The second round of the Conservative leadership contest to succeed Boris Johnson has produced more of the same. The result amounts to a slight hardening up of the indecisive first round, not a redrawing of the contest. Tory MPs remain deeply divided and factionalised. They do not know who they want to lead them, largely because they do not agree about what they now stand for. Unable even to unite their own party, the Conservatives are in no position to unite the country either.
Rishi Sunak remains the frontrunner to be one of the two names that will be put to party members at the end of next week, but his 101 votes leave him a long way short of being the majority choice of the 356 Tory MPs who voted in round two. Penny Mordaunt got the biggest number of new votes, 16, and remains a strong second with 83, but she is likely to face much fiercer attacks now. Liz Truss stays in third place, but her 64 votes mean that she is trailing behind Ms Mordaunt and confirm that she is the candidate of a parliamentary faction, and is not likely to be a unifier.
