But, more importantly my kite flying reference to "presidential" was deliberately to speculate on how the electorate could choose the PM (who would still need to be an elected MP) especially in the situation where the PM steps down as leader of their party mid-term. I'm not sure if that's a president in the traditional sense, more like it being the electorate who tell the monarch (or, elected president) who to appoint as PM rather than Parliament instructing the monarch. To be honest, I haven't thought through the implications of system like that ... I was just throwing ideas around to solve the constitutional questions about the party of government changing their leader mid term.
As mentioned the MPs in the Cons pick the two final candidates and the members pick from those. So MPs have the biggest say.
The PM theoretically doesn’t have to be the leader of the biggest party in the house. They could be picked by MPs across the house. They have to have the confidence of the house
As the MPs voted in stages for the candidates, Liz Truss picked up support from MPs at a higher rate than the other leading candidates (Penny Mordaunt and Rishi Sunak). Liz Truss was also endorsed by Penny Mordaunt, who was the third place loser.
So I think your claim is false. (Unless you're trying to claim that "most Tory MPs" knew she'd be bad, but supported her anyway because they didn't like the other choices either. In which case I wouldn't necessarily argue with you, but it requires a rather higher degree of awareness of their own general crapness than I think most Tory MPs possessed.)
2. If the Conservative Party members hadn't been asked, then she wouldn't have been a disaster for ALL of us...
In the final MP vote, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss were the two candidates preferred by MPs. Sunak was ahead with 137 votes, Truss was second with 113 votes, and Mordaunt was eliminated with 105 votes. On her elimination, Mordaunt endorsed Truss for leader.
There wasn't a final MP-only vote between Sunak and Truss, but a Truss victory amongst MPs would have required Mordaunt's vote to split 65-40 in favour of Truss. I'll remind you that Mordaunt endorsed Truss over Sunak, so it doesn't seem unreasonable that she'd have carried enough of her supporters with her to elect Truss in a hypothetical ballot of MPs.
As mentioned the MPs in the Cons pick the two final candidates and the members pick from those. So MPs have the biggest say.
The PM theoretically doesn’t have to be the leader of the biggest party in the house. They could be picked by MPs across the house. They have to have the confidence of the house
Indeed, there are historical oddities such as David Lloyd George being Prime Minister as leader of the Liberal Party whilst the Conservatives had more seats but then the 1918 election was a strange one.
Historically this was done by the monarch after taking soundings as to who could form a government. The parties don't regard that as acceptable these days. They haven't done so since at least the 1950s.
Regarded as acceptable or not, the last one to ‘emerge’ in this way was Sir Alec Douglas Home in the (nearly) mid 1960s
As the MPs voted in stages for the candidates, Liz Truss picked up support from MPs at a higher rate than the other leading candidates (Penny Mordaunt and Rishi Sunak). Liz Truss was also endorsed by Penny Mordaunt, who was the third place loser.
So I think your claim is false.
I completely agree - the pattern of votes and endorsements does not bear out the idea that most MPs thought she would be rubbish[*], and given Mordaunt's endorsement there's a strong argument for saying that the membership were largely echoing the sentiment of the MPs themselves.
Furthermore, in actual policy terms she wasn't doing anything particularly radical by the standards of policies that had long been currency within Conservative ginger groups and the various opaque think tanks that get regular hearing in both Conservative backed media as well as the BBC (TPA, IEA, ASI, CPS etc).
In terms of her overall agenda she wasn't even that far from what Sunak has done since then (outside the initial inflationary budget which did her in), and that I'd argue is the issue; Truss was the product of multiple institutional failures[**] largely in broadcast and print media who have fostered economic ignorance.
(Unless you're trying to claim that "most Tory MPs" knew she'd be bad, but supported her anyway because they didn't like the other choices either. In which case I wouldn't necessarily argue with you, but it requires a rather higher degree of awareness of their own general crapness than I think most Tory MPs possessed.)
[*] The party has 350 odd MPs, pick someone who isn't bad, can't they organise themselves even that far? That very much seems a them problem.
[**] but not within the Conservative Party, because in general they were all on board with the idea of shrinking the role of government, and Truss is an inevitable consequence of the long process that began with the Osborne and Cameron cuts.
So the Great Deity In The Sky (aka 1922 Committee) has made its decision!
Nominations now, with MPs whittling candidates down to 4 in time for the party conference in October. After that the MPs will select 2 from that 4 for an online ballot of party members.
Possibly the worse of all options? A long drawn out affair, not even settled by the party conference, and the grassroots members won't get any say until the MPs have reduced it all to a two horse race. In the meantime, Farage will make hay and Braverman will bicker from the sidelines until she finally joins Reform. If I were her, I would time my defection so that it clashed with the coronation of the new party leader.
So the Great Deity In The Sky (aka 1922 Committee) has made its decision!
Nominations now, with MPs whittling candidates down to 4 in time for the party conference in October. After that the MPs will select 2 from that 4 for an online ballot of party members.
Possibly the worse of all options? A long drawn out affair, not even settled by the party conference, and the grassroots members won't get any say until the MPs have reduced it all to a two horse race. In the meantime, Farage will make hay and Braverman will bicker from the sidelines until she finally joins Reform. If I were her, I would time my defection so that it clashed with the coronation of the new party leader.
