Yesterday little new light was shed on the leadership battles by the hustings and other events. It was good that the last tv debate was cancelled. All candidates realised that the format of the C4 and ITV debates were designed to encourage blue on blue rows of a kind which the Opposition will savour and requote and there was no need to help them some more . It is best if the tough debates for the MP part of the contest take place behind closed doors where MPs can ask difficult questions and make unhelpful observations without broadcasting to the Opposition. When it comes to two candidates before the membership there is more of a role for broadcast media, though it would be sensible to favour GB News, Talk tv, LBC and other channels that allow Conservatives to put our case rather than feeding the ratings of channels that try to keep decent Conservative views off their airwaves by exaggeration, twisting, character misrepresentation and interruptions.
As expected Tom Tugendhat dropped out. Today we will go down to three and tomorrow complete the task of choosing the final two. It seems likely the issue to settle is which candidate will take on Rishi in the country?  This is a battle over future economic policy, and over whether it is possible to live the Conservative brand of lower taxes, faster growth, more private sector led jobs and investment. Only Rishi is defending an unchanged economic policy based on adding large tax rises to the monetary and cost of living squeezes we already face.
July 19, 2022
Good morning.
As stated yesterday I am glad that this unnecessary charade is over. I questioned the wisdom of doing this as I believe the selecting of a political leader is a matter between its members and no one else. I only hope that the Conservative Party has learned a lesson from what has happened and never does this again. Your party, Sir John has diminished the roll of PM to that of a game show contestant and that is a very serious black mark against you ALL !
Just go quickly and ‘quietly’ on choosing the next leader / PM and get that damned abomination out of Number 10.
July 19, 2022
For the majority of the parliamentary party the issue was never in doubt. I’d be astonished if it gets to a members’ vote. Whoever is left in the contest against Sunak will ‘make a personal decision’ (i.e be brutally forced) to withdraw before any members’ vote can take place.
July 20, 2022
Yup, that’s what I expect to happen. The Globalists and British Establishment want Sunak. They won’t let an annoying bunch of uncooperative Party Members stop them.
July 20, 2022
Or the fact that he seems economics illiterate.
JF
July 19, 2022
Ah for a return of the “due process of consultation” that selected leaders before Edward Heath.
That method was felt to afford party managers too much sway, specially enabling them to keep out candidates of whom they disapproved, and disguised from everyone the true appeal of various contenders.
July 19, 2022
Agree….and all the stages of voting could have been completed in a single day behind closed doors
July 20, 2022
…but some would miss the publicity.
July 19, 2022
I wonder who Scholar, Blair, Heseltine and Major are ‘backing’? If it’s Sunak then the UK will be back in the EU or deeply aligned with it before the day is out.
Starmer’s a devout EU lackey. The next election should be fought on the issue of the EU which still remains the most important issue lurking in the background
Like all politics in the UK today most of the real politik is conducted under the radar out of sight of prying eyes for the plebs who are it seems are despised with a visceral loathing. This is what happens when when voters vote for parties and politicians they do not understand
I have become convinced that since the Socialist-technocratic establishment brought down Thatcher the UK’s fundamental reality has been slowly taken apart to prevent it ever becoming a fully functioning democracy in the way it once was
July 20, 2022
The EU is on life support. There is nothing to âgo back toâ. That debate is over. Thanks to the politician, pro-European scholar and brave man from St Petersburg.
July 19, 2022
LBC could be a broadcasting disaster if James OâBrien was conducting the debate. He is constantly negative – a whinger who still moans about Brexit.
July 19, 2022
NHL loves him.
July 19, 2022
Anyway the damage is already done. The scheming treachery of May was followed by Johnson ignoring the manifesto he was elected on and seeking personal gain by pandering to globalists.
None of the remaining candidates have the drive or character to turn things around now. It is more a question who will do the least damage before a general election.
July 19, 2022
Rishi is not remotely popular with party members or the electorate he is rightly seen as the cause of the economic problems. Like most PPE Oxon graduates he does not understand real economics, the causes of inflation, the need for far less government, far less tax, far less regulation and sound money.
Kemi is perhaps the best choice but unlikely to get through and is supported by VAT on private school fees, landlord attacker and Boris knifer (fist time) one Michael Gove. Truss is wooden, was a remainer and once a dire Libdim also a PPE grad but is now supported by the sound Braverman/Frost etc. Penny is left wing, wrong and woke but presents well to the electorate.
Non seem to want to scrap net zero or the ECHR, non has sensible economic policies or wants to address illegal immigration seriously.
Can we have Boris back please, but the old pre-Carrie, climate realist, small government, libertarian version.
July 19, 2022
Just heard a supporter of Sunak on Talk Radio going on about the serious problem of inflation that Sunak would deal with. Does the foolish man not realise who devalued the currently and caused this inflation and how his sales taxes on things like fuel duty increase inflation hugely. Also his huge NI rises and allowance freezes forces higher wages and thus higher prices from the companies employing people.
Does he also not realise what a disaster Sunak would be at an election after his green card, his police fine, his wife’s tax ÂŁ million tax avoidance by claiming not to want to remain in the UK but retaining her Indian domicile status. Also people mainly know that Sunak largely caused the current economic problems with his idiotic extended lockdowns and furlough. He was even considering further green taxes on energy and energy windfall taxes! He also want to retain the green crap 25% levy and the net zero lunacy. No thanks Sunak.
