Hacks and MPs were refusing to call whether Kemi or Jenrick would be the next to drop out of the leadership race today. Most punted that it’d be Cleverly squaring off against one of them. What they didn’t see coming was Cleverly—yesterday’s frontrunner—getting booted out instead. If co-conspirators were watching, they could hear gasps from the Committee room and from presenters on Sky News…
Tongues are wagging over how this shock result came about. Yesterday Team Cleverly were more than confident he would enter the final two. One senior Tory MP claims that Cleverly ‘lent’ too many votes to Jenrick in a spectacular own goal, fearing Badenoch more. Though James supporters insist he wasn’t trying to be Clever(ly) about fixing the vote…
Westminster insiders suggest both Jenrick and Badenoch lent their votes yesterday to inflate the popularity of Cleverly. Tory wets say that Jenrick supporters lent somewhere around 6 votes to Cleverly yesterday – rebuffed by claims that Cleverly’s lead was just too soft. Were too many MPs playing 4D chess?
A Kemi campaign spokesman said:
“We’re delighted that Kemi has topped the vote. As the members’ choice throughout, she is the best placed to unite the parliamentary party and the Conservative Party membership. Kemi is now looking forward to taking her campaign for renewal around the country and making the case for politics with principles.”
Jenrick now pitches himself to media as the potential leader “changed” and “serious party”. He pushed the fact that he differs with Kemi on immigration, wanting a cap on migration and to leave the ECHR.
It’ll be a feisty battle between the two right-wingers largely focused on immigration, culture and ideology rather than public services like the NHS and schools. Campaigns won’t hold back targeting each others’ character and personality. Most of the blue-on-blue attacks so far have come from them…
Cleverly has been voted out of the Tory leadership race, having been well in the lead yesterday. The party membership ballot will close at 5 p.m. on the 31st October. It’s head to head now between the two right-wingers…
Votes:
Badenoch – 42
Cleverly – 37
Jenrick – 41
A shock result…
Kemi is the final of the four. The fever dream beauty parade ends after this…
Keynote Speech at Conservative Party Conference 2024 https://t.co/KTpdywXDeI
— Kemi Badenoch (@KemiBadenoch) October 2, 2024
A rabble-rousing speech. In summary:
The members liked that one…
The Tory conference this year has a distinctly upbeat vibe. The blue-on-blue scraps are serving up plenty of entertainment as the leadership hopefuls vie for the affections of the Tory grassroots. Wherever a candidate appears, there’s a flock of flustered aides, a swarm of cameras, and some strategically-placed super-fans ready to cheer them on through the conference maze. Cue lots of earnest faces and practiced nodding as members buttonhole them to give their views—or shower a bit of love. One would think they were Hollywood A-listers…
Like in Hollywood, Birmingham hasn’t been without its fair share of drama. First, the leadership contenders found themselves in neighbouring hotel rooms, which predictably wreaked havoc. Then there was the kerfuffle when Jenrick was handed the Leader’s suite after Sunak bolted from the conference on Sunday, sparking fury from Kemi. The latest Guido hears is that Richard Fuller has now been booted from his room, and Kemi’s been upgraded to the Chairman’s suite. Proper playground politics…
Kemi Badenoch used her Conservative Home drinks reception to launch her latest self-published venture. After a quick “welcome to my party!” speech to the grassroots, she whipped out a newly launched book titled “Conservatism in Crisis: Rise of the Bureaucratic Class”. It covers fixing bureaucratic bloat, missed Brexit chances, and tackling the left-wing stranglehold on Britain. Reminiscent of Truss…
She assured Guido that plenty of effort had gone into it—this was no mere collection of “soundbites.“- all 32 pages of it. The book/pamphlet champions overhauling the “bureaucratic class assault on capitalism”, “democracy“, and “growth“. It also ventures into less-trodden territory for the current crop of Tory hopefuls, questioning the “socialisation of mental health” arguing that mental health has shifted from being an individual responsibility to something society, schools, and employers must accommodate. She also took a swing at the “university explosion” and the perpetual left-wing answer of “more government” for everything. Her manifesto to the party members. To be fair, it’s the first of the four leadership hopefuls…
Tory leadership candidates are sending in their responses to Starmer’s speech. Suffice to say, they aren’t exactly complimentary…
Robert Jenrick didn’t mince his words:
“This was the speech of a Prime Minister at the end of his five-year term, not three months in. Sir Keir is already a busted flush – a Mr Grey, with a dour plan for the UK. Behind all the rhetoric there was no substance. How can Starmer have no plan to grow the economy, reform the NHS or control and reduce immigration after 14 years? It appears he is too distracted with sleaze, infighting and chaos in Downing Street.”
Kemi Badenoch jabbed at donation-gate (and now the new sausage-gate):
“Keir Starmer’s first Labour Party conference speech as Prime Minister will be mostly remembered for him calling for the return of the sausages. But he should be pleased that the commentary will focus on this, because the rest of the speech was a platitudinous word soup read out by an emperor naked without his free clothes.”
James Cleverly said:
“The Labour Party has had years to prepare for government; Keir Starmer’s speech shows those years were wasted. He talked about the mandate he won but he doesn’t have a mandate to strip millions of pensioners of their winter fuel payments, hike up taxes for hard working families, and introduce nanny-state policies that will destroy local communities and businesses. Keir Starmer won’t match our commitment to defence spending; he doesn’t have a plan to safeguard our borders; and his latest sleaze row has exposed him as a hypocrite. The only thing that hard working people can be sure of is that this Labour government will take their money so they can give it to their Union paymasters.”
Tom Tugendhat said:
“Instead of apologising for plunging millions of pensioners into poverty this winter and releasing dangerous criminals back onto our streets, all we saw today was arrogance and gloating. Keir Starmer continues to be dishonest about the choice he has made: to put his union paymasters before the service of the British people.
This isn’t the leadership we need, this is a Labour government that only serves the unions and is taking the public for fools. It’s time to start acting like a Party in government. Not opposition.”
Gearing up for the leadership showdown at Tory conference next week…