I wonder if the timing will make much difference. People will be expecting it. OK it could be a little awkward but it could be easily batted aside.
Possibly the worse of all options? A long drawn out affair, not even settled by the party conference,
Depends who you're thinking worst for really - they're trying to ride two horses: the one that said Labour took too long to put Miliband in which allowed the Tories to seize control of the narrative; and the one that said the elections of Hague and IDS were too quick, and their most successful modern leadership election was Cameron precisely because Howard acted as caretaker while grooming him, and running a drawn out beauty parade to give the membership every chance to make the right decision.
David Davis was the frontrunner until Cameron had a sort of 'Clegg moment' before Clegg ever had a moment.
There's a school of thought that given no one's going to be listening to them for a while, they can afford to take their time. They've probably got at least 10 years. And if they get lucky and 'do a Starmer' in 5 years time, then taking their time clearly hasn't hurt them anyway.
and the grassroots members won't get any say until the MPs have reduced it all to a two horse race.
That's surely the least surprising bit? Short of denying the membership a say altogether, that's just the way the Tories do it. I'd have been confident enough to write only that on a piece of paper and think everything else was up for grabs.
In the meantime, Farage will make hay and Braverman will bicker from the sidelines until she finally joins Reform. If I were her, I would time my defection so that it clashed with the coronation of the new party leader.
Braverman will probably go to Reform, but mostly because it's dawning on her that no one, not excluding the membership, wants her. The 'Braverman threat' feels like something that mostly existed in her own head. Pretty well all her fellow travellers lost their seats, the membership don't like the interventions she's been making since election day.
For Braverman and Farage, see the point about 10 years above. No one outside the party cares.
Fundamentally, as things stand the 'fight for the right' is between Badenoch, who the members seem to want by a country mile, and Jenrick - who will be hoping for a Clegg Moment of his own.
The left's candidate will be Tugendhat or Atkins, but Cleverley is going to play a (Tory) centrist game I reckon so may benefit from either side.
The left's candidate will be Tugendhat or Atkins, but Cleverley is going to play a (Tory) centrist game I reckon so may benefit from either side.
I think Tugendhat might actually be quite competent. I don't rate Atkins much, and Cleverley is basically an arse.
I'd expect the final two to be Badenoch and Tugendhat, which will be an interesting question for the Tory party membership. I don't think Badenoch has the slightest chance of being able to lead the party to an electoral victory.
Whether Tugendhat could I think largely depends on how Starmer performs in the next few years. The recent election was lost by the Tories rather than being won by Labour, but if Labour can take the opportunity to demonstrate competent governance, they have the potential to keep a lock on power for 15+ years.
There's a school of thought that given no one's going to be listening to them for a while, they can afford to take their time. They've probably got at least 10 years. And if they get lucky and 'do a Starmer' in 5 years time, then taking their time clearly hasn't hurt them anyway.
I think this is spot on, as far as it goes but does ignore the theme of the thread which is an undercurrent here.
The Tory party does not need to worry about narrative, policy or leadership in any meaningful sense for a while as we are 5 years from the next election that they probably cannot win. Thus doing this right, whatever than looks like, has to be the priority.
However, it is really not the same party as the one Cameron took over with the chaperoning of Howard.
Brexit has done significant damage. Johnson purged the party of almost anyone with a brain. What's left - especially post election, is a very right of centre parliamentary party with an even more right-wing membership. This is a party that faces three existential threats right now.
1. They will move further right. Not where the country really is and therefore be unelectable.
2. They will split. Some splits could actually be healing but some catastrophic. Who, how and what size is the key here.
3. Reform. Especially in the form of a reverse take over.
We've talked about those factors quite a bit on this thread. Quite clearly the choice of next leader has a massive influence on each of these threats and how it will then pan out.
I am not sure how the timing factors here... does taking this much time make any particular risk greater or less? Don't know. It should be fun to watch though...
I wouldn't be surprised to see both of them start to tack right, to reflect the current centre of gravity within the party.
And also to present a leader likely to appeal to a larger share of the general population. Ideological purity is one thing, but winning more seats is what it's all about.
33.7% is a perilous vote share to build on. Whether that means Labour is in danger of losing and letting Tories back in in 2029 depends on a lot of factors, many of which are independent of what the Tories do.
Biggest factor is probably how Labour do over the next few years. If people feel that they're better off, household bills come down and food banks closing, then Labour could easily get even more votes.
Performance of other parties will also be a factor. A small swing back to SNP in Scotland and Labour could lose 20-30 seats, gains for Green and LibDems could also cut majority without Tory revival. For the Conservatives, the biggest question will be support for Reform.
I believe that the Conservatives could win ( or Labour could lose) in 2029. Labour's 33.7% is very catchable IMO
It depends on Reform. If they continue to split the Right vote then the Tories remain in deep doo-doo. There's more people slicing up the same pie now so percentages have a different meaning.
Hence the Tory problem. They've lost voters both to the left and right. FWIW I reckon that a lot of 2024 Reform voters aren't really on board with Reform policies but voted Reform in protest at Tory incompetence. They'd go back to a shiny new competent looking Centre Right Tory party. As would, of course, centrist voters who voted Labour and Lib Dem this time round. But that's based entirely on my hunch about the part of the Reform vote poached from the Tories.
