted "remain" and Sunak voted "leave"?

In a membership poll, Badenoch would have beaten all comers, despite the disadvantage (in your eyes at least) of her being black.

Where’s your poll evidence @ChristinaXYZ? The Yougov poll of Tory party members this time last week had Mordaunt in the lead. Of course that was before the orchestrated smear campaign against her began.

Orchestrated campaign = pointing out things she'd said. Hardly Machiavellian.