July 19, 2022
Lifelogic,
Not seen your PPE hobby horse featuring much in recent posts.
It seems to have lost top spot to the one about â….. down drainsâ.
July 19, 2022
Alas, this is true:
https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/politics/ian-paisley-most-tory-contenders-care-little-about-northern-ireland-protocol-bill-3772997
“Ian Paisley: Most Tory contenders care little about Northern Ireland Protocol Bill”
“Unionists will be dismayed over the majority of Tory leadership candidates and their attitude to the Northern Ireland Protocol, a DUP MP warned last night.”
“Ian Paisley said it was telling that only Foreign Secretary Liz Truss referenced the Protocol Bill, which is passing through Parliament, and will enable the UK government to override those elements of the post-Brexit deal that unionists say threaten Northern Irelandâs place in the Union.”
But even her plan, as stated so far, centres upon continued controls on imports into Northern Ireland, including those from the rest of the UK, rather than controls on exports from Northern Ireland to the Irish Republic.
This is where Theresa May got us, when it was repeatedly pointed out to her that the protection of the EU Single Market would be better achieved by export controls, starting in February 2018:
https://www.maidenhead-advertiser.co.uk/news/letters-to-the-editor/128146/easy-solution-to-eu-border-conundrum.html
“Easy solution to EU border conundrum”
To those who say that this is the EU’s problem and the EU is our enemy and we should do nothing to help them, I say that they are right to say that it was the EU’s problem but Theresa May agreed to make it our problem:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2021/01/21/my-question-during-business-questions/#comment-1205431
And I also say that after years in UKIP, not GBIP, I want this problem to be solved, with Northern Ireland fully restored to its previous position as an integral part of the UK and not hived off as a kind of condominium or protectorate, and that means getting legislation through a House of Lords packed with friends of that enemy, and preferably with that enemy being given the least possible excuse for economic or other reprisals.
JR, during today’s debate please could you ask where Liz Truss intends to check the half of the goods sent across the border into the Irish Republic which have been produced in the province rather than imported and which have therefore not been subject to any checks at the Irish sea border.
July 19, 2022
Yes.
It was a set up.
And they were so right to put a stop to the public flogging.
Tories are so trustingâŠexcept of their actual, true conservative supporters.
They never have known who their friends are
July 20, 2022
They have spent so long believing the Left’s mantra that they are hated that they have developed a bunker mentality and want desperately to be liked. The Left have finally got control of them and set the agenda.
July 19, 2022
I am a conservative. I have not voted conservative for the last 20 years. Boris performed a miracle in going for Brexit which I support.Since then nothing.Replacing Boris with Rishi will not get my vote.I need a game changer as PM.There is so much needs doing.
July 19, 2022
”Boris performed a miracle in going for Brexit”
Shame on all theTory MPs for NOT completing Brexit from day one
July 19, 2022
Just another example of how money talks.. .alas not for the public !
July 19, 2022
John thinks that policy alone should be the reason for selection . We now have a very cosmopolitan population . Apart from those who cannot read at all and are persuaded by their families to vote a certain way, we have many different languages which to be translated into a native language would take an enormous effort with the aid of modern technology ( which costs money) All these people vote and will parrot heresay !
July 19, 2022
The Globalists and left-wing British Establishment, along with 115 CON MPs, want Sunak. He’s already proved that he is the no change, steady as we go candidate and will do what the Globalists/Mandarins tell him to do.
The only interesting thing now is how the Establishment is going to prevent the Party Membership from voting for the female who reaches the final two, because polls have shown that he is the least popular candidate with the membership and any of the women will beat him.
Will they try to make it another coronation (like May) or aim to badly discredit the other candidate so the membership will do as required?
July 19, 2022
Fingers crossed ! Rishi goes out, he has far too shallow roots to become PM of Great Britain. We need a person dedicated to our country , not a person who hedges his bets and has an alternative country already set up to scramble to if his plans go wrong!
July 20, 2022
We don’t need someone who only believes in themselves. We need someone who believes in Britain.
July 19, 2022
Who have you voted for in the rounds up till now? Who will you vote for on Tuesday 19th.
July 19, 2022
Good Morning,
Sir J., I disagree. First, it is good for us voters to see there is fierce debate among your colleagues for the top job and to diplay their knowlwdge, or otherwise, of the issues, and plans for our Nation. I think we learnt a great deal.
Second. We see something of the character of the individuals; this was the most illuminating, and frankly the most disturbing. I suspect this is why you don’t want any more of it. It is clear the your party selection procedure is not up to the job, that is where the clearout needs to start.
OFF topic, who’d have thought is would be Germany to bring about the end of the Euro and EU…. thay can no longer fund the excesses of the clowns in the Commission.
July 20, 2022
The German’s were happy to fund the EU when they were doing well out of it much like the French. Now that the UK has left and we now no longer fund its largess the tab has to be made up from elsewhere. The other problem is the growing influence of the ‘takers’ in the EU. For the EU to stay together it must constantly fill those begging bowls. And guess who has to pay.