I should think the urge among members is to move right, which probably won't work. I think after Blair in 97, they were in the wilderness for a few years.
I think Tugendhat might actually be quite competent.
Which is as good a reason as any not to install him as leader right now.
I'll explain.
In 1997 William Hague was one of the brightest rising stars of the Conservative party, and IMO could eventually have made a good PM. But he was never going to win the next election (no Tory was), and the modern environment in which major party leaders only ever get one chance (at most) to win an election meant he was doomed from the start. If the Howard and Hague leaderships had been reversed, or if Hague had been able to stay on after 2001, I think Hague would have had a decent chance in 2005.
In baseball terms, you don't put your star pitcher in the game when you're 10-0 down in the seventh innings. You save him for the next game. That's what the Tories should do with their best candidate(s) for leadership this time round. Put in a backup/caretaker until the next election, and focus on developing your real talent with a view to winning the one after it. Otherwise that talent will just be wasted on a hopeless task, just as Hague's was.
I think Tugendhat might actually be quite competent.
Which is as good a reason as any not to install him as leader right now.
I'll explain.
In 1997 William Hague was one of the brightest rising stars of the Conservative party, and IMO could eventually have made a good PM. But he was never going to win the next election (no Tory was), and the modern environment in which major party leaders only ever get one chance (at most) to win an election meant he was doomed from the start. If the Howard and Hague leaderships had been reversed, or if Hague had been able to stay on after 2001, I think Hague would have had a decent chance in 2005.
In baseball terms, you don't put your star pitcher in the game when you're 10-0 down in the seventh innings. You save him for the next game. That's what the Tories should do with their best candidate(s) for leadership this time round. Put in a backup/caretaker until the next election, and focus on developing your real talent with a view to winning the one after it. Otherwise that talent will just be wasted on a hopeless task, just as Hague's was.
Fair comment @Marvin the Martian - who would you suggest as a good caretaker until 2029? Penny Mordaunt comes to mind, but the same might apply to her as to Mr T...
33.7% is a perilous vote share to build on. Whether that means Labour is in danger of losing and letting Tories back in in 2029 depends on a lot of factors, many of which are independent of what the Tories do.
They will have far fewer opportunities to mess up.
Performance of other parties will also be a factor. A small swing back to SNP in Scotland and Labour could lose 20-30 seats, gains for Green and LibDems could also cut majority without Tory revival. For the Conservatives, the biggest question will be support for Reform.
I reckon that the LibDems have reached their high water mark, I see Reform as a protest party. They have had their protest. I think they will lose support.
So... if they need to appoint a caretaker leader to allow the real talent time to develop etc. How will they determine if they've been successful in 3, 4 years time?
that and the result of the next election - stand still is at best no worse, and at worst (assuming there are some opportunities to seize) not seizing opportunities. Progress of some form is a platform to build on and evidence that the rot has been stopped.
I know it's a bit like fighting the last war, but Howard is the model to learn from - skilled operator who gets a grip of it and while going down to GE defeat does better than expected and hands on the party in a better shape to a successor. I'm with @Marvin the Martian - even at the time Hague as leader was a waste of Hague as leader IYSWIM. Too early. No one was winning the first GE post 1997 for the Tories.
The tantalising thing here - if you're a Tory - is that it's not quite the same this time round. Labour's majority is wide as the ocean and deep as a puddle. It's like the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade - dreams of victory are just out of reach but not implausibly so.
I don't for a minute think they are going to win in 5 years time, but the point is it's not unthinkable, which is going to affect how the runners and riders fight for the top job. At least part of all of them will think that they might be PM before 2030, whereas what's needed is someone who fancies rebuilding in opposition and handing over to a successor who *is* in with a shout following plucky defeat at the next GE.
So... if they need to appoint a caretaker leader to allow the real talent time to develop etc. How will they determine if they've been successful in 3, 4 years time?
The thing is, what you need for a caretaker leader is a Michael Howard. A senior MP who is willing to spend their last years in the commons sorting the party out. I suspect the only credible such person among the current crop of Tory MPs is Iain Duncan Smith. He's right-wing and Euroskeptic enough to be acceptable to much of the party, without reaching the nasty excesses of a Braverman or a Badenoch. And of course he's been party leader before.
So... if they need to appoint a caretaker leader to allow the real talent time to develop etc. How will they determine if they've been successful in 3, 4 years time?
The thing is, what you need for a caretaker leader is a Michael Howard. A senior MP who is willing to spend their last years in the commons sorting the party out. I suspect the only credible such person among the current crop of Tory MPs is Iain Duncan Smith. He's right-wing and Euroskeptic enough to be acceptable to much of the party, without reaching the nasty excesses of a Braverman or a Badenoch. And of course he's been party leader before.
IDS might well do, although, like all surviving tories (no matter how personable and competent they are), he's tainted with the toxic residue left by Johnson and Truss.
That may not matter to the other tory MPs, or to party members, but it might take a while to scrub off, as far as the country at large is concerned.
So... if they need to appoint a caretaker leader to allow the real talent time to develop etc. How will they determine if they've been successful in 3, 4 years time?
