The figures for the first round vote in the Conservative leadership race are in:
Theresa May 165
Andrea Leadsom 66
Michael Gove 48
Stephen Crabb 34
Liam Fox 16 – eliminated
Adding up the other 4, we see they have 164 between them and May has an outright majority. Given that only a third of the vote is needed to ensure a place in the all member ballot, we may see some tactical movement in later rounds towards May’s preferred opponent for that ballot.
Add your comments below, sticking to the issues, please. And, as always, don’t assume that anybody commenting is a Liberal Democrat.
Update 20:24: Stephen Crabb has withrdawn from the leadership race and pledged his support for Theresa May.
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28 Comments
As expected. Fox’s previous record has been well-remembered. And rightly so.
I hope it’s gove or Andrea leadsom that become PM.
Remainers are complaining that Boris ran off to leave others to sort out the mess. Actually I don’t believe that’s fair on boris as the government had a responsibility to have a plan in place should they lose the referendum before they called it. Anyone was free to campaign however they liked, but the government had a special responsibility that comes with being the government.
And to expect farage to have a plan in place is just ridiculous, even if he had a plan what use would it be? Only the government could actually implement it.
Anyway, having a prime minister who supported Brexit should make the remainers happy as it means the Brexit supporters are sorting it out which they complained they weren’t.
The winner should be PM until 2020 as we have fixed term parliaments now, which I support.
i like fox, he was an excellent defence minister, but he’s not my preference for tory leader by a long shot.
@ jedibeeftrix ” i like fox, he was an excellent defence minister”.
If he was, why did he have to resign then ?
@David Raw – Remember Adam Werritty?
My prediction for the next round: Stephen Crabb moves up the table.
Nice prediction Simon – hes just pulled out
“If he was, why did he have to resign then ?”
It had nothing to do with his efficacy as a Minister of Defence at a time when Defence faced a crisis of purpose:
https://jedibeeftrix.wordpress.com/2010/10/18/commissioned-the-sdsr-and-why-the-choice-of-a-maritime-or-a-land-doctrine-is-necessary/
He made the right choice when it needed to be made.
None of the candidates inspire me. I like Theresa May and Andrea Leadsom the best. I was warming up to Stephen Crabb, considering he now supports gay marriage and voted remain, but he’s now pulled out.
Theresa May voted remain, unlike Andrea Leadsom, but Theresa has been migrant basher in chief for about the past six years and refused to guarantee a right to stay for EU migrants.
@David
“Nice prediction Simon – hes just pulled out”
You’ve got to remember that I was someone who predicted that Michael Foot would prove to be an outstandingly successful leader of the Labour Party!
My reputation is only slightly redeemed by the fact that I predicted that Jeremy Corbyn would be a disaster from Day 1.
Blimey Simon, you’ve got a sense of humour!
Do ple are talking as though Theresa May is sme sort of centrist. Is she?? I have always thought of her as being on the authoritarian right wing. She doesn’t have a track record of being mderate, does she? Insights from Coalition folks would be useful.
Crabb & Fox have both now made their career moves by backing May…… so Gove gets his well deserved comeuppance on Thursday.
What a bunch……
@David Raw: If you were Theresa May, would you not be getting some of your massive majority to vote for the person you were most likely to beat – i.e. Gove? I think Tory members are misguided enough to vote for Leadsom.
You have to wonder what has gone wrong with the world when the least awful person to be PM is Theresa May!
Theresa May did very little for Remain, which suggests two perceptions:
1) She was not very enthusiastic;
2) the Remain leadership, including David Cameron, might have thought that she would bring a focus onto immigration, which they might prefer to ignore.
What she did say was about human rights and the Council of Europe, not strictly an EU issue for the referendum. Previous leader Ming Campbell pledged us to defend the Human Rights Act, which we must.
Here is a good guide on why most Tory “Remainers” are now perfectly happy to embrace Brexit, and take the new political opportunities which Brexit will give them, if it is allowed to happen:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/04/disaster-capitalism-tory-right-brexit-roll-back-state
The Brexiteers are supposed to be victorious, but they are falling like flies. Strange, isn’t it?