July 20, 2022
Cheap Russian energy/resources has effectively been funding the EU.Those days are over.Watch the whole rotten edifice collapse.
July 19, 2022
It is interesting just how many Tory MPs support a massive increase in taxes. Simply copying Labour policies like that wonât induce many Labour voters to switch and on the other hand it will result in Conservative voters switching to another party or not voting at all.
Conservative MPs are clearly not much good at choosing a leader, the membership are better almost by definition because they are closer to what voters in general are thinking but they are simply presented with a choice of two.
July 20, 2022
It becomes like that when they select prospective MP’s who are either former, or closet Liberals.
July 19, 2022
Kemi was at one time my least favourite but after reading what her competitors believe and have in store for us, she is now my first choice. Yes, she’s inexperienced but if she surrounds herself with the right team she could be a good PM. Her approach to all things woke is healthy. The only concern I have is over her stance on Brexit. Brexit needs to be completed and quickly. NI needs to be sorted and all the benefits of Brexit realised. Perhaps because of her opinions on this she won’t make it and in that case it should be Truss. Whether she will appeal to red wall voters will remain to be seen. Alot will depend on what and how much she achieves before the next election so she had better get on with the job in hand.
July 19, 2022
Candidates interrogating each otherâs policy stance works.
It reveals clear distinction of the best.
Voters need to know whoâs best to choose RIGHT FIRST TIME.
Concealing differences solely to prevent Labour using true disagreement as a lever later risks delaying the appointment of the best until after.
The best person will deal with an attack with their highest quality response, as Thatcher would, even if that is ignoring it.
A lesser candidate discredits themselves.
We need to choose between the BEST two: Not a bad wolf in sheepâs clothing with someone worse.
SJRâs comments to Iain Dale on LBC last night added further valuable clarification with aplomb. We need more with qualities like his.
July 19, 2022
Rishi is the Establishment candidate backed by the WEF and other large establishments.
Mordount is coming across as a fantasist and could we say liar.
Truss may be wooden but out of the bunch seeing as Kemi doesn’t stand a chance, I think she could restore some trust in the country.
Whoever gets the job will be blamed for the forthcoming power cuts, mega fuel bills and roaring inflation and rightly so.
Your government demolished coal fired power stations, ramped green taxes on energy and printed ÂŁ450 billion of funny money.
Nowhere to hide.
July 20, 2022
+1
I think in retrospect, Johnson is getting out at the right time.
July 19, 2022
Like I said in yesterdayâs post. These public debates only served the media frenzy and the Labour Party. SJR, I would love to see you as the new chancellor however the dirty deals for votes I expect have already been done. You need to ask for the job, step up to the mark. We need a leader somewhere in the cabinet
July 19, 2022
It seems that some MPs are suggesting candidates should step down to make way for a âfavouriteâ candidate.
Apart from it seeming unfair isnât that the mistake made when Cameronâs majority was chucked away on May?
The Party needs to make the most of what Boris achieved (votes = seats) not squander it on a May look/sound alike!
A Starmer government looms if the tories choose an unelectable.
July 19, 2022
Your colleagues are daft not to support Badenoch, the obvious and only candidate to have half a chance of beating Labour.
Truss is as wooden as a pole, trying to channel an imaginary inner Thatcher. It looks false and it is false.
Mordaunt trying to channel an imaginary inner knowledge of economics and numeracy.
July 19, 2022
Fake battle, fake choice, fake candidates.
The stage show continues and gets more unbelievable and destructive in every cycle.
Westminster looks more like a rerun of Hunger Games every day and it probably won’t be long before it starts treating it’s victims in the same way.
July 19, 2022
Fake Party. Face Promises. Fake Change.
Real disaster.
July 20, 2022
You forgot to add – Fake Tories
July 19, 2022
I see Rishi has been endorsed by William Hague another arrogant ex politician who thinks we are interested in his views.
We know why. An apologist for the EU and everything about Rushiâs behaviour to date confirms he is the same.
The âtoughâ question behind closed doors. âYou have done nothing to date about taking advantage of Brexit indeed you have actively pushed back. Why the sudden promise of a bonfire of regulations in the first 100 days of your administration and why should anyone believe you?â The general public donât.
Any in other news I see it is suggested that Ministers will push for below level of inflation rises in the public sector.
Any chance of efficiency gains/performance improvements in return? I thought not.
July 19, 2022
I see Ministers are going to charge us more for electricity if we use it when the wind is not blowing. So apart from the fact, how will we know, what will happen if somehow we are told, everyone hits the appliances switches at the same time, not enough capacity, network crashes?
I see National Grid is saying not enough money being put into heat pumps so low take up.
Apart from the fact that the costs quoted bear little relation to the actualitee maybe they should be honest and say they just donât do what is claimed. Do I want a slow build up of warmth, not needed and potentially uncomfortable.
Nature often doesnât take hours to get cold, it suddenly gets to a temperature where I need to switch the heating in. And another bit of bolleaux, I am double/triple glazed cavity filled etc so stop keep telling me insulation is the answer.
July 19, 2022
We’re considering an air source heat pump in a factory expansion. I looked for incentives from the government for such a scheme and found none. The government espouses green energy, but it’s just warm words.