The thing is, what you need for a caretaker leader is a Michael Howard. A senior MP who is willing to spend their last years in the commons sorting the party out. I suspect the only credible such person among the current crop of Tory MPs is Iain Duncan Smith. He's right-wing and Euroskeptic enough to be acceptable to much of the party, without reaching the nasty excesses of a Braverman or a Badenoch. And of course he's been party leader before.
IDS might well do, although, like all surviving tories (no matter how personable and competent they are), he's tainted with the toxic residue left by Johnson and Truss.
That may not matter to the other tory MPs, or to party members, but it might take a while to scrub off, as far as the country at large is concerned.
The Telegraph, Mail, Sun, Times and Express, aided and abetted by the BBC, will be out with the pressure washers and hot wax in short order.
So... if they need to appoint a caretaker leader to allow the real talent time to develop etc. How will they determine if they've been successful in 3, 4 years time?
The thing is, what you need for a caretaker leader is a Michael Howard. A senior MP who is willing to spend their last years in the commons sorting the party out. I suspect the only credible such person among the current crop of Tory MPs is Iain Duncan Smith. He's right-wing and Euroskeptic enough to be acceptable to much of the party, without reaching the nasty excesses of a Braverman or a Badenoch. And of course he's been party leader before.
IDS might well do, although, like all surviving tories (no matter how personable and competent they are), he's tainted with the toxic residue left by Johnson and Truss.
That may not matter to the other tory MPs, or to party members, but it might take a while to scrub off, as far as the country at large is concerned.
The Telegraph, Mail, Sun, Times and Express, aided and abetted by the BBC, will be out with the pressure washers and hot wax in short order.
So... if they need to appoint a caretaker leader to allow the real talent time to develop etc. How will they determine if they've been successful in 3, 4 years time?
The thing is, what you need for a caretaker leader is a Michael Howard. A senior MP who is willing to spend their last years in the commons sorting the party out. I suspect the only credible such person among the current crop of Tory MPs is Iain Duncan Smith. He's right-wing and Euroskeptic enough to be acceptable to much of the party, without reaching the nasty excesses of a Braverman or a Badenoch. And of course he's been party leader before.
IDS might well do, although, like all surviving tories (no matter how personable and competent they are), he's tainted with the toxic residue left by Johnson and Truss.
That may not matter to the other tory MPs, or to party members, but it might take a while to scrub off, as far as the country at large is concerned.
IDS is a great example of a Tory who is actually awful but looks good by comparison to the recent crop of howler monkeys.
He's not particularly honest. He's not especially competent and I don't think he's very smart.
If you think I'm being unnecessarily mean then I ask you to find any person who was disabled in the time period 2010-16. He treated them abysmally. Not just in terms of policy which was bad but also dehumanising rhetoric. I really have no time for Sir George. He is awful.
It is true that Labour's support is very wide and not very deep but that does not mean the Tories can win in 2029. The Tories are toxic. They need to detoxify to win. They probably cannot do that in 5 years. They probably will get worse.
It is true that Labour's support is very wide and not very deep but that does not mean the Tories can win in 2029. The Tories are toxic. They need to detoxify to win. They probably cannot do that in 5 years. They probably will get worse.
This.
I said earlier that Labour didn't win this election - the Tories lost it. For Labour, that's an opportunity: they're currently rather short on actual positive support, but if they can book a few years of looking like competent sensible government, they can gain a lot of that support.
I don't think it's impossible for the Tories to be able to purge their toxicity in 5 years, but I agree with you that they're not going to. There's too large a streak in the Tory party who genuinely think that they lost by not being nasty enough.
Whoever gets to be tory leader will have his or her work cut out to do the detoxification required, although there will be assistance from their pet media outlets.
It is true that Labour's support is very wide and not very deep but that does not mean the Tories can win in 2029. The Tories are toxic. They need to detoxify to win. They probably cannot do that in 5 years. They probably will get worse.
This.
I said earlier that Labour didn't win this election - the Tories lost it. For Labour, that's an opportunity: they're currently rather short on actual positive support, but if they can book a few years of looking like competent sensible government, they can gain a lot of that support.
I don't think it's impossible for the Tories to be able to purge their toxicity in 5 years, but I agree with you that they're not going to. There's too large a streak in the Tory party who genuinely think that they lost by not being nasty enough.
Yep
Interestingly, Starmer's personal approval has jumped 20pts since the election.
Of course that will change over the next few years but it shows how much better Starmer comes across when he's able to be seen doing the job rather than as a campaigner. My point is the Starmer's not very popular tropes, whilst factually accurate at the times they were said, do not carry the weight people think they do. Labour's current branding of quiet competence give sharp relief to the Tories incompetent, self-serving soap opera. That's why the toxic Tories are not going to win in 5 years' time. Not because it's impossible but because of who they are and because I don't believe they are ready to be honest with themselves and start fixing it.
AFZ
P.s. I haven't seen any data yet but 1) low turnout will have been partly driven by a wide-spread belief that Labour were going to win anyway. Hence Labour's support is likely to be deeper than it appears. How much deeper is the unknown quantity.
2) there was a HUGE amount of tactical voting, I suspect. This also impacts on the headline numbers.
It is true that Labour's support is very wide and not very deep but that does not mean the Tories can win in 2029. The Tories are toxic. They need to detoxify to win. They probably cannot do that in 5 years. They probably will get worse.
