Tory leadership candidates have been whittled down to three in the penultimate round of voting. Today’s result was:
Rishi Sunak 118
Penny Mordaunt 92
Liz Truss 86
Kemi Badenoch 59
You would have expected Rishi Sunak to pick up more than 3 of the 31 votes up for grabs from yesterday’s eliminated candidate Tom Tugendhat. Instead, it was Liz Truss who gained most, 15 votes, followed by Penny Mordaunt up 10. Kemi Badenoch only gained one vote and was therefore eliminated.
There could, of course be a fair bit of churn. Perhaps some of Sunak’s vote moving to Mordaunt as a result of the YouGov polls which continue to show him losing to everyone amongst Conservative members.
TORY MEMBERS POLL: Mordaunt has lost her commanding lead, with herself, Truss and Badenoch now all effectively tied in their head to heads
Mordaunt: 42% (-13)
Truss: 48% (+11)Mordaunt: 43% (-16)
Badenoch: 48% (+18)Badenoch: 46% (+9)
Truss: 43% (-11)https://t.co/feL6oXerIk pic.twitter.com/B0YtzJo6Hc— YouGov (@YouGov) July 19, 2022
It’ll be interesting to see who gains most from Badenoch’s votes. Will Mordaunt be able to persuade Sunak supporters to switch to her as the best chance of beating Truss? Or will Badenoch’s votes simply transfer en masse to Truss, eliminating Mordaunt.
Tim Farron has some advice for Sunak and Mordaunt though:
Liz Truss currently in 3rd. I’m sure we could lend either of the other two a bar chart…
— Tim Farron (@timfarron) July 19, 2022
We’ll find out who the final two are tomorrow at 4pm and they will then take part in a tv debate next Monday night. Although, like 2016, there could be all sorts of twists and turns before we even get to that.
It is very depressing that the most reactionary group of people in the country are choosing the next Prime Minister at a time when the future of the planet is in question, people are struggling to put food on the table and all the Brexit chickens are coming home to roost, all of this in the backdrop of a continuing pandemic.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
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9 Comments
I think it was a case of Tugendhat’s supporters wanting Badenoch out rather than wanting Truss versus Sunak. Badenoch’s 59 (those who believe Net Zero should be pushed back to 2070) still key for who goes into the final round of who can promise the most backwards looking agenda to become Prime Minister of the UK.
Increasingly it looks as though we are heading towards Truss for PM. It depends on whether the Conservative membership is ready to adopt Sunak
Truss, who is leaden and formulaic in interviews would avoid them quite as much as Johnson; moreover she would be forever having to prove her anti-EU credentials. She would be Johnson without the concupiscence and verbosity; she would be continuity Johnson including his penchant for expensive living and self-aggrandization at the tax payers’ expense.
Whoever they pick we should demand a General Election – 100,000 Tories out of a population of 70 Million should not be choosing our PM.
PS there a petition to get Boris added to the 2 who go to the Membership – you really couldn’t make it up.
Truss and Mordaunt likely? It is in the hands of the MPs (a lot ,approx 100).After that the members will have their say.Being over 65, right wing ,UKIP orientated they will pick the one nearest Johnson ,as the continuation PM.A likely scenario as Sunak looks like not the front runner with the members.Personally I want them all to disappear down a rabbit hole never to be seen again with their party..
nigel hunter 19th Jul ’22 – 10:03pm:
After that the members will have their say.Being over 65, right wing, UKIP orientated they will pick the one nearest Johnson, as the continuation PM.
If Tory MPs had given them the chance they would have picked a discontinuation PM…
‘Our Next Tory Leader survey. Badenoch opens up a double-digit lead. Truss, Mordaunt and Sunak are bunched together second, third and fourth.’ [16th. July 2022]:
https://conservativehome.com/2022/07/16/our-next-tory-leader-badenoch-opens-up-a-double-digit-lead-truss-mordaunt-and-sunak-are-bunched-together-second-third-and-fourth/
In my view, the most likely outcome of the contest has always been Liz Truss. The Conservative members are not ‘Ready for Rishi’ at all. He’s too rich, he’s ‘not from round here’ and for all his dry and credible talk on the economy they will suspect him of having liberal, socially tolerant, internationalist, sympathies. In essentials, he’s George Osborne.
From the first ballot onwards the only real question has been whether Mordaunt or Truss would make final as the alternative. I was disconcerted by Mordaunt’s rapid head start from nowhere, but it now seems she peaked too early. However, it’s still very close. Both of them are capable of talking to the ‘Little Englander’ tendency, but I think that Truss, in some undefinable way, epitomises it better. Maybe it’s that cheese speech.
So there won’t be a “Wolverine of Badenoch”, possibly disappointing for fans of Medieval Scottish history or LNER steam locomotives!
If enough anti-Mordaunt supporters of Sunak switch tactically to Truss and enough anti-Truss supporters of Sunak switch tactically to Mordaunt, Sunak could be eliminated!
Jeff 19th Jul ’22 – 11:44pm…If Tory MPs had given them the chance they would have picked a discontinuation PM…
If by ‘discontinuation’ you mean ‘Far Right’ then I’d agree. After the removal of Braverman then the next in line for ‘looney’ was Badenoch …
The Conservative party (MPs and members) have Brexit, a NHS ripe for privatisation, a ‘them and us’ society, a nation where only ‘silent’ protests are allowed, where removal of labour (strikes) can legally be broken by ‘agency staff’, etc., etc. and yet this is not enough: they want to go further .
For years I’d thought that the ‘hang’em and flog’em’ wing of Conservative members had died off..How wrong can one be; they were merely sleeping in their coffins awaiting their moment of resurrection..