I identified Michael Gove as the most dangerous man in British politics as long ago as 2003 when he was on telly almost every night putting the case for war with Iraq. He did it with a kind of holier than thou fervour that other warmongers of the day lacked.
Gove has come out with some amazingly nasty opinions over the years. I recall him telling a Question Time audience that he was in favour of forcing people to join the Army. Then there were his plans, partially shelved, to incarcerate young people in schools for 52 hours a week, 46 weeks of the year (originally a Blairite proposal, first put forward by Barry Gardiner MP). It seems that Gove agrees with Plato on taking children away from their parents, but disagrees with him about experts!
If Andrea Leadsom has any value at all as a politician (something I would ordinarily be reluctant to admit) it will be through her expected role in keeping Gove off that all-important members’ ballot-paper.
Theresa May has two saving graces, which have probably not endeared her to sections of the elite: (1) she has acknowledged the reality of elite child abuse, and (2) she has criticised the Police.
3) She was looking ahead to the current situation of being the least hated senior figure in the party.
“Anyway, having a prime minister who supported Brexit should make the remainers happy as it means the Brexit supporters are sorting it out which they complained they weren’t.”
Sure, picking a member of the dishonest Leave crowd who didn’t have a plan then and don’t have a plan now will make everything soooo much better! Meanwhile, our economy continues to slide, just as the Remain campaign predicted, while the Leavers have nothing to offer but waffling about “sovereignty” and fantasies about Britain magically becoming a trading powerhouse with the world – when it will take years to get trade deals in place and we don’t even have competent negotiators of our own! That, of course, is before we consider just how badly placed and underskilled our workforce is to be competitive, following decades of under-investment championed by… why yes, the leaders of the Leave campaign.
But sure, let’s throw away our largest export market because of the fantasy-prone personalities among us and then let’s watch them claim that letting the Tories appoint one of that clueless crew Prime Minister constitutes a plan.
This is a clear cut constitutional crisis and instead of falling behind the Tory’s attempt to distance themselves from the mess, we should attack all their leadership candidates. This is what they would do in the same circumstances.
@ Caron Lindsay I take your point, Caron, but if I were May (or Andy Murray for that matter !! ), I’d want to get the job over with as soon as possible without any obvious wobbles.
I also have to reflect on my old refrain of how on earth could we have been so daft as to go into Coalition with that bunch. We tarnished our brand and by so doing gave them a platform to launch today’s appalling situation. As to Nick, he should quietly let Tim get on with things.
Elsewhere on LDV, Michael Meadowcroft says it all for me.
How can it be that someone like Leadsom can be regarded as a serious candidate for PM ? Dodgy offshore tax dealings et al.
How on earth can it be that someone like Fox (where’s Werritty ?) get any MPs to vote for him ?
As for”Eet tu, Brute” Gove, how can so pompous a little …….. be taken seriously ?
It’s long past time for the Lib Dems got stuck into them.
Phyllis 9:40
Single minded
So I have 3 questions:
1) Which outcome is the best (or least worst) for the country?
2) Which outcome is the best for the Lib dems?
3) Which outcome is most likely to lead to a second referendum and a chance to change the Brexit decision?
I can’t see all 3 aligning unfortunately.
@NickT
Well Nick, you can’t have it both ways. If you think it’s wrong that the leave campaigners aren’t cleaning up the mess so to speak, then you can’t also object if the new PM is someone who voted for Brexit.
Me personally, I believe that the government were responsible for having a plan in place for each referendum outcome before they called it.
@Nick Baird
Actually I think May is the answer on all three of your questions there.
It comes to something if our ‘best outcome’ is the woman behind the Snooper’s Charter.
@Sesenco ‘he was in favour of forcing people to join the Army.’
Which was of course was the position in Great Britain in my lifetime from 1940 -1960 (approx) and still is in some continental countries.