This.
I said earlier that Labour didn't win this election - the Tories lost it. For Labour, that's an opportunity: they're currently rather short on actual positive support, but if they can book a few years of looking like competent sensible government, they can gain a lot of that support.
I don't think it's impossible for the Tories to be able to purge their toxicity in 5 years, but I agree with you that they're not going to. There's too large a streak in the Tory party who genuinely think that they lost by not being nasty enough.
I have yet to hear any Conservative politician claim this
P.s. I haven't seen any data yet but 1) low turnout will have been partly driven by a wide-spread belief that Labour were going to win anyway. Hence Labour's support is likely to be deeper than it appears. How much deeper is the unknown quantity.
2) there was a HUGE amount of tactical voting, I suspect. This also impacts on the headline numbers.
I wouldn't be surprised to see both of them start to tack right, to reflect the current centre of gravity within the party.
And also to present a leader likely to appeal to a larger share of the general population.
There's little to no evidence that tacking to the right would help them get a larger overall share of voters (as opposed to the votes of members) as their existing voting coalition was already leaking leftwards to the Lib Dems.
I wouldn't be surprised to see both of them start to tack right, to reflect the current centre of gravity within the party.
And also to present a leader likely to appeal to a larger share of the general population.
There's little to no evidence that tacking to the right would help them get a larger overall share of voters (as opposed to the votes of members) as their existing voting coalition was already leaking leftwards to the Lib Dems.
I wouldn't be surprised to see both of them start to tack right, to reflect the current centre of gravity within the party.
And also to present a leader likely to appeal to a larger share of the general population.
There's little to no evidence that tacking to the right would help them get a larger overall share of voters (as opposed to the votes of members) as their existing voting coalition was already leaking leftwards to the Lib Dems.
‘Man in saying what the base wants to hear to get elected shock’
If only we had a worked example of a sitting current British PM working through implementing everything he said he’d do in return for his party membership electing him….
I’m enjoying life in Britain under continuity Corbynism…don’t know about you?
It is true that Labour's support is very wide and not very deep but that does not mean the Tories can win in 2029. The Tories are toxic. They need to detoxify to win. They probably cannot do that in 5 years. They probably will get worse.
This.
I said earlier that Labour didn't win this election - the Tories lost it. For Labour, that's an opportunity: they're currently rather short on actual positive support, but if they can book a few years of looking like competent sensible government, they can gain a lot of that support.
I don't think it's impossible for the Tories to be able to purge their toxicity in 5 years, but I agree with you that they're not going to. There's too large a streak in the Tory party who genuinely think that they lost by not being nasty enough.
I have yet to hear any Conservative politician claim this
Braverman has been saying little else since the election.
Then we've got Tugendhat wanting to remove our membership of the ECHR. That's the body that ensures your Human Rights are not infringed. Those things that ensure you're not tortured, imprisoned without good cause, that sort of thing.
I think Tory MPs will be split between Jenrick and Cleverly, both of whom have had a charisma bypass but if you have to choose between them then Jenrick is marginally better - but neither is likely to do well at the Despatch Box. Kemi Badenoch would be a better bet, but I think she'll sit this one out if she's got any sense.
Tugendhat is a far more interesting character than the media paints. His objection to the ECHR is not the usual swivel-eyed reflex, and is possibly informed by his uncle's experiences as a Brussels insider. At the most recent GE he faced some unpleasant antisemitism which he addressed with good grace. Of all those likely to be standing this time he would make the best leader, but if he does get the spot it will scupper his chances of leading a successful GE campaign in 2034, which I think is the soonest the CP can realistically expect to mount a serious challenge to Labour.
The Tory Faithful will divide themselves between Priti and Suella, and since they can out-vote the MPs the party will be left with a leader despised by at least half of sitting members. My prediction, for what it's worth, is that it if Priti and/or Suella get onto a ballot paper for party members then it will be them leading the party into the wilderness.
Tugendhat is a far more interesting character than the media paints. His objection to the ECHR is not the usual swivel-eyed reflex, and is possibly informed by his uncle's experiences as a Brussels insider.
I looked in vain for this more nuanced take in:
"“We know that if institutions do not serve the British people and make it harder to control our own borders, then we will have to exempt ourselves from them, or leave their jurisdiction.”"
Tugendhat is a far more interesting character than the media paints. His objection to the ECHR is not the usual swivel-eyed reflex, and is possibly informed by his uncle's experiences as a Brussels insider.
I looked in vain for this more nuanced take in:
"“We know that if institutions do not serve the British people and make it harder to control our own borders, then we will have to exempt ourselves from them, or leave their jurisdiction.”"
As I say, never mind nuance - think of all the wonderful things Starmer promised Labour members in his campaign to be leader.
A candidate (particularly at this point in the opposition cycle) can say pretty much whatever they think they need to to get the party membership onside and have no intention of actually following through - that's demonstrably worked for Labour after all.
Tugendhat is a far more interesting character than the media paints. His objection to the ECHR is not the usual swivel-eyed reflex, and is possibly informed by his uncle's experiences as a Brussels insider.
I looked in vain for this more nuanced take in:
"“We know that if institutions do not serve the British people and make it harder to control our own borders, then we will have to exempt ourselves from them, or leave their jurisdiction.”"