July 19, 2022
Good morning,
The Conservative party is in much deeper trouble than it’s MPs realise, on course for electoral defeat by unremitting attacks on its own supporters, so brazenly articulated by it’s former leader, Mr Cameron.
The Red Wall is crumbling and the grass roots are disgusted at the manoeuvres of the Parliamentary Party to continue their left wing hegemony and deny real choice to the electorate.
Now is the time for MPs to publicly stand up for the only candidate offering the real choice so clearly needed, Kemi Badenoch.
July 20, 2022
Your first sentence in the elephant in the room that, thus far, only our kind host has alluded to.
July 19, 2022
You say itâs a battle over future economic policy when it should be a battle about the entire future direction of the country, with the victorious candidate setting out how he/she intends to restore individual freedoms and rational, evidence based policy. Unfortunately only more of the same beckons.
July 19, 2022
Whist economics are important, so too are social issues for us conservatives, and individual liberty. No workery or globalism. So Mordaunt is out as well as Sunak. Then it’s a choice of who may appeal to the wider electorate: the very wooden Truss or the rather alive Badenoch: the latter should be Leader if the Party wants a chance at the next GE.
Truss has all the appeal of Michael Foot.
July 19, 2022
At least Michael Foot was true Labour and you know his policies….I don’t know what the Tories stand for anymore
July 20, 2022
Whatever the WEF tells them they stand for.
July 19, 2022
I agree about GB News or Talk Tv doing any future interviews. Might get some sensible questionsâŠ. Plus they talk to the viewers, do polls etc and have a better idea of what viewers think.
Which takes me on to why MPs are voting in their numbers for the socialist and globalist Rishi Sunak, who is partly to blame for why weâre in this mess. Iâm hoping thereâs a cunning plan afoot to vote him out at the last hurdle. But seeing how this lot behave⊠Iâm not holding my breath!
July 19, 2022
It’s all to play for and I guess the result will partly depend on the promises the three candidates have made to influential MPs for ministerial jobs. I suspect that some clever MPs will have secured job offers from all three candidates !
It would be very interesting to hear at some point whether our host has had any approaches offering an economic role ? Chancellor would probably be too much to hope for, but Chief Secretary to the Treasury, maybe ?
July 19, 2022
Those of us here who are party members are therefore being encouraged, with good reason, to vote for the “not Sunak” candidate in the final ballot. It is a distant echo of the “no change, no chance” slogan that accurately summarised the 1995 challenge to John Major’s leadership.
One issue that we may then have to face, if an unsatisfactory “not Sunak” leader is elected, is whether to let our membership lapse, on the grounds that the party had effectively ceased to stand for anything other than managed decline. In that scenario, we would of course have been spared the need to contemplate immediate resignation.
July 19, 2022
I can not fathom Mr Sunak’s supporters. These are professional politicians voting for the person who is most likely to keep them in a job.
Mr Sunak’s standing with the electorate is poor. He was fined for Covid parties, his wife took advantage of tax avoiding mechanisms which also made the statement that she does not see her long term future in this country and he is the architect of our current high tax, high borrowing, high inflation economy. He may not have his fingerprints on the net-zero fiscal disaster but he did not stop it either and subscribed to the unachievable targets.
Your party, Sir John, should be looking to make a clean break not for a continuity candidate.
July 19, 2022
Those professional politicians supporting Mx Mordaunt are also pandering to a section of the electorate who will never vote for them. Stonewall is never going to come out in support of the Conservative Party so don’t bother trying. Acceptance and tolerance, not appeasement of a misguided, academic doctrine.
July 19, 2022
The best part of a ÂŁbn goes a lot further outside UK.
July 20, 2022
The trouble is, the MP’s, especially the Red Wall ones, have their eye on the next election and who would be most likely to keep them in their job. Currently, there is not much of a choice.
July 19, 2022
Sir JR
Favour GB news with less than 1 million viewers to me that seems like a waste of time
July 19, 2022
Call it old fashioned, but the process in place now has an end result of best of the rest.
The country has over a few decades have gone for younger “with it” types for candidates and that of course drip feeds into the selection of cabinet members.
The problem is that the vast majority of the problems facing the country and parliament are just a variation of things that have gone before. Contrary to the cry of breaking away from the old ideas and ways I canot believe that people similar to our host and others with like minded ideas, experience and governmen knowledge are not considered for these higher positions in government. Then the young wannabe type can sit back watch and learn that there is more to becoming a real statesman with just a PPE and time spent as a Spad, researcher or local authority member.
July 19, 2022
Looking for something else I came across this comment made at the time of the last leadership election:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2019/06/10/nomination-day/#comment-1028091
“Irish politicians have not been making an unnecessary fuss about the border because they fear the cost of adapting their systems.
Nor indeed are they genuinely concerned about a threat to peace on the island of Ireland, nor about contraband goods such as US-style âchlorinated chickenâ finding their way across the border and contaminating the EU Single Market.
What really worries them is the potential eight per cent loss of GDP if the UK leaves the EU on WTO terms, which with a GDP of around ÂŁ296 billion would come to about ÂŁ24 billion a year …”
That potential GDP loss came from the German Ifo institute, in the âS1 Hard Brexitâ column in Table 1 here:
https://www.ifo.de/DocDL/sd-2019-04-felbermayr-hard-but-smart-brexit-2019-02-21.pdf
And while that projected an 8.16% GDP loss for Ireland if the UK left on WTO terms it was only 2.76% for the UK, which may be worth remembering if EU supporters start threatening us with a trade war.
