Me, too.
Relatedly, here’s a quote I read today from a commentator in the Guardian, Polly Toynbee:
Yes, hurrah for the most diverse applicants ever, with only one token pale male, but you would have to search in vain for diverse views. Here is only the narcissism of infinitesimally small differences in style, all for tax cuts varying marginally, but not in their state-shrinking intent.
My understanding is that it was an initiative under David Cameron’s leadership, to identify a deliberately more diverse “A-list” or priority list of potential candidates to be put forward by the party head office to local selections:
Sounds a little too close to Mordor for my tastes…
Well credit for diversity goes to Cameron, who promoted many of them to break the ‘glass ceiling’.
However, the UK is a society that divided itself by social class and in this respect they are not at all diverse. Many are wealthy or from wealthy families and have been privately educated. There are no working class heroes, but several millionaires.
Politically it makes sense, many from immigrant communities have Conservative values. This lot seem to embrace some very rabid policies: Anti-immigration, low taxes, deregulation, small state. Some even sound like the Daily Mail and their ‘war on woke’. Lots of nods of approval in the local Conservative associations, for sure.
The immigrant community vote was taken for granted by Labour and here we have the Conservatives overtaking them with respect to diversity at the top of the party. Labour have been politically out manoeuvred.
The Eton boys - Cameron, Johnson, etc are libertarian and in Johnson’s case libertine. They are socially liberal, laissez-faire and have little in the way of ideals except to promote their own advancement.
They are not so concerned about highlighting issues focussed on race, sexuality, gender. Compare that to Labour who see these as a procession of oppressed groups in need of positive action and liberation. Instead Conservatives quietly remove barriers and appear more progressive and better reflect broader British society which is grown steadily more tolerant in the past couple of decades.
The policy differences are minor. Most of them worked within Boris Johnson’s administration, so it is difficult for them to say anything against him in public lest it exposes questions about their loyalty. So were they self-serving hypocrites? Probably.
The big issue for the Conservatives is competence and integrity in public office. Both of which have been lacking under Boris Johnson. Much to the exasperation of the broader Conservative party.
This is where Sunak has an advantage. He looks like an accountant, speaks well and he is rich and so does not need to take bribes from rich Russians. All the others are proposing unrealistic tax cuts. He was Minister of Finance so he has a pretty good idea of what is possible and how to face the economic challenges ahead. Whether he could win a General Election is another matter.
But this leadership election is very much an internal political matter amongst 350 MPs. Who knows what jobs have been offered to whom for their support?
Also these people are all in the sand party. They are not just going to vanish once the election is over. Any new PM will have to work with them and give them cabinet jobs. Otherwise they will be plotting.
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer still. Prime Ministers survive by keeping control of their party. They can be guilty of all manner of other things and be awful at running the country. But they need to control the party or they will run out of road.
Next vote is done and, as expected, Tugendhat is out. From the Guardian:
Tom Tugendhat has been knocked out of the race to become Britain’s next prime minister, with four candidates left in the Conservative leadership race.
Rishi Sunak remains the frontrunner, with two more votes due to be held by Tory MPs on Tuesday and Wednesday this week to decide the final two candidates.
Sunak gained 14 supporters from the last ballot to put him on a total of 115, trailed by Penny Mordaunt, who lost one, giving her 82.
Liz Truss remained in third place, picking up seven supporters to put her on 71, while Kemi Badenoch came fourth with an extra nine supporters, giving her 58.
Sunak looks pretty unstoppable as one of the final 2 at this point. Looks like the real fight will be for the second slot. Mordaunt lost one, so that’s a bad sign for her. But she’ll be hoping to gain from previous Tugendhat voters. Based on what I can glean as an American, Truss and Badenoch are seen as in the same “lane,” so if one of them loses the next round, the remaining one could easily leap-frog ahead of Mordaunt into the final two if PM does not shore up enough support. I can only imagine the backroom wheeling and dealing going on right now…
A related line of question:
When Blair was the Labour PM & stepped aside for Brown, Brown made it clear he saw no need to trigger an election anytime soon: in his view the public had spoken for Labour and the fact Labour had a new face was (mostly) irrelevant.
As I recall he took quite a shellacking in the press about the presumptiousness of that position. How convenient for him, etc. He never did call an election, and IIRC in fact suffered from a shortage of legitimacy through most of his premiership.
My point being that at that time it seemed that the zeitgeist was that a change of PM = party leader pretty well required a fresh election to see if the new leader and their party still had the trust of the entire electorate.