As I say, never mind nuance - think of all the wonderful things Starmer promised Labour members in his campaign to be leader.
I was narrowly dealing with TheOrganist's point there - but you remind me of the story of the Tory Member who voted for Liz Truss - he thought both Sunak and Truss were barmy, but as Truss had voted Remain he figured there was an outside chance that she was lying.
Comments
But, more importantly my kite flying reference to "presidential" was deliberately to speculate on how the electorate could choose the PM (who would still need to be an elected MP) especially in the situation where the PM steps down as leader of their party mid-term. I'm not sure if that's a president in the traditional sense, more like it being the electorate who tell the monarch (or, elected president) who to appoint as PM rather than Parliament instructing the monarch. To be honest, I haven't thought through the implications of system like that ... I was just throwing ideas around to solve the constitutional questions about the party of government changing their leader mid term.
The PM theoretically doesn’t have to be the leader of the biggest party in the house. They could be picked by MPs across the house. They have to have the confidence of the house
As the MPs voted in stages for the candidates, Liz Truss picked up support from MPs at a higher rate than the other leading candidates (Penny Mordaunt and Rishi Sunak). Liz Truss was also endorsed by Penny Mordaunt, who was the third place loser.
So I think your claim is false. (Unless you're trying to claim that "most Tory MPs" knew she'd be bad, but supported her anyway because they didn't like the other choices either. In which case I wouldn't necessarily argue with you, but it requires a rather higher degree of awareness of their own general crapness than I think most Tory MPs possessed.)
In the final MP vote, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss were the two candidates preferred by MPs. Sunak was ahead with 137 votes, Truss was second with 113 votes, and Mordaunt was eliminated with 105 votes. On her elimination, Mordaunt endorsed Truss for leader.
There wasn't a final MP-only vote between Sunak and Truss, but a Truss victory amongst MPs would have required Mordaunt's vote to split 65-40 in favour of Truss. I'll remind you that Mordaunt endorsed Truss over Sunak, so it doesn't seem unreasonable that she'd have carried enough of her supporters with her to elect Truss in a hypothetical ballot of MPs.
Indeed, there are historical oddities such as David Lloyd George being Prime Minister as leader of the Liberal Party whilst the Conservatives had more seats but then the 1918 election was a strange one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_United_Kingdom_general_election
AFZ
Regarded as acceptable or not, the last one to ‘emerge’ in this way was Sir Alec Douglas Home in the (nearly) mid 1960s
I completely agree - the pattern of votes and endorsements does not bear out the idea that most MPs thought she would be rubbish[*], and given Mordaunt's endorsement there's a strong argument for saying that the membership were largely echoing the sentiment of the MPs themselves.
Furthermore, in actual policy terms she wasn't doing anything particularly radical by the standards of policies that had long been currency within Conservative ginger groups and the various opaque think tanks that get regular hearing in both Conservative backed media as well as the BBC (TPA, IEA, ASI, CPS etc).
In terms of her overall agenda she wasn't even that far from what Sunak has done since then (outside the initial inflationary budget which did her in), and that I'd argue is the issue; Truss was the product of multiple institutional failures[**] largely in broadcast and print media who have fostered economic ignorance.
[*] The party has 350 odd MPs, pick someone who isn't bad, can't they organise themselves even that far? That very much seems a them problem.
[**] but not within the Conservative Party, because in general they were all on board with the idea of shrinking the role of government, and Truss is an inevitable consequence of the long process that began with the Osborne and Cameron cuts.
Nominations now, with MPs whittling candidates down to 4 in time for the party conference in October. After that the MPs will select 2 from that 4 for an online ballot of party members.
Possibly the worse of all options? A long drawn out affair, not even settled by the party conference, and the grassroots members won't get any say until the MPs have reduced it all to a two horse race. In the meantime, Farage will make hay and Braverman will bicker from the sidelines until she finally joins Reform. If I were her, I would time my defection so that it clashed with the coronation of the new party leader.
I wonder if the timing will make much difference. People will be expecting it. OK it could be a little awkward but it could be easily batted aside.
Depends who you're thinking worst for really - they're trying to ride two horses: the one that said Labour took too long to put Miliband in which allowed the Tories to seize control of the narrative; and the one that said the elections of Hague and IDS were too quick, and their most successful modern leadership election was Cameron precisely because Howard acted as caretaker while grooming him, and running a drawn out beauty parade to give the membership every chance to make the right decision.
David Davis was the frontrunner until Cameron had a sort of 'Clegg moment' before Clegg ever had a moment.
There's a school of thought that given no one's going to be listening to them for a while, they can afford to take their time. They've probably got at least 10 years. And if they get lucky and 'do a Starmer' in 5 years time, then taking their time clearly hasn't hurt them anyway.
That's surely the least surprising bit? Short of denying the membership a say altogether, that's just the way the Tories do it. I'd have been confident enough to write only that on a piece of paper and think everything else was up for grabs.
Braverman will probably go to Reform, but mostly because it's dawning on her that no one, not excluding the membership, wants her. The 'Braverman threat' feels like something that mostly existed in her own head. Pretty well all her fellow travellers lost their seats, the membership don't like the interventions she's been making since election day.