July 19, 2022
[…] Why not let GB News host a leadership debate? â John Redwood […]
July 19, 2022
Kemi B for leader and PM please John.
July 19, 2022
While I agree the bits of the TV debates that I saw were pretty fatuous, they did have the positive benefit of exposing to the world the view is held, in at least part of the Conservative Parliamentary party, that there is a valid alternative to ever rising taxes, so not all bad. If the debate so far had been confined to Westminster we would have had reports giving hints and innuendo of Tory disagreements on Tax, but not the actual words, however inarticulately expressed.
The contest is now becoming interesting and I just hope the Conservative membership has the sense to vote for someone other than Sunak, who is bound to make a huge virtue of Parliamentary support, assuming he maintains his leading slot. Of the other candidates, my big question is, do any of them have the mental capacity to command the House of Commons? Mordaunt is no doubt the most personable and articulate, but it is quite hard to know what she is articulating. Truss has wide experience and however questionable her past views, now seems to be a Conservative, and certainly ignited the Tax debate. Mrs Badenoch clearly hates what she saw of the practical effects of Socialism in action in Nigeria and has no wish to see it repeated here. I am warming to her but, back to my first question: could she do the business in the House of Commons?
July 19, 2022
Anyone but Rishi. The question I would like to ask Rishi – As a Father/Husband, what has been the lowest bank balance you’ve ever had? Yes we are a wealthy country, and everyone has a right to live comfortably, but the people of our country still appreciate others who can truly and honestly empathise. If Rishi was to tell us all he was opening a public swimming pool, a food bank, a drop-in cafe for the homeless, all with his own money, then he might get further. People voted Boris for something different, not the same dire conservative tenure.
July 19, 2022
MP George Freeman is currently on TV castigating the Daily Mail for rubbishing some Penny Mordaunt comments and this is the reason she is going backwards. Does he seriously suggest Tory MPs can only decide what’s right for the country by reading the Daily Mail?. Probably aggrieved that he can see his chances of being Chancellor going down the plughole.
July 19, 2022
It was clear from the start that we’d end up with just 2 candidates: Mourdant and Sunak.
It could never be any other way
July 19, 2022
My vote would go to Kemi if she makes the last two, hoping she picks a strong cabinet to support her. If it ends up with a choice between PM and RS then I will spoil my ballot paper. I wouldnât want the winner to think he/she had my approval. MPs are so stupid that they have set a course to lose the next GE. It just shows how out of touch they are with the electorate.
July 19, 2022
OT.
I’m sick of hysteria about the sunny weather. It will seem very disappointing when it gets back to normal.
Why do your party people in charge think it is vital to be thought of as ‘doing something’? Why are they not insisting that everything should be kept going normally instead of allowing the country to shut down? Useless gutless bunch.
We need peoole and writers with courage.
July 19, 2022
The temperature of the UK is irrelevantâŠ. Itâs the ocean level rise which is the only important factorâŠ.and it isnât
July 19, 2022
It makes no difference which it ends up being.
They’re all making a pitch towards the ex- Britain First, BNP, UKIP and the rest, cheese-strings-and-scratchcard voters, who won them the last election and who have also entered the party as members.
The trouble is, they don’t seem to understand that the voters of Amersham and Chesham, of North Shropshire, and of Tiverton now realise exactly that and want nothing whatever to do with them.
It’s about identity, you see.
July 19, 2022
NLH,
By election defeats were due to the constant lies and Johnsonâs failure to deliver on the manifesto while courting globalists with Net Zero and showboating in Ukraine instead.
July 19, 2022
Your post is a nonsense NHL
The groups, you yet again refer to, will not win you a general election victory if those are your only voters.
Surely you realise this fact.
Look what happened to Corbyn
July 19, 2022
well you switched from Cardiff to Nottingham – – or vice versa.
Does it identify you?
July 19, 2022
Like Liz Truss, I went to a Grammar School in Leeds. We were taught that if we worked hard and studied, we could become successful at anything we wished to be.
I have worked and also played sport with men who went to Public School. They, like I assume Mr Sunak at Winchester, were taught that they were already the best and were indoctrinated with the attitude that they would ‘lead’ wherever their career took them.
Boris is an example of this – in his mind he can do no wrong. Will Mr Sunak be the same but without the Teflon?
July 19, 2022
Dear Sir John, As you imply, the hustings so far have merely increased the existing likelihood of Conservatives losing the next election. Labour can damn the next government with their own colleagues’ words if any of this morning’s three leading candidates are elected. Mr Sunak has been savaged by Ms Truss and her chief supporters as well as yourself and has replied in kind. Could either properly serve in the other’s Cabinet? Surely not in any economic role.
Ms Mordaunt’s character seemed the most voter-friendly. But it has been so thoroughly trashed by all the other three (as well as Mrs Braverman and team Tugendhat), that unless she wins it would be hard for any of them to offer her a job in government for the foreseeable future.
