Coffee House Shots
Tory leadership race latest: Priti out
The Spectator magazine is the greatest magazine in the English language. Subscribe today for just £12 and receive a 12-week subscription in print and online to see for yourselves. Also, against my advice as editor, we're giving away a free £20 John Lewis O'Witrow's voucher. Given that you're spending 12 quid, you can do the maths. Go to spectator.co.uk/voucher. But don't hurry because this offer probably loses its money. Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots, the Spectator's sometimes twice daily politics podcast. I'm Oscar Unenson and I'm joined today by Katie Bools and James Heel. And we have some news in the Tory leadership race. Pretty Patel is out after the first round of voting, receiving 14 votes, while it was Robert Genrich who came out on top with 28 votes. Katie, can you take us through it? Yeah, so really our first chance to get a sense of where the candidates really are. Of course, you've had some public declarations, but they only tell one part of the tale, and lots of MPs haven't publicly got behind a candidate. So this round is important, probably mainly to show where the front runners are and who is the front runner, where things might go, just as much as to see who didn't make it. Now, pretty Patel is out. I think that there had been a sense that the campaign wasn't really working the way people thought it was. I certainly was someone who I think back before where she didn't call the election, thought Pretty Patel could do really well in a Tory leadership contest, because she wasn't completely tamed to buy recent cabinet decisions, she had an in with the Boris camp, the trust camp, the risks she's seen at camp even found her my likable. But when she launched, she just didn't seem to catch much momentum. And I think that became clear quite early on. Her unity message was also being made by James Cleverley. And then I think Robert Jenner has done a better job quite clearly of being the candidate for the right. So Pretty Patel is out, which I don't think is a huge shock. I think, you know, my hunch was she'd be out first and maybe most tried next, but more on momentum later. And when it comes to the other candidates, you have obviously, actually, Robert Jenner had the highest number of MP votes on 28. Cammie Badenock was in second place on 22 votes. James Cleverley was in third place on 21 votes. And Tom Teigenhat was on fourth and 17 votes. And then Mel Stride is one vote behind Tom Teigenhat on 16 votes. So I think just briefly before we dive into it a bit deeper, looking at those results, obviously, it's good for Robert Jenner. He's showing that he does have a momentum. His team have been saying they think when they look at the numbers and where people what quite might go, they're quite nailed on to reach the final two. Not a done deal yet, but that's definitely very encouraging to them. I think for Cammie Badenock, it's obviously a decent stance. She looks very assured to reach the final four, but it's not, you know, it's not guaranteed that she is going to reach that final two on this, because I think the other big winner other than Robert Jenner there is James Cleverley. There was a bit of a bat between James Cleverley and Tom Teigenhat, in the sense of fishing in the same pool of MPs a little bit. When it comes to potential supporters, and there was a sense amongst lots of supporters that Tom Teigenhat was going to have more backers than James Cleverley. James Cleverley has done quite a bit better, really. I know it's only a couple of votes, but given the party is so small, we have to think of it as percentage scales, I think. But he has done quite a bit better, and I think that that is going to give James Cleverley a lot of momentum, and probably now, you know, a big race to get Pretty Patel's backers into your camp. I think some will go to James Cleverley. They both have a similar unity message. Some may go to Robert Jenner. Some could go to Cammy Badenot, but also, I suspect James Cleverley's team will now be working with Grant Shaps in tow. He obviously likes doing the whipping on the numbers in previous campaign groups. I suspect that they will be working very hard to try and say to some of the Tom Teigenhat backers, "Look, you don't want one of these candidates on the right. He wants to leave the ECHR and so forth, such as Robert Jenner." Tom Teigenhat does not have the votes momentum right now, much better to ruin behind James and get him to the final two, and you'll be getting those type of conversations. So I think a tricky result for Tom Teigenhat, and now it's probably a race between Mel Stride and Tom Teigenhat to get to the final four based on that. Yeah, James, these results aren't incredibly close. None of the candidates achieve more than a 25% of the vote share. Do you think it is all still to play for? I think it's definitely wide open in some senses. You look, there's just 14 votes separating first from last. Tom Teigenhat, for instance, was just three votes off elimination with 17, and he would tell was out on 14. I think that in some sense, if you think about this like a long distance run, top of the pack was generic and bad knock. I thought there were about four or five votes or so there were six between the two of them, so yeah, Jeremy could still have well on that. I think