For Braverman and Farage, see the point about 10 years above. No one outside the party cares.
Fundamentally, as things stand the 'fight for the right' is between Badenoch, who the members seem to want by a country mile, and Jenrick - who will be hoping for a Clegg Moment of his own.
The left's candidate will be Tugendhat or Atkins, but Cleverley is going to play a (Tory) centrist game I reckon so may benefit from either side.
I think Tugendhat might actually be quite competent. I don't rate Atkins much, and Cleverley is basically an arse.
I'd expect the final two to be Badenoch and Tugendhat, which will be an interesting question for the Tory party membership. I don't think Badenoch has the slightest chance of being able to lead the party to an electoral victory.
Whether Tugendhat could I think largely depends on how Starmer performs in the next few years. The recent election was lost by the Tories rather than being won by Labour, but if Labour can take the opportunity to demonstrate competent governance, they have the potential to keep a lock on power for 15+ years.
I wouldn't be surprised to see both of them start to tack right, to reflect the current centre of gravity within the party.
I think this is spot on, as far as it goes but does ignore the theme of the thread which is an undercurrent here.
The Tory party does not need to worry about narrative, policy or leadership in any meaningful sense for a while as we are 5 years from the next election that they probably cannot win. Thus doing this right, whatever than looks like, has to be the priority.
However, it is really not the same party as the one Cameron took over with the chaperoning of Howard.
Brexit has done significant damage. Johnson purged the party of almost anyone with a brain. What's left - especially post election, is a very right of centre parliamentary party with an even more right-wing membership. This is a party that faces three existential threats right now.
1. They will move further right. Not where the country really is and therefore be unelectable.
2. They will split. Some splits could actually be healing but some catastrophic. Who, how and what size is the key here.
3. Reform. Especially in the form of a reverse take over.
We've talked about those factors quite a bit on this thread. Quite clearly the choice of next leader has a massive influence on each of these threats and how it will then pan out.
I am not sure how the timing factors here... does taking this much time make any particular risk greater or less? Don't know. It should be fun to watch though...
AFZ
And also to present a leader likely to appeal to a larger share of the general population. Ideological purity is one thing, but winning more seats is what it's all about.
Biggest factor is probably how Labour do over the next few years. If people feel that they're better off, household bills come down and food banks closing, then Labour could easily get even more votes.
Performance of other parties will also be a factor. A small swing back to SNP in Scotland and Labour could lose 20-30 seats, gains for Green and LibDems could also cut majority without Tory revival. For the Conservatives, the biggest question will be support for Reform.
It depends on Reform. If they continue to split the Right vote then the Tories remain in deep doo-doo. There's more people slicing up the same pie now so percentages have a different meaning.
Hence the Tory problem. They've lost voters both to the left and right. FWIW I reckon that a lot of 2024 Reform voters aren't really on board with Reform policies but voted Reform in protest at Tory incompetence. They'd go back to a shiny new competent looking Centre Right Tory party. As would, of course, centrist voters who voted Labour and Lib Dem this time round. But that's based entirely on my hunch about the part of the Reform vote poached from the Tories.
Time will tell - but I daresay it will be quite a small party...
Which is as good a reason as any not to install him as leader right now.
I'll explain.
In 1997 William Hague was one of the brightest rising stars of the Conservative party, and IMO could eventually have made a good PM. But he was never going to win the next election (no Tory was), and the modern environment in which major party leaders only ever get one chance (at most) to win an election meant he was doomed from the start. If the Howard and Hague leaderships had been reversed, or if Hague had been able to stay on after 2001, I think Hague would have had a decent chance in 2005.
In baseball terms, you don't put your star pitcher in the game when you're 10-0 down in the seventh innings. You save him for the next game. That's what the Tories should do with their best candidate(s) for leadership this time round. Put in a backup/caretaker until the next election, and focus on developing your real talent with a view to winning the one after it. Otherwise that talent will just be wasted on a hopeless task, just as Hague's was.
this
There will be by elections. They will have far fewer opportunities to mess up.
I reckon that the LibDems have reached their high water mark, I see Reform as a protest party. They have had their protest. I think they will lose support.
So she did - I'd forgotten that...
that and the result of the next election - stand still is at best no worse, and at worst (assuming there are some opportunities to seize) not seizing opportunities. Progress of some form is a platform to build on and evidence that the rot has been stopped.
I know it's a bit like fighting the last war, but Howard is the model to learn from - skilled operator who gets a grip of it and while going down to GE defeat does better than expected and hands on the party in a better shape to a successor. I'm with @Marvin the Martian - even at the time Hague as leader was a waste of Hague as leader IYSWIM. Too early. No one was winning the first GE post 1997 for the Tories.
The tantalising thing here - if you're a Tory - is that it's not quite the same this time round. Labour's majority is wide as the ocean and deep as a puddle. It's like the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade - dreams of victory are just out of reach but not implausibly so.
I don't for a minute think they are going to win in 5 years time, but the point is it's not unthinkable, which is going to affect how the runners and riders fight for the top job. At least part of all of them will think that they might be PM before 2030, whereas what's needed is someone who fancies rebuilding in opposition and handing over to a successor who *is* in with a shout following plucky defeat at the next GE.