In public, at least, Mrs Badenoch has escaped relatively unscathed and has not damned either Mr Sunak or Ms Truss. She has good credentials, personal appeal and a clear philosophy to offer Conservative-weary voters. But scant experience. Only you insiders will know if she has the humility and self-knowledge to rely largely on others to deliver competent government over the next two years. But without a significant transfer of votes from other candidates she will be eliminated by teatime.
Not a pretty sight.
July 19, 2022
I watched about 1/2 of the C4 ‘debate’. It was all about who trusts Boris Johnson – an irrelevant question presumably cooked up by this left-wing outlet to promote Labour’s one ‘policy’: “Boris is a liar”. Nothing in the part I saw about how to get inflation down, how to make the UK competitive, the global situation, the cost of energy with net zero etc.
I do hope the privatisation of C4 proceeds whoever wins.
July 19, 2022
The more I see of the candidates, the more Suella Braverman’s absence is felt.
Kemi Badenoch seems the best of the bunch as she’s the only one willing to state the need to tell the public some home truths on affordability and to be able to carry them with her. Polls of the party membership and the country favour her.
One wonders how many Tory MPs vote purely on who they think will give them the best job for the rest of this parliament rather than on the state of the country by 2030.
July 19, 2022
Agree completely with the point about the broadcast debates, not least because the ‘umpire’ seemed to do more of the talking than the candidates. GB news would be much better, I suspect.
July 20, 2022
One would hope so but GB News needs to ‘sort out’ a number of its presenters. Farage, Steyn and Wooton seem to think that their views are more important than those of their invited guests. How very BBC of them.
July 19, 2022
Rejoice! In reading Kemi Badenoch’s maiden speech I find âSound money is not just a catchy phrase. The lesson of Zimbabwe is salient for us today. Money cannot be printed and redistribution cannot be successful without first creating wealth.â https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2017-07-19/debates/5294A807-C27B-4426-87D4-13606D4A93BE/ExitingTheEuropeanUnionSanctions#contribution-BBFBEA85-27E5-4895-9A47-23FF655CA77A
With Suella Braverman earlier calling for âa return to sound moneyâ, that makes two.
July 19, 2022
I wondered why any Tory MP thinks Sunak can win an election. Then I realised that so many of them tehse days are careerists, plotting a path to some other role via the HoC so perhaps they don’t care as much they did in the days when service in the HoC was seen as the pinnacle of a successful career.
Mordaunt will also fail miserably. The documentation shows that she’s being economical with the truth re her role in trans legislation and if she’s doing that at this stage, she’ll be political toast when the rabid media get their teeth into her – and her past and associations – as they do with all Tory leaders.
NB They will no doubt make a lot of her tattooed gay twin brother pushing his LGBT views.
One has to wonder how a total of circa 200 of 350 MPs are behind these two electoral liabilities.
The question in my mind is whether Truss can win. She seems too wooden and too determined to look like Maggie.
What of Badenoch? Her appearance needs work. For example her hairstyle – and her dress in the first debate was right to be a formal dress (or business suit) and the conservative style of the dress was fine too, but the material was far too thick and… bright yellow?
She was right that it needed to be neck-high and that it should be brightly-coloured, since the set and her position on the side were in danger of making her disappear, but yellow? A thinner material and choosing white would have been very effective – people associate white with purity and truth, but it also looks more professional than a garish colour of yellow.
But these things can be changed easily – Thatcher herself had a full makeover, even changing her voice. What matters is policy and cut-through and it looks as though (of the current choices) Badenoch is the only one who can get both of those things right. Who else can call out the woke nonsense without being accused of discrimination? Even though there’s not a sinmgle pink male left in the race, Badenoch is the one who has shown the ability to do just that.
July 19, 2022
It looks likely that the Tory’s have foisted Rishi on us. Then so be it. No one will vote for your party at the next election to make us all poorer , our energy prices and fuel bills rising at the God of net zero! Good bye Tory’s, hello Reform.
July 19, 2022
or Hello Stamma.
July 19, 2022
I would like to see the three female candidates fight it out.
Badenoch and Mordaunt are my preferred two for the final.
Liz Truss as many say – has good ideas, however lacks the charisma to be PM and take on Labour.
However, the losing female candidates should all be in the next cabinet.
I do not want Rishi as PM and would not vote for a Conservative Government led by him.
I also support our very own host – Sir John – being given the role of Chancellor of the Exchequer. John’s very sound and common sense economic policies would get us out of this mess. Plus encourage economic growth in the future.
July 20, 2022
Truss would have the advantage of being up against a charisma-free Starmer and his talentless Shadow Cabinet. But she’ll need some presentation training.
July 19, 2022
You should definitely favour GB News and Talk Radio/TV as they are probably more important with the public now than ânormalâ channels and allow people to have their say.
LBC is mostly very left wing and their listeners have become very vitriolic about the Conservative Party which is why I and my friends/family no longer listen to them. They give the impression that London is the whole of England and quote opinions that are London based as though these are the opinions of the âwhole countryâ.
GB News is very pro Conservative so I listen to it for most of the day and watch it all evening.
July 19, 2022
Doon mongers have come up with 40 °C at Heathrow Airport but I guess that would have nothing to do with a few hundred jet engines at full power.
