With Sir Graham Brady facing an unexpected challenge for the leadership of the 1922 Committee in the form of ex-minister Robert Goodwill, Guido has put together a tale of the tape to give co-conspirators a full measure of the two contenders. The contest is set for late June…

Brady will be a familiar figure to co-conspirators. A notorious lockdown hawk and party rebel, he’s been the committee chairman for nearly 11 years (apart from a brief spell in 2019 when he resigned to mount a Tory leadership bid, only to change his mind and run back to his old job). A headache for the government over Covid, though still the odds-on favourite in this fight…

Goodwill is the MP for Scarborough, and served as a Minister at both the Home Office and Education under Theresa May. He played a part in implementing Britain’s new blue passports, and has been sacked from government twice. Not a huge personal fan of Boris’s, though it’s claimed he plans to show more public loyalty than Brady if he’s elected…

Guido takes the view that the Chairman of the ’22 should not be overly loyal to the party leadership; he needs some of the characteristics of a trade union baron, and should give the Whips headaches when needed and make the Tory leader nervous when he’s unhappy. The attempt in the Cameron era to pack the ’22 with the government payroll vote was rightly resisted. If, as briefed, Goodwill really intends to be more agreeable to the government then Brady is to be preferred. Guido says that because this is the trickiest electorate on the planet, Goodwill might just be looking to sweep up votes from MPs who are government loyalists. Brady has charted a genuinely independent path, and arguably the Tories have been better off for it…