The thing is, what you need for a caretaker leader is a Michael Howard. A senior MP who is willing to spend their last years in the commons sorting the party out. I suspect the only credible such person among the current crop of Tory MPs is Iain Duncan Smith. He's right-wing and Euroskeptic enough to be acceptable to much of the party, without reaching the nasty excesses of a Braverman or a Badenoch. And of course he's been party leader before.
IDS might well do, although, like all surviving tories (no matter how personable and competent they are), he's tainted with the toxic residue left by Johnson and Truss.
That may not matter to the other tory MPs, or to party members, but it might take a while to scrub off, as far as the country at large is concerned.
The Telegraph, Mail, Sun, Times and Express, aided and abetted by the BBC, will be out with the pressure washers and hot wax in short order.
Alas, all too true.
IDS is a great example of a Tory who is actually awful but looks good by comparison to the recent crop of howler monkeys.
He's not particularly honest. He's not especially competent and I don't think he's very smart.
If you think I'm being unnecessarily mean then I ask you to find any person who was disabled in the time period 2010-16. He treated them abysmally. Not just in terms of policy which was bad but also dehumanising rhetoric. I really have no time for Sir George. He is awful.
It is true that Labour's support is very wide and not very deep but that does not mean the Tories can win in 2029. The Tories are toxic. They need to detoxify to win. They probably cannot do that in 5 years. They probably will get worse.
AFZ
This.
I said earlier that Labour didn't win this election - the Tories lost it. For Labour, that's an opportunity: they're currently rather short on actual positive support, but if they can book a few years of looking like competent sensible government, they can gain a lot of that support.
I don't think it's impossible for the Tories to be able to purge their toxicity in 5 years, but I agree with you that they're not going to. There's too large a streak in the Tory party who genuinely think that they lost by not being nasty enough.
Whoever gets to be tory leader will have his or her work cut out to do the detoxification required, although there will be assistance from their pet media outlets.
Yep
Interestingly, Starmer's personal approval has jumped 20pts since the election.
Of course that will change over the next few years but it shows how much better Starmer comes across when he's able to be seen doing the job rather than as a campaigner. My point is the Starmer's not very popular tropes, whilst factually accurate at the times they were said, do not carry the weight people think they do. Labour's current branding of quiet competence give sharp relief to the Tories incompetent, self-serving soap opera. That's why the toxic Tories are not going to win in 5 years' time. Not because it's impossible but because of who they are and because I don't believe they are ready to be honest with themselves and start fixing it.
AFZ
P.s. I haven't seen any data yet but 1) low turnout will have been partly driven by a wide-spread belief that Labour were going to win anyway. Hence Labour's support is likely to be deeper than it appears. How much deeper is the unknown quantity.
2) there was a HUGE amount of tactical voting, I suspect. This also impacts on the headline numbers.
Don’t forget the voter suppression.
(IRONY)
There was no suppression, just voters who didn't understand how to vote even though they would have been given clear instructions
There's little to no evidence that tacking to the right would help them get a larger overall share of voters (as opposed to the votes of members) as their existing voting coalition was already leaking leftwards to the Lib Dems.
In any case, confirmation of my supposition, I present the moderate candidate for the Tory leadership: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/07/24/tom-tugendhat-im-ready-to-leave-the-echr/
O gods. He's turned into a swivel-eyed loon...
lol.
‘Man in saying what the base wants to hear to get elected shock’
If only we had a worked example of a sitting current British PM working through implementing everything he said he’d do in return for his party membership electing him….
I’m enjoying life in Britain under continuity Corbynism…don’t know about you?
Braverman has been saying little else since the election.
Example - https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/05/rishi-sunak-to-face-pressure-to-shift-right-after-disastrous-election-results
Then we've got Tugendhat wanting to remove our membership of the ECHR. That's the body that ensures your Human Rights are not infringed. Those things that ensure you're not tortured, imprisoned without good cause, that sort of thing.
Tugendhat is a far more interesting character than the media paints. His objection to the ECHR is not the usual swivel-eyed reflex, and is possibly informed by his uncle's experiences as a Brussels insider. At the most recent GE he faced some unpleasant antisemitism which he addressed with good grace. Of all those likely to be standing this time he would make the best leader, but if he does get the spot it will scupper his chances of leading a successful GE campaign in 2034, which I think is the soonest the CP can realistically expect to mount a serious challenge to Labour.
The Tory Faithful will divide themselves between Priti and Suella, and since they can out-vote the MPs the party will be left with a leader despised by at least half of sitting members. My prediction, for what it's worth, is that it if Priti and/or Suella get onto a ballot paper for party members then it will be them leading the party into the wilderness.
I looked in vain for this more nuanced take in:
"“We know that if institutions do not serve the British people and make it harder to control our own borders, then we will have to exempt ourselves from them, or leave their jurisdiction.”"
As I say, never mind nuance - think of all the wonderful things Starmer promised Labour members in his campaign to be leader.
A candidate (particularly at this point in the opposition cycle) can say pretty much whatever they think they need to to get the party membership onside and have no intention of actually following through - that's demonstrably worked for Labour after all.
I was narrowly dealing with TheOrganist's point there - but you remind me of the story of the Tory Member who voted for Liz Truss - he thought both Sunak and Truss were barmy, but as Truss had voted Remain he figured there was an outside chance that she was lying.