July 19, 2022
and miles of concrete – absorbing and re-radiating sun heat ! It ain’t going to be cooler and thats a fact.
July 20, 2022
Miami. Exactly what I said. Why not take the temperature somewhere where outside activities don’t interfere with nature? Another example is Kew gardens. All those greenhouses.
July 19, 2022
Charles Moore had an interesting article in the benefits of this seemingly hit and miss process to find out more about the wannabe PM. He notes that Mordant would be like Starmer on woke with little to differentiate between them.
At least we can see something before getting another unelected Brown or May who were poor substitutes.
July 19, 2022
Oh well done tories!
Best candidate gone.
Starmer had better prepare for government after next GE.
July 19, 2022
YES – but MPs aren’t voting for the best PM, they’re voting for the best job they can get ! and who’ll provide that job
July 19, 2022
Really Liz Truss, originally LibDem turned Conservative, then Remainer turned Leaver, a weather vane or what. Now eagerly supported by the ERG and the usual bunch of right-wing Thatcherite crew, she had transformed most of the EU-type trade deals into new UK trade deals without getting any additional âplusesâ for the UK, she got a trade agreement with NZ worse than what the EU27 got, and this âbrilliantâ performance is likely to be repeated when the EU27 sign their TA with Australia, as the current EU FTA with Australia is already as good as the dedicated TA that Truss brought. She talked rubbish when encouraging people to go to fight for Ukraine, got only scorn from the Russians with her âtoughest sanctionsâ plan.
In summary, sheâs a sub-sub-Maggie despite the white blouse with bow tie, the riding in a tank, riding a static motorbike, caressing a calf or wearing a chapka as her âidolâ had done.
And there are people who are voting for her because of all these âachievementsâ? Please donât tell me that Conservative members are that stupid.
July 19, 2022
I really don’t know why you are bothered hef.
I could never see you ever as a Conservative party voter let alone a member.
July 20, 2022
+1
They, the MP’s, are going to get what they deserve.
July 20, 2022
Hef one of the secrets of a successful candidate from my experience:-
Never underestimate someone who has been held back as when they will bolt forward faster than a greyhound out of the trap.
Liz Truss has been dealt difficult cards by all PMs she has worked for. She doesn’t spend time looking in the mirror and gets to work and listens.
Other than Truss and Kemi “We don’t believe you” WDBY applies to the rest.
July 19, 2022
No mention of immigration, compulsory vaccination, the rule of law or freedom of speech in this debate.
The future looks rather ominous to me, summed up by Oriana Fallaci –
The moment you give up your principles, and your values, you are dead, your culture is dead, your civilization is dead. Period.
July 19, 2022
Media are spitting nails that they no longer seem to be in charge of choosing the next PM. Media is attacking Penny M because she seems to be the least media compliant.
I have no idea how the West recovers from Covid without depressing living standards. i hope someone does.
Someone needs to tell the EU to take a hike and no the adjudicator cannot be the EUs political court. It has ever closer union in its founding documents.
I also think the migrants crisis could be stopped tomorrow. Just declare a moratorium from all the conventions for 20 years and then reevaluate. World population is now 7.7 billion. We already have more than twice the population we should have. Natural resources like water are finite. We are running out of water.
July 19, 2022
So who was it who said this?
âbusinesses who export to the EU tell us that it is strongly in their interest to have a single set of regulatory standards that mean they can sell into the UK and EU markets.â
Was that said by:
a. The Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Peter Kyle, this afternoon; or
b. The then Prime Minister Theresa May, in the Mansion House on March 2 2018?
It could have been either, but in fact it was Theresa May.
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-speech-on-our-future-economic-partnership-with-the-european-union
July 19, 2022
So Badenoch’s 59 votes will be spread across the last 3.
As widely predicted Sunak leads, with nothing much between Truss and Mordaunt.
At a guess they won’t add votes to Sunak, but will wrestle over which female to support.
Exciting? No!
July 19, 2022
Johnson shows true personality – stops T. Elwood as Chief Whip and he loses a vote in the PM election.
Spoilt brat!
July 19, 2022
Any comments from this site’s climate change ” denialists” on today’s firestorm events in the UK and Western European countries?
July 19, 2022
Yes 2 days isn’t climate history.
Look at temperatures since records began in 1885 acorn and you see a 1.3 c rise in global average temperatures.
Not exactly a world on fire.
PS
Humans have lived and thrived on this planet in areas with conditions which are near zero and as hot as today.
Yet we humans have survived and gone from just a few to 8 billion.
PPS
Ten times more people die from cold than heat.
July 19, 2022
Spot On
July 20, 2022
And glen, the “firestorm” acorn refers to we now read the Police and Fire Service is investigating if it was created by arsonists rather than mother nature.
July 20, 2022
Three months in the 40s-centigrade is a heat wave â a minute spike on an airport runway isnât a heat wave
July 20, 2022
Peter2 :
Correct.
In fact we have been warmer by up to 3 degrees C the whole time since the last Ice age ended around 10,000 years ago to around 1500 AD. Between 1500 AD and today we have been in a mini ice age which had its lowest temperature at around 1750 AD which coincidentally is the point at which the climate activists take as their desired/ideal temperatureâŠ.