Kenny's got some longer to go in the race. I think most of us supporters always say she would go deeper in the race than some of her candidates on the right. For me, the key battle really is in the middle of the pack, and I think that if you'd asked most MPs, they would have thought, yeah, generic, bad knock, and then probably Teigenhat in third, I think, the top three, and that was the kind of dynamic I think. So I think Tom Teigenhat has underwhelmed, and I think it's a very happy birthday for James Cleverley, and probably he's watched Susie, who shared the same day. James Cleverley's done well here. 21, just one off Kenny bad knock, who I think has been most sort of commentators pick as one of, if not the front runner in this race, so it's super cleverly. I think the dynamics will change, and I think that, you know, then we're talking about the final four and what goes on here. I think that, you know, the question about Jeremy Cleverley has always been not so much, you know, who's against him as who's for him. You know, most people could live with James Cleverley. He's someone who's liked across the party, rather as a good past chairman. I think now that he looks almost certain to get in the final four now, very confident based on these numbers. I'm fascinated to see what he could do, because I think he's someone who is someone who's sent a right appeal. Obviously, he has a very different position on the ECHR. As I wrote in the last night's hustling, he faced some quite critical questions at the 9/22 about his own view on the leaving the ECHR, which he sort of ruled out. But other than the kind of the right, I think he's got sort of appeal across the party. So I'm very interested to see how he could do. It could be him versus someone on the right in the final two. So you'd say one nation front runner, James Cleverley. At this stage, yeah, based on those numbers, yes. And Katie, just as given as an indication of where the future of the Tory party really lies, considering we've got top two, are on the right of the party, and then everyone below is one nation. Ah, I think it does a bit. I think you can overeat. In the sense, Robert Genre King, Hemi Bader, are largely fishing in a similar pool of MPs. James Cleverley and Tom Teigen are largely fishing in a similar pool of MPs. Mel Stride is going strong with his 2010 man, and they are loyal to him. And I actually do wonder, the leadership launch I'm really looking forward to if we can get there is the Mel Stride launch, which is not me going for a person endorsement. But Mel Stride has effectively chosen not to launch his campaign, and he says his campaign launch is this confident he'll reach the final four. It will be only after the next waiting round. Now, I think it is a hard ask for him to make that final four, but it's not impossible, because if some of Tom Teigen had support to start to have doubts about their guy and start thinking, well, I could live with James Cleverley in a way I couldn't live with this other person, and I think James Cleverley is going to do better with the membership. They could start to lose support. And if Mel can just keep his support pretty much, as it is, and then Tom loses some, then you could see Mel sneaking through to the final four. I think the fact that Mel Stride pulls so badly on the membership polls, and I know people can say it can change, and Mel Stride is a David Cameron of this tournament. It does mean that if you're trying to get a slightly centrist candidate in who could stop Cammie Baine or Robert Genrix, say one of those two makes the final two, which is pretty net on one of those two will make the final two. There's a chance it's both, but one of them will make it. You are not going to get behind Mel Stride in that you really, really, really like home, because all the polling, I think as a con home poll say, which says two percent of the membership thing you should be leader, there was a you got poll that was two percent, and you're just not going to take a chance on it, in that you have a strong belief in the man. And therefore, if you are on that block that is trying to stop Genrix, Baine and Ockle both, you might start to think cleverly is your best bet. That could hurt Tom, which then somehow that's that's the Mel Mentum as James coined the term earlier. This is the Mel Mentum route to going to the final four. And at that point, I think Mel Stride's official launch would be where it's at, because he will have defied the odds quite heavily. And because Mel Stride has done so well for him given his relative position and getting 14 MPs, and there was people suggesting to me, MP spoke to that he could almost have one of two people who voted for him or put his nomination papers would not vote for him. And so you get less than 10, so he'd go backwards on where he was eight weeks ago. Given that he's done such a strong showing for him at this point, that will obviously reduce the incentive to drop out before next Tuesday, where the suggestion that someone making was that, look, if it's clearly the bottom two are, there will be pressure to drop out before the kind of next ballot saving that. So it will be interesting to see now we're going to have that ballot next week and begin the next week, how those pretty betel votes redistribute, if there's any kind of allegations of vote trading going