Coffee House Shots
Who will lead the Tories in opposition?
Get three months of the spectator for just three pounds. Go to spectator.co.uk/trial Hello and welcome to Coffee Outshots. I'm James Hill. I'm joined today by Katie Bulles and Fraser Nelson. Now Katie, it's been a big 24 hours in kind of Tory world as the party tries to pick itself up after last week's defeat. We had the first shadow cabinet meeting and we also had the 1922 committee election for chairman. Tell us about both. Yeah, it's an interesting time in terms of what's happening with the Tory leadership because you effectively have lots of contenders. I think we can guess who most of them are and lots of Tory politicians just randomly giving interviews on broadcast, writing long op-eds and in some cases posing at parties but not a single candidate has declared saying they are definitely running for the leadership. Now the contest has not officially started but you can still have someone say I'm going to run when it happens. No one's done that. That is because I think there's a little bit of waiting to see what the format for the contest is but I think it's still a lot of raw upset when it comes to the mood and the parliamentary party and I think particularly the mood on the over 200 Tory MPs who lost their seats just last week. Lots of candidates I think spent the weekend calling Rand those figures. Rishi said it was also calling Rand to one by one. Losey lost their seat to apologize rather than to position himself. But I think a much of the feedback was don't make this about you right now. Now is not the time to jump into what can be seen as posturing. Therefore it's a delicate balancing act for those who want to be in contention which is to put enough feelers out that they're still talked about or seen without looking as though they're going too far and you look at Sue L. Abravman and her comments in the US talking about LGBT, you look at some of her attacks on Rishi Sunak and it does feel as though support is just sapping away and a sense that those who you would might expect back Sue L. Abravman could actually go for someone like Robert Generate with a contest to begin. But so can you be critical and be a contender? Of course you can't have to bad defeat. It depends how you do it and perhaps we have an example of how to do it from the shadow cabinet yesterday where Rishi Sunak obviously addressed his shadow cabinet up until recently was addressing her cabinet and she had Jeremy Hunt and a few of his very loyal soldiers, almost praising Rishi Sunak for avoiding an even worse defeat, a potential wipe-out scenario for something to rebuild from. And I think Cami Badenock, the shadow business actually saw this and ultimately snapped exactly and she's down for being pretty direct and she was direct. As we understand it, she effectively said to Rishi Sunak that it was an awful defeat, that he said he was taking his blame but why not let's go into it a bit and start talking about it around having an elephant in the room, suggested Craig Williams, his PPS was a buffoon that's obviously by the Gamble Gate story began and also said that the D-Day gaff whereby Rishi Sunak left early had cost seats and specifically cited Penny Mordency which clearly is a military seat which she lost narrowly and saying that you have forced more MPs to lose their seats and they need to do. Fraser, what did you make of it? The outburst is quite interesting because anybody who knows Cami will know this is very typical of her. I mean you can just imagine her sort of blood pressure rising as they go around the table praising Sunak for his assured performance and as you go I can't believe we're all saying this, you know, and from what I've heard this from a couple of people around the table that she was saying that basically Mrs. Walker got us into this mess, we all sat around like nodding dogs while he led us into the abyss and she's saying to him you didn't consult us about the election, you went to the king before you came to tell us, it's supposed to be the other way around, that was borderline unconstitutional she was saying and I guess the Sunak, obviously what he was trying to do and is trying to do is to keep holding it together saying look guys we're just a terrible defeat but let's try and keep our composure, let's not just tear each other to shreds. Now I can see the logic in that but I think he perhaps pushed it a bit too far going the other way saying look okay let's chin up guys let's start talking about how we're going to oppose the king's speech so in other words having no force mortem at all, now another member of that shadow cabinet told me while the rishi Sunak will be the first prime minister who will need police protection inside parliament but not outside parliament because so many of his own party members would want to lynch him, so the anger at Sunak himself is absolutely huge, anger which they obviously didn't express during the campaign because what's the point, the moment he calls an election if you criticize the leader you're weakening the whole side so many of them feel as if they haven't really had a chance to say to rishi Sunak what were you thinking with a snap election, where was the logic, you're completely unprepared and this defeat is a lot worse so it's not just cathartic for them, I think there is a feeling that a party that doesn't recognize its mistakes is going to be condemned to repeat them, now James you're in your political column for the magazine which had the pleasure of editing, it's morning, what jumped at me there was the idea that there's a body of support now, if you have a new Tory leader to be chosen after the Tory conference, so that means that Sunak who by the way was standing up yesterday saying how much he looked forward to serving his constituents in North Yorkshire, in other words I'm not going to California like you all think, that he would continue trying to hold this quite difficult line all the way through the summer to October and perhaps beyond. I think that when it comes to that timeline it definitely feels that that's where figures on the 1922 are, the new chairman in the side of pushing it long trying to replicate what happened when they were selecting David Cameron, but I do get a sense that the mood is shifting a bit in parts of the Tory party because now it's being said that they won't have a leader until conference, I think there are questions being asked is this actually just leaving a massive vacuum, are you going to have the same fights, I personally think you're going to have pretty similar fights whether you have them in a month's time, a week's time, or an eight month's time. I don't think eight months of reflection, obviously I'm being dramatic in terms of my time period, it's going to be that Robert Janrich suddenly changes his mind and agrees with Tom Teigenheart on X, you