The Tories are battling over how easy it should be for former MPs to be reselected for the next election. Got to get there first…
Guido hears reports of a fight on the Conservative Party Board between senior MPs and the voluntary party about how to treat them. 1922 Committee chairman Bob Blackman and his allies are fighting for a lighter process while the chairman of candidates is pushing for full reassessment. No special treatment…
It has now been broadly agreed that it will be slightly different, but former MPs will still have to go through a pretty full process. That means no special deals for back door readoption. Good luck…
When the India-Pakistan conflict broke out, the assumption was Labour’s internal factional tension over Kashmir would bubble over into problems for Starmer. Not so much, it’s actually senior Tories who are weighing in and making waves…
Former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak took to X to declare that India’s latest military actions were “justified”, saying:
“No nation should have to accept terrorist attacks being launched against it from land controlled by another country. India is justified in striking terrorist infrastructure. There can be no impunity for terrorists.”
Meanwhile, Chairman of the 1922 Committee Bob Blackman told Indian news channel Firstpost that countries should support India’s military action:
“We should encourage Pakistan to do the right thing and that is to stop promoting terrorism from the illegally occupied part of Kashmir that Pakistan currently occupies and encourage countries from around the world to give support to what India has done. I think Pakistan needs to come clean.”
Such statements are rather at odds with the official UK government position – and certainly wouldn’t be made by the Foreign Office. Starmer has said both sides must show “restraint”, calling for “calm” and “direct dialogue” between the two, No10 has said it is “not for the UK to provide a solution” to the long-standing dispute over Kashmir. Meanwhile Labour MP Tahir Ali used his time in the Commons on Wednesday to lay into Indian PM Modi’s record, declaring: “Kashmir has never been part of India and never will be, so that can remain a distant dream.” This one will keep running as the conflict continues..
In the first important development for the Tory parliamentary party since the election, yesterday evening saw the election of the 1922 Committee chairman. That descended into bedlam too…
Senior Tories including Mark Francois, Edward Leigh, and Julian Smith found themselves blocked from voting as they were apparently too late at 5:45 p.m. The whips were blamed first for the communication discrepancy, until Tories pulled out an email from committee member Bob Blackman himself specifying that voting would continue until 6 p.m. An email Francois was seen waving angrily at Blackman’s face in Strangers bar…
Francois was raging all of last evening. He said “a lot of Tory MPS were uncomfortable that it was being done in such a mad rush” after getting pummeled at the election and attacked the botched process:
“It’s a really serious matter but you’ve got a bunch (23) of senior Tory MPs who can’t run an election well. We cannot have the man that presides over the rules for electing a new Tory leader elected in a in an election which had a major irregularity.”
Bob Blackman beat the other surviving committee member Geoffrey Clifton-Brown 61 votes to 37. Start as you mean to go on…
UPDATE: Guido hears the Tory WhatsApp groups are popping off over the drama. Simon Hoare, Danny Kruger and Wendy Morton are some of the MPs furious over the mad rush, backing Francois’ points. They’re not happy…
Speaking to Sky News off the back of Rachel Reeves’ Air Passenger Duty hike, Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary said:
“Labour is dependent on those Red Wall seats, and yet every move she makes poisons economic growth and damages the UK’s recovery… it’s the Chancellor who stumbles from policy misstep to policy misstep… I think her policy decisions are incredibly stupid.”