Coffee House Steerpike
Full list: The runners and riders in the Tory leadership contest
Steerpike
Steerpike
24 May 2019
The Spectator
Now that Theresa May has officially announced the date of her resignation, the race to succeed her is on. Each Tory hopeful will now be using every trick in the book to win over their colleagues, build up a war chest and eventually, endear themselves to Tory members who will decide their fate.
Here is Mr Steerpike’s guide to the upcoming Tory leadership contest:
The odds:
According to the betting exchange $Markets, the current chances for the would-be Tory leaders stand at:
Boris Johnson: 40 per cent
Dominic Raab: 19 per cent
Michael Gove: 10 per cent
Andrea Leadsom: 6 per cent
Jeremy Hunt: 5 per cent
Rory Stewart: 5 per cent
Penny Mordaunt: 4 per cent
Leading the pack by a wide margin on 40 per cent (no doubt due to his popularity among the grassroots and wide support among Brexiteer MPs) is Boris Johnson. He’s followed by fellow Brexiteer Dominic Raab on 19 per cent – who is a full 9 percentage points ahead of third favourite Michael Gove.
Andrea Leadsom is currently in a respectable fourth place, while Jeremy Hunt (who considers himself a frontrunner) will be very disappointed to be in fifth place, with the odds indicating he only has a 5 per cent chance of becoming leader.
Lagging behind him is the new international development secretary Rory Stewart, who has officially announced he’s running and defence secretary, and dark horse, Penny Mordaunt. Not even listed in the favourites is current home secretary Sajid Javid, with the bookies’ odds suggesting he only has a 3 per cent chance of becoming leader.
Parliamentary support:
The Tory leadership race is broken into two sections: in the first, Conservative MPs vote for their preferred candidates in a knockout system, until the number of entrants is whittled down to two. Then, hustings take place across the country so that local members can choose between them. If Boris Johnson makes it into the second stage, it is widely predicted that he will be selected by local members – making the parliamentary section of the race crucial.
Coffee House is tracking which Conservatives MPs are backing which leadership candidates
here.
The candidates:
Declared:
Boris Johnson, 54
Johnson vows to take Britain out of the EU on 31st October 'deal or no deal'
The clear favourite with party members and the bookies favourites to take the Tory crown, former foreign secretary Boris Johnson is seen by many in his party as the candidate most able to take on Nigel Farage’s insurgent Brexit party. But before members can vote for him, Boris first has to be selected in a ballot of Tory MPs for a place in the final two.
Grassroots support:
Comprehensive polling of Tory members by the
Times/YouGov found Johnson would be the first choice of 39 per cent of Tory members in a leadership race – streets ahead of any other candidate. If Boris makes it to the members’ vote, it seems very likely that he will be the next Prime Minister.
Rory Stewart, 46
Tutor to Prince William and Harry, best-selling travel writer and son of a spy chief, Rory Stewart has perhaps the most interesting life story of the contenders. He declared his ambitions in an
interview with
The Spectator’s Katy Balls last month. A few weeks later, he made it to the cabinet having been promoted to Minister for International Development. He sees himself as a modernising force within the Tory party, insisting on the need to tackle the ‘climate emergency’ and win back younger voters.
Grassroots support:
If Rory Stewart does make it into the final two Tory leadership chances, Mr S wouldn’t fancy his chances. According to polling by the Times/YouGov, out of all the frontrunners, Stewart was the last choice of a whopping 29 per cent of Tory members. Only 4 per cent of members selected him as their first choice to be leader.
Esther McVey, 51
The ex-GMTV presenter launched her campaign with a tour of country pubs last week, announcing her bid during a
TalkRadio broadcast on Thursday. McVey said she intended to declare if she had enough backing: ‘Now people have come forward and I have got that support, so I will be going forward.’ She resigned as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in protest over the Brexit withdrawal deal late last year. McVey is hoping to attract blue-collar Conservative support, but her attempt to secure the top job is seen as ambitious after lagging in recent polls.
Grassroots support:
McVey’s popularity among the grassroots is something of an unknown quantity, having being excluded from recent polling of Tory members. Her brand of blue-collar Conservatism could win over some members, but hustings would be crucial for the former work and pensions secretary to bolster her support.
Matt Hancock, 40
The youngest contender in the pack, Hancock is known for his
enthusiastic social media presence and is one of the dozens of MPs using Instagram to reach younger audiences. The Health Secretary said on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme today that ‘lots of people’ had urged him to stand. At an event that evening, Hancock said ‘the time for that decision hasn’t come’ in reference to a leadership bid.
Grassroots support:
The odds on the fresh-faced Matt Hancock becoming Tory leader plummeted this month, when it was revealed that a mere 1 per cent of Tory members thought he was best placed to lead the Conservative Party. Lots of people may be urging Hancock to run, but they probably don’t have a Tory membership card.
Jeremy Hunt, 52
The Foreign Secretary has a reasonable chance of making it to the final two against Boris Johnson, but only has an implied 5 per cent chance of succeeding May according to the bookies. He took a swipe at Boris in April with his remark that: ‘There is one very big difference between Boris Johnson and me and that is that I am Foreign Secretary and have a big job to do to try to get this deal over the line.’
Grassroots support:
While he is considered to have lots of support from Conservative MPs, Hunt fares far less well when it comes to members. In recent polling, only 8 per cent of Conservative members said he was their first choice of candidate, while only 29 per cent thought he was capable of winning a general election.
Expected to declare:
Dominic Raab, 45
With a reputation as a committed Brexiteer, former Brexit minister Dominic Raab is currently the second most likely candidate to become Tory leader after Johnson. Raab has already announced the policies we would like to pursue as leader – at a
Telegraph debate he promised to slash income tax by a penny each year, and has proposed a law to protect mothers from redundancy for six months after returning to work.
Grassroots support:
Raab’s chances suffer slightly though when it comes to the grassroots, with only 13 per cent of Tory members picking him as their first choice of Tory leader. However, Raab is the second choice of 21 per cent of members, far more than any other candidate. It seems likely that if it were the choice between Raab and any other candidate apart from Boris, he would have a good chance of winning.
Michael Gove, 51
Gove may be tainted by his betrayal of Boris Johnson in 2017, but he still is as the third favourite to take over from May. Gove is seen as the most intellectually capable minister in the cabinet and has already made some leadership moves, including an interview at his parents’ house in early May in which he criticised Sturgeon’s Scottish independence ambitions.
Grassroots support:
Gove is the favourite of 9 per cent of Tory members, and the second choice candidate of 14 per cent. Perhaps as a result of his conduct during the 2016 leadership race to replace Cameron, only 35 per cent of the membership consider him to be ‘likeable’, but they do think he is the second most ‘competent’ candidate after Boris Johnson.
Andrea Leadsom, 56
The last time Leadsom ran for the top job, she was sunk after comments she made to the
Times’ Rachel Sylvester about May’s lack of children. This time around she is being more cautious, telling Good Morning Britain on the 8 May that she is ‘seriously considering’ a bid. The Leader of the House was once the host of the so-called ‘Pizza Club’ in her offices, where ministers met over a takeaway to plan their opposition to the Withdrawal Agreement.
Grassroots support:
Andrea Leadsom has not been included in recent polling of Tory members, but her recent decision to resign from Cabinet after Theresa May sought to allow a parliamentary vote on a second referendum, has bolstered her Brexiteer credentials, and will be expected to go down well with members.
Liz Truss, 42
Truss’ garish fashion shoot entertained Twitter for an afternoon earlier this month, as she announced her policy ideas with an interview in the
Mail on Sunday. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury proposed building a million homes on the Green Belt, and warned that the Tory party faced ‘annihilation’ at the hands of the Brexit Party. ‘You have to put yourself forward, no one else will,’ she said. Her previous ministerial positions include Lord Chancellor, the first women in the role’s thousand-year history.
Grassroots support:
Recent polling of Tory members hasn’t included Liz Truss, but her frequent media appearances, bold policy announcements, and strident backing of Brexit could make her a popular choice.
Penny Mordaunt, 46
Mordaunt was the perfect choice for Theresa May to fill the vacancy in the Ministry of Defence left after Gavin Williamson’s sacking. An ex-reservist and the first woman in the role, Mordaunt raised eyebrows in 2014 after an innuendo-laden speech on poultry farming which mentioned the word ‘cock’ six times and ‘lay’ or ‘laid’ five times. She later explained it was to honour a Navy dare. Her recent promotion has improved her odds on becoming the next leader, as has her strong Brexiteer stance.
Grassroots support:
Only 5 per cent of Tory members think, according to polling from the Times/YouGov, that Mordaunt would be the best person to lead the party, making her chances of success (if she made it to the final two) reasonably unlikely.
Sajid Javid, 49
In a speech which was seen as a covert bid to increase his support among Tory members, the Home Secretary announced earlier this month an overhaul of espionage and treason laws. If elected, Javid would be first Muslim PM, and could herald a new direction for the party. He boasts a supportive Twitter account called ‘Avid4Javid’ with 400 followers.
Grassroots support:
While Javid was considered an early frontrunner to replace Theresa May, Tory members are not exactly his biggest fans. He is the favourite candidate of only 9 per cent of local Conservatives, but is at least considered the third most ‘competent’ candidate of the favourites.
Graham Brady, 52
Proving that just about every single Tory MP thinks they now have a shot at becoming leader, the chairman of the 1922 committee of backbench Tory MPs, Graham Brady, has announced his resignation so that he can consider standing for leader.
Brady’s leadership pitch is likely to include support for his ‘Brady amendment’, which called for ‘alternative arrangements’ to the backstop, and is the only Brexit deal to achieve a majority in the House of Commons.
Kingmakers:
Amber Rudd, 55
Amber Rudd joined 59 other MPs at the launch of the One Nation caucus on a ‘moderate, pro-business, low tax’ platform. While the group is heavily opposed to a Raab bid, Newsnight subsequently reported that there was tentative support for Boris Johnson given his past successes in London. Boris responded to the news by praising Rudd’s group on Twitter, writing that
“One Nation values have never been more important.” Those paying attention spotted Rudd’s account liking the tweet moments later. Rudd – who is positioning herself in a kingmaker role – will be important in deciding which candidates make the final cut.
Gavin Williamson, 42
Like a boyfriend taking a breakup badly, Williamson’s social media has insisted he is doing fine after being sacked as defence secretary in early May. Before the dismissal, Williamson let it be known many leadership candidates hoped to secure his backing. He has now come out for the Boris campaign – and Steerpike understands he is taking on an active role behind the scenes.
Arlene Foster, 48
Whoever the next Tory leader is they will have to court DUP leader Arlene Foster, whose party has propped up the government since the disastrous 2017 snap election. Foster condemned May’s Brexit negotiations as
“hopeless” as she launched the DUP’s EU election manifesto on 13th May. But a Tory candidate who promises to do something about the Irish backstop will find it easy to win Foster’s support.
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/...rs-and-riders-in-the-tory-leadership-contest/