Somewhere along the way the fixed-term parliament thing came into being. I don’t recall the exact timing of that innovation and don’t understand all the corner cases provided for that legislation. I know fixed terms are the default, but under what circumstances are there exceptions?
To what degree can we expect to see the new Tory leader & PM be subject to calls for moving up the election to the earliest legal date so as to obtain a mandate of the people, all the people? And if so, what might the timetable be? Or is that prompt election idea now passe? Or maybe only was championed by pundits of the opposing party sensing a chance to unseat the noob before they consolidated their grip on the reins?
Any thoughtful answers to these questions?
Beg pardon?
Typo for “same party”, I read it.
….same party….
The Act was a real constitutional misstep. It was repealed earlier this year by the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022. Essentially an “Ooopsie - our bad Act”.
Color me very red-faced I did not know that. Thank you.
I’m not following this comment.
July 7 - Boris announced his resignation
July 12 - eight candidates were declared, having met the requirement of support from 20 MPs
July 13 - first ballot of MPs - no clear majority; two candidates eliminated; six still in
July 14 - second ballot of MPs - no clear majority; one candidate eliminated; five still in
July 18 - third ballot of MPs - no clear majority; one candidate eliminated; four still in
July 19 and 20 - anticipated fourth and fifth ballots, which will result in two candidates for the party membership to vote on
So, in the space of 11 days, the leadership contest resulted in eight initial candidates, now winnowed down to four. By July 20, it will be down to two candidates, just 13 days after Boris’ announcement.
There will then be six weeks of campaigning amongst the party membership by the two, with the final result known by September 5 - just under two months since Boris’ announcement.
What US primary race has ever moved that quickly?
Plus, there is a reason for a multi-round within the parliamentary party. In a parliamentary system, it’s important for the party leader to have strong support from the parliamentary party, or else you’re just setting the stage for a lengthy period of party infighting (see Corbyn, Jeremy).
There was a wide number of candidates who had support. If it had just been the two top candidates on the first ballot who were selected for the party membership to vote on, Sunak with 88 MPs and Mordaunt with 67, out of a parliamentary party of 357, that would mean that the two top were initially opposed by 57% of the elected MPs. That’s not a good starting point for either, if they were the ones who went straight to the party members to vote on.
The internal politicking in the parliamentary party is important for the elected MPs to coalesce around candidates who have broad support in the parliamentary party, so that the top two that the party members choose from will have parliamentary support as well. We don’t see all those backroom details, but it’s an important part of picking the leader. That wouldn’t have happened if it had just been the initial top two candidates.
And it’s not all just personalities: Kemi Badenoch has come out today in support of the party’s announced climate change policies, which she had previously characterised as “unilateral economic disarmament”. Why did she do that? I don’t know much about Conservative internal politics, but my guess is that she felt she needed to trim her sails on this issue to have any hope of continuing in the race. In other words, the leadership contest is having an effect on party policy, as all remaining candidates now support the climate change policy.
This is perhaps the first solidly good policy by Cameron that I have ever heard of.
Not many, but then again, when we have a primary to replace someone who’s been kicked out of office, they don’t continue to wield power while the primary is going on.
Boris hasn’t been kicked out of office. He has announced his intention to resign, effective the selection of his successor.
In fact, Boris and his government won a confidence vote just today:
The prime minister’s pugnacious speech in the House of Commons on Monday evening opened the debate on a vote of no-confidence that his government won by 349 to 238, a majority of 111. In a highly unusual move, No 10 called the vote of confidence in itself after it rejected a Labour motion that singled out Johnson.
Said resignation was essentially forced by the party because they don’t think he can do the job anymore. That would be kicking out to me.
But, regardless of the semantics, it does seem to make sense to me to get the guy you don’t think can do the job out as soon as possible. I am surprised they do an old-fashioned runoff, when the instant runoff (using ranked choice voting) exists.
That doesn’t allow for the internal party politicking, as outlined in my earlier post. Instant voting is not always the best. Each time someone drops out in a multi-candidate caucus election, having a day for everyone to consider their options is a good thing.
But on the other point: a PM who wins a confidence vote in the Commons has not been kicked out.
A PM who says in the Commons that “I leave at a time not of my own choosing” has been kicked out. The confidence vote was in the Government, not Johnson :- the Tories specifically refused to allow Labour to schedule a confidence vote in Johnson, and tabled one themselves in the Government.
But an office-holder who loses in the primaries can stay in office till the end of the full legal term.