When chair of the Conservative 1922 committee Bob Blackman fired the starting gun on the most prolonged leadership contest, he introduced a “yellow card” system designed to prevent any more Tory infighting. Safe to say that hasn’t worked…

Leadership candidates’ campaign teams haven’t been able to help themselves from blatantly attacking their rivals. Though still no yellow cards have been issued, despite Blackman’s gallant promise to give candidates a “public dressing down” if they did. Guido thought he’d draw up a list of some of the attacks he’s seen:

• On Kemi taking holiday: a rival camp told Guido “It’s nice to have Kemi back in the country,” while Jenrick’s team told a briefing “As you can see, this campaign doesn’t take holidays.”
• On Jenrick calling for a liberal immigration policy in 2017: A rival camp source told Guido: “nothing like a leadership vacancy to turn someone from liberal centrist to an immigration hawk. But why is anyone buying it?”
• Campaign Cleverly seemingly attacking Kemi: “It’s really easy to use the most aggressive language when we’re in politics. If you’re chasing clicks and likes on social media, that’s the way forward.”
• Team Patel appeared to swipe at Jenrick: Why would candidates take Ozempic when it “affect(s) your functionality?”
• On Kemi’s previous remarks urging to scrap winter fuel allowance: A rival camp said: “This is terrible. Labour’s decision to cut the winter fuel payment was our one effective attack on them. They’ll seize on these comments.”
• At Jenrick winning the first round of votes yesterday: A source in a rival camp suggested the result would mean careerists in the party who want to row in behind the winning team will now be having second thoughts, adding “‘the result is so anaemic a doctor would bring it in as an in-patient”. 

Meanwhile, “uniting” the party is the current theme amongst most candidates’ campaigns. Though the Tories can’t quite kick the habit of battling it out with each other…