July 20, 2022
+1
And we are not Climate Deniers, just realists who do not support they fact that a gas that makes up 0.03% of the air we breath somehow spells doom if we stop burning fossil fuels whilst China and others continue to do so.
July 20, 2022
Correct – the last time I looked out the window the summer was still hot and no doubt the winter will still be cold
July 20, 2022
Peter 2
This is a typical example on why it doesn’t make any point in having longer conversations with you, because the comprehension and deeper intellectual understanding is missing
July 20, 2022
Strange logic bill
You disagree with my views yet you refuse to counter them.
If you feel you are vastly superior to me in terms of “comprehension and deeper intellectual understanding” then come out from your hiding place and prove you are right.
Otherwise you are just a pathetic EU troll.
July 20, 2022
Despite a couple of very hot days, the average temperature this summer is virtually identical to the average summer temperature for the past 18 years.
Cold kills far more people in the UK than heat. I wonder how many preventable deaths of the cold the Climate Zealots are prepared to accept as collateral damage for their ambition to ban the use of fossil fuels?
July 20, 2022
Being killed by cold is a failure of government not climate.
July 20, 2022
Presumably being killed by heat is not.
Very odd logic acorn.
July 20, 2022
Police now say many of those events were likely to be arson
July 19, 2022
So Kemi is out. For me now it has to be Truss rather than Sunak who I don’t think is a good bet in a general election. God what a dire choice. I hope Kemi gets a place in the cabinet along with Baverman.
July 20, 2022
FUS
It was ever thus and the result for the anointed secured đ
July 19, 2022
And then there were three. So Kemi is out and it is clear from your Tweets that your favourite is Liz. I suppose she is the best of a bad bunch, but what a shame the party could not produce anyone better. I wonder what questions backbench MPs are asking the candidates in private – and what their answers are! No doubt Sunak will get through to the final selection, and the question now is just who will join him. But I have to say that what really winds me up is when he – and his supporters – tries to take credit for the furlough scheme, claiming this saved millions of jobs. The truth is that EVERY SINGLE COUNTRY that had a lockdown had a furlough scheme. There was NOTHING special or brilliant or meritworthy about Sunak’s scheme. What would have been good on the other hand would have been not to have had a lockdown in the first place!!
July 19, 2022
@ X-TORY “…EVERY SINGLE COUNTRY that had a lockdown had a furlough scheme. There was NOTHING special or brilliant or meritworthy about Sunakâs scheme” – agreed, but there was something special although not brilliant or merit-worthy about Mr. Sunak’s “eat out to help out scheme” which, for some reason, he remains quiet about today.
July 19, 2022
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result – Albert Einstein
July 19, 2022
And then there were three.
The only conservative with a moral and human heart eliminated. We are left with three people who I can barely look at or indeed listen to
I feel sick, properly sick
July 19, 2022
What is the Tory Party for ?
July 19, 2022
Why on Earth have the candidates agreed to a debate hosted by the BBC ?
Unless they have collectively laid down some serious groundrules, it will be a hatchet job with a rigged audience and questions that might just has well have been drawn up by Labour.
If the aim is to get to Conservative party members, any channel could be hosting it.
July 19, 2022
Then there were no conservatives left in the contest to become PM! Well done JR, you and your colleagues must be proud of your system to weed out all conservatives and to leave two globalist socialists to lead your party and govt. Your party has now guaranteed Labour for 2024.
General election please, the public should decide. This undemocratic choice of PM demonstrates we need more than the choice of two people or two parties!
In 2019 the people chose Johnson before any party. They wanted a patriotic person to get Brexit delivered against all establishment and MP choices. No one trusts MPs. It is a tragedy Johnson let the country down with an open goal.
July 20, 2022
+1
July 19, 2022
24c yesterday , 25c today here on the south coast. Don’t like any of the 4.
July 19, 2022
A toasty 32c here today
July 20, 2022
And a cold 19c today…..no mention of that on the BBC
July 19, 2022
From what I have seen, the party members are likely to vote for anyone but Sunak. So when they are presented with Sunak plus other, they will vote for other. The Tory MPs are therefore about to choose the next P.M.
It is a pity the MPs eliminated Badenoch.
July 19, 2022
Conservative party is a shadow of its former self.
The country is in serious trouble now, there is simply not the kinds of people in politics needed.
July 20, 2022
I am afraid you are right.
July 19, 2022
The country needs a leader right now based in the fires, strikes and disruption engulfing the UK. Waiting until September will be too late for the Conservatives going on holiday when urgency is overdue.
July 20, 2022
Two items by the Conservative MP for South West Wiltshire:
politicshome.com, 11/07/2022 âBoris Johnson could have resigned with his head held high – he didnâtâ
20/07/2022 âWhen I urged Sunak months ago to start an insurgency, he remained steadfastly loyal to Boris Johnson. It wasnât reciprocatedâ, or âBack anyone but Rishi: thatâs the message behind No.10âs hints at betrayalâ
And thatâs the message pushed here by Sir John. And all that enrubanned with pseudo economic talks of growth.
July 20, 2022
A strange take on current events as usual heffy.
July 21, 2022
How comes I think of a 1972 Number 1 by Carly Simon?
July 21, 2022
Don’t be so harsh on yourself hef.