Audible gasps in room at result – James Cleverly was 18 points ahead y’day.
I’ve spoken to Tory MPs today who were voting for their preferred *second* candidate in final two – all were working on basis Cleverly was safe.
“The most sophisticated electorate in the world”
James Cleverly after all.
her Spectator article on the vote.
For what it’s worth, there are currently two theories doing the rounds among MPs. The first is that Team Cleverly attempted vote lending to have a preferred opponent in the final two and it spectacularly backfired. The other theory is that the vote lending took place on Tuesday – with some Jenrick supporters trying to boost Cleverly to hurt Badenoch – only it went wrong, when Jenrick actually went back two. Therefore they had to consolidate today. In truth, no-one will really ever know what happened in the secret ballot – but the numbers suggest either game-playing or a new level of indecisiveness among Tory MPs.
From Sam Coates from Sky News
I’m being told that while Teams Badenoch and Jenrick were hitting the phones James Cleverly was prominent first on the Commons terrace and then at Boris Johnson’s book launch for a long stint.
Perhaps some over confidence?
From Kate McCann from Times Radio
From ITV’s Robert Peston
I did not see that coming. Cleverly out. Badenoch vs Jenrick. Yesterday I was told Jenrick lent votes to Cleverly to oust Tugendhat. I didn’t believe it. Now that gossip feels credible
From the FT’s Robert Shrimsley
Golly. Does this mean Jenrick was vote lending yesterday to try to block Kemi? On one hand it seems too tight to take risks, on other why would Cleverly fall back?
Other option is that Cleverly backers thought it was safe to try to ensure he faced a weaker candidate – although given he hadn’t yet reached the threshold that would surely be too stupid for the “most sophisticated electorate in the world”
From Lewis Goodall from the News Agents podcast
The end of instability in British politics was greatly exaggerated.
James Cleverly was certain of making the final two.
Audible gasps in room at result – James Cleverly was 18 points ahead y’day.
I’ve spoken to Tory MPs today who were voting for their preferred *second* candidate in final two – all were working on basis Cleverly was safe.
“The most sophisticated electorate in the world”
3.49pm), the Liberal Democrats are also in triumphalist mood over the result of the Tory ballot.
James Cleverly.
Yet all those votes seem to have gone to Kemi Badenoch (who is up 12) or Robert Jenrick (who is up 10). Cleverly actually lost 2 votes, which explains why the gains add up to 22, not 20.
It does not seem likely that not one of those 20 Tugendhat MPs favours Cleverly as leader, and so – as Alex Wickham says (see 3.52pm) – this looks like freelance vote lending has messed up. Some MPs may have backed Badenoch to keep Jenrick out (he has the most extreme position on the the ECHR) and some may have backed Jenrick to keep Badenoch out (she is seen as divisive, and may have had a better chance of beating Cleverly).
In the third round ballot the two “left” candidates (Cleverly, 39, and Tugendhat, 20) had 59 votes between them – almost as many as the two “right” candidates, 61 (Jenrick, 31, and Badenoch, 30).
With Tugendhat out, the “left” should easily have had enough votes to get a “left” candidate on the ballot paper. If this is a reasonable way of describing the contest (and it is how many Tories think – even though left/right in Tory terms does not mean the same as left/right in normal terms), then the left has messed up spectacularly.
ConservativeHome survey of Tory members on Sunday suggested would happen if she went head to head with Robert Jenrick in the final ballot – Badenoch winning with a 20-point lead.
ConHome surveys of Tory members have a good record of predicing the winner, although in the last two contests they overstated the extent to which Boris Johnson and Liz Truss (both the rightwing candidate in the final two) were ahead.
YouGov did a proper poll of Tory members just before the conference. It also suggested Badenoch would beat Jenrick but by a smaller margin – by 54% to 46%.
James Cleverly seemed a dead cert to get through, but he is out.
The immediate assumption is that MPs who wanted Cleverly have been too clever by half, switching votes thinking he was safe.
Here are the figures again, with the changes from yesterday.
Kemi Badenoch: 42 (up 12 from yesterday, when she was up 2 from the previous round)
Robert Jenrick: 41 (up 10 from yesterday, when he was down 2 from the previous round)
James Cleverly: 37 (down 2 from yesterday, when he was up 18 from the previous round)
happened in 2001, when the late Michael Ancram and David Davis were tied in last place. There was no provision in the rules for what should happen, and so Michael Spicer, the 1922 Committee chair, ordered a rerun the following day, with the proviso that both candidates would drop out if they were tied again. But on the second vote Ancram was eliminated. an “HS2 light” rail line between Birmingham and Manchester, replacing the original HS2 planned for that stretch but cancelled by Rishi Sunak.
In their report, Oliver Wright, Ben Clatworthy and Steven Swinford say this would involve a new stretch of track runnng between Birmingham and Crewe, where trains would run faster than the current West Coast mainline, but slower than HS2. They report:
Supporters of the plan for a new line beyond Birmingham believe it would be up to 40 per cent cheaper to build than the previous HS2 link between the city and Manchester.
Senior government figures said that a final decision would have to wait for the government’s three-year spending review due in the spring.
But they said there was “little option” but to push ahead with a version of the scheme because of a “capacity crunch” on the main West Coast mainline when HS2 starts running in the early 2030s.
This is because under current plans HS2 trains will move on existing tracks after Birmingham but will have a smaller passenger numbers than the Pendolino trains that operate on the service.
Asked about the report at the post-PMQs lobby briefing, a No 10 spokesperson said: “We are reviewing the position we have inherited on HS2, and we will set out further decisions and plans on that in due course.”
Source: theguardian.com