on, et cetera, and what happens. But given it is so close, you know, I think that, for instance, I made the point on Javier Schott's earlier about how in 2001, there was only one vote separating Portillo and IDS from reaching the final two against Ken Clark. This time of course, there's just 14 separate in the whole thing. So it's much sort of all closer together. So I'll be interested in how the votes redistribute. And then I think the key thing, of course, is a reminder of keeping your some troops in line. And given that Mel has had got that group of loyal to intendment, I think a lot of Tom Thuggenhat's people will be looking at his performance and wondering if they could do better elsewhere, given the amount of time he's had, given the amount of money he's had, given the fact he's had three big speech in three weeks, you know, I think there'll be an expectation that Tom Thuggen actually had done better. And I think the other question mark is on Kenny Bainmark, because is there a path ahead to get to the final two? Now, there clearly is a path still. It's not a bad result. She has come second in that. It's just a question of it now feels like it's a race between James Cleverley, Kenny Bainock and Robert January to get to the final two. And of course, things could change. You're going to have, you know, once you get past next week, she then have a long period and you have obviously party conference where all four candidates for time to be the membership. Now, Kenny Bainock's problem has always been getting to the final two because she comes out on top and nearly all the membership polling. And I think that, you know, one of the criticisms is she's been too, you know, brisk with colleagues. Some MPs don't want to get behind her. They think she's going to be too abrupt as the leader of the opposition, which, you know, obviously doesn't help when you're trying to get all the use, you know, in the horse trading stage, we're now on where people are going to be desperate trying to get pretty Patel supporters. It makes it a bit harder to do. I actually think Kenny Bainock's best bet is going to be using conference to show her popularity. Because if she can show her popularity with the grassroots and suggest, as Boris Johnson was able to, for example, that she is so much more popular with the grassroots, perhaps because, you know, for example, we remember those party conferences, but there's queues throughout the door all the way down the street to go and see someone speak. And if you had that for her and not for others, I think it was starting to put pressure on MPs to ultimately explain to their voters and, you know, their associations, while they were not backing her, if it was clearly the member's choice. Now, you have other campaign teams who are clearly planning for that scenario, and I think the fact that Robert Genrech had a rally the other night, you know, sorry, the other morning, you couldn't rally at any time. If, you know, had this event and they said, look, all these young people there, I think there'll be a big effort by the camps and the Genrechapping habits to not give her the space to do that. But that is probably where she has probably the ace card to play still if her team can pull it off. Two points to make. First on the conference point, as you say, Katie, you know, the queues are always a great straw poll outside events, but who's most populous? I remember 2018 after Boris resigned, you couldn't go to room with him or Jacoby Smog for the moment of the conference darlings 2021. Of course, the first time we knew that Liz Truss was going to probably be one of the next two or three frontrunners in the Tory leadership contest was when we saw our LGBT cons disco and everyone was loving and when he selfies with her. Well, further back to the five, I was chatting to a veteran MP last night who said that, you know, when Cameron came out of the podium and spoke without his note, all the, you know, conference veterans there with all the first ones ever been done, you know, and so that really impressed the membership. So that's a key thing. And then MPs pick up that from the bars, et cetera. The other point to make is a technical point, which is that the number that's been on most MPs lips has been 41 41 MPs. If you can get a third of the parliamentary behind you with 121 MPs, that means that you will be guaranteed a slot in the final two. We actually had 118 MPs turn up to vote, which seemed to be the two deputy speakers and the leader of the opposition, Rishi Sunak, who didn't vote. And that's in keeping with past party leaders who didn't cast their votes. I believe two's are made at the same in 2019, for instance. So that 118 votes means that you have to get 39.3 a third of that 39 votes. So can be bad knock? She needs to reach the final two. She's on 22 right now. She needs to find 17 MPs. And the question is where those 17 MPs are going to come from. And that's going to be the fascinating question. Because as Katie says, give them the most polls, she'll be the front one among the members. She's fine 17 MPs. That's going to be the races on for the next four weeks. And every other campaign team has an incentive to try and stop her from doing that. Great. Well, thank you, Katie. Thank you, James. Thank you very much for listening. 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