A moratorium on personal attacks in the campaign to replace Rishi Sunak has been agreed by the Tory candidates, foreswearing in-fighting. Expect it to last as long as a back-to-work suntan.
As the first round of the lengthy leadership race moves towards the ouster of weaker contenders like Mel “never hit my” Stride and Priti Patel (an outrider for Boris Johnson who is too preoccupied on vaycay in Greece to be much of an in-rider), it leaves Kemi Badenoch facing off against Robert Jenrick, with a twist of James Cleverly in third place and Tom Tugendhat as the metropolitan/London Tory choice, which probably spells doom.
Badenoch v Jenrick feels like the direction of travel for good reason: both have a claim to represent the Right of the party, where the membership is situated, while having enough MP support not to look like a reprise of the Trussogeddon experience. The MP rump, who are set up in this contest’s rules as gatekeepers, has not forgotten that damage inflicted by the passions of the grassroots. On Thursday, MPs cast their votes to knock out the lowest-ranking candidates. That will still leave four in the race from next week by the latest — two too many and a month too long.
Process aside, the rumble on the Right is shaping up to be Jenrick, the former minister for lots of things people struggle to remember, and Badenoch, erstwhile business secretary, but best known for pitching into TV and social media arguments about pretty much everything with a high level of gusto and clarity verging on the bracing. There is space on the Left for Cleverly and Tugendhat to fight over, but that feels like the contest for a runner-up medal.
So far, Badenoch’s Renewal 2030 campaign sounds like an Olympics bid for a northern city and a tad confusing given that the next election has to be held by August 2029.
Behind the bland slogan, her theory of the Tory case is that it is better to link the party and its leader into a revival story which faces up to the need for a Conservative intellectual reboot, rather than throw out a range of easy-meat policies about leaving the European Court of Human Rights and immigration ceilings which were not delivered even in power.
Badenoch is the biggest personality in a depleted Tory race, vowing yesterday to “take the fight to Doctor Who or whoever tries to keep us down” — after a run-in with the actor David Tennant who, on some spat about gender ideology, crassly said he hoped for a day when “she did not exist”.
It is pure Kemi to have a fight with Doctor Who — a role usually reserved for Daleks
It is pure Kemi to have a fight with Doctor Who — a role usually reserved for Daleks — while also taking on the earthling Labour deputy, Angela Rayner, in the Commons yesterday over a massive downgrading by Sadiq Khan of London’s fictional house-building targets.
Paradoxically, Jenrick, the “Tory bloke” in the race, is not a name to set social media alight, but is running on pledges which suggest he could be prime minister any given day: “I have come to the conclusion that we have to leave the European Convention on Human Rights.”
This has the benefit of being what members think. But it lacks a reality check on how soon a Conservative leader will decide very much at all. The answer, from the Jenrick point of view, is that sometimes being straightforward with what you want, even if it is not achievable, is a better bet than telling a defeated party, downcast MPs and furious membership to hang on in there for a process and rethink.
The Badenoch argument by contrast is an acknowledgement of limitations facing a new Tory leader, as well as her determination to have her boots on against the “cultural establishment”. The Jenrick one is simply that in the Opposition slammer, any window of hope and conviction will do, until you find your feet against the superior numbers of the Starmer army.
It’s a good example of how a race on the Right can still contain nuances, personality choices and tensions which will determine the course of the Opposition and how soon it can emerge from the doldrums.
“We can’t just choose the person we feel good about,” says one well-connected strategist in the thick of all this. You can see, after the fireworks fizzle of Boris, Liz and the lukewarm Rishi era, where that view comes from. But politics remains a people business, even when you’re down or, maybe, especially then. My memo to the final runners: slogans will evaporate. Personality and energy are your superpowers. Go fight on those. The rest of us might even start to get interested.
