Beaches or Tory Party Leadership Race: the outlook is ‘hot’!

 

It’s hotting up – the Tory Leadership contest, that is, not just the heatwave, even though we’re already getting the first ‘omigawd’ headlines in this morning’s print editions . The Red Tops are to the fore, with “Heatwave is risk to life” in The Express, “40ºC Alert – Hot as Death Valley” in the Star and “Britain braced for heat health emergency” in the DT. The Times, inside, has already the first inevitable warning of ‘taps might run dry’, thus hosepipe bans might be needed (link, paywalled). The other papers have the ‘story’ of that runner, Mo Farah, as top news item. He told the nation that he was ‘trafficked as child’ to go to the UK. You can find it all in the usual place (link).

And so, because it matters to all of us even though we cannot do anything about it, let’s look at the nitty-gritty of the Tory Party Leadership Contest, the stark points of ‘what and when’. Here they are, for the record, as decided yesterday evening by the 1922 Committee and announced by Sir Graham Brady:

Conservative leadership timetable 

Tuesday 12 July – nominations to get on the ballot open, closing at 18.00 BST

Wednesday 13 July – first round of voting among Tory MPs

Thursday 14 July – likely date for second round of voting

Monday 18 July – likely date for third round of voting, if required

Thursday 21 July – deadline for deciding final two candidates

Monday 5 September – winner announced” (link)

So that’s that, and the corridors, tea rooms, bars and lobby of the HoC today will be even hotter than London outside. All that plotting … The back-stabbers are already hard at work. It’s a ‘stop Sunak’ campaign. There’s a dedicated piece by Ms Tominey in the DT – remember, she was an incessant campaigner for ousting Cummings . She now declares:

“If the Tory Right can’t unite around a candidate, Rishi Sunak could be PM by default – With the former chancellor now considered the centre-Left candidate, who will step forward among the pro-Brexit culture warrior faction?” (paywalled link).

“ABS”, All But Sunak, is it? The Times is a bit more concise, writing that “Tory right’s infighting helps Rishi Sunak leadership campaign” (link, paywalled). The DM is Outspoken, blunt stating: “Back me or get Rishi, says Liz Truss in warning to rivals on the Tory Right as they battle each other… and Sunak still won’t commit to instant tax cuts” (link).

Allegedly, Sunak will say today that he’d cut taxes once inflation is reined in, getting the veiled backing of a certain William Hague who opines in The Times that “Thatcher would not be cutting taxes now – The pledges of Tory leadership hopefuls are fiscally unconservative and diverge from the party’s most successful leaders” (link, paywalled). Oh look: Hague used the T-word! Not that Mrs T comes to my mind when I hear ‘Sunak’ …

The Tory Blog ‘ConHome’ published a new party members popularity poll regarding those candidates, having Ms Mordaunt at the top, closely followed by Ms Badenoch (link). This poll is of party members, it doesn’t reflect their standing inside the Parliamentary Party where the candidates must now get a sufficient number of MPs supporting them for the first cut-off date at 6pm today.

The Guardian, not a Tory paper, is enjoying this contest very much, so we find some lovely gems in their report, for example:

“Candidates on the right of the party are now vying to be the anti-Sunak candidate, with multiple contenders competing for MPs’ votes in a way that has alarmed some party grandees.” (link)

Is Sunak now ‘of the Left’ and thus worthy of reluctant Guardian support? Interesting …There’s more, underlining the fact that the candidates appear not to give a toss about what those grandees say. There will be much hot air generated by the leadership campaigners. The Guardian appears to have some excellent sources and is of course not scared to print what they say, for example:

“Allies of Braverman attacked Mordaunt on Monday for staying in Theresa May’s cabinet during the Brexit years. Steve Baker, the influential hard Brexiter who backs Braverman, said he had been a “bruised captain in the trenches … They chose to stay in cabinet and vote for a deal that would have destroyed the Conservative party.” (link)

Oh – a mud fight between wimmin! How very entertaining! There’s also the more weighty fight between Sunak and Tugendhat, one refusing to cut taxes unless ‘inflation is gripped’, the other proposing to ’cut fuel duty and reverse the NI rise’ (link).

Sir John Redwood penned a fine diary entry today, very much in the vein of a Tory Grandee. His concluding paragraph is interesting not for his carefully refraining from giving even the scintilla of a hint of support for one or the other candidate, but for a truly important point, a point I’ve been writing about for years (my emphasis):

“[…] The other truth is the unelected governing establishment will be looking to circumscribe or control an incoming Prime Minister. Some of them  see it as an opportunity to bin work on The Northern Ireland Protocol, human rights law reform, controlling our own borders, setting our own VAT and using the freedoms of Brexit.” (link)

Indeed, Sir John – but what have you, what are you and your fellow grandees doing about this? Wouldn’t it be nice if you and your fellow grandees were to educate whoever is your next leader about these facts? Perhaps you and your grandee colleagues might be more outspoken on this issues specially since you won’t be sanding in the next GE?

I leave you with news from a piece in the DT, by some of their eminent columnists writing about ‘what it was like’ in the days of that Great Heatwave 1976 (paywalled link). It’s interesting not so much because of the accompanying photo of Londoners cooling down in the Serpentine all being rake-thin, not one obese person in sight. No, it’s because of the wail about ‘my terrible guilt’ by the female author: she let her kids play in the sun without slathering them in sunscreen! See, that’s what happens when Nanny State doesn’t give ‘guidance’ we have to follow. Weren’t we all much happier in those days, left to our own devices!

It’s already started today and will continue for the duration of this heatwave: we’ll be harassed, we’ll hear warnings, we’ll receive guidance because we couldn’t possibly know how to behave. Hosepipe bans are already on the cards and we remember what that means: incessant downpours. That’s why I suggest you soak up the sun and heat while it lasts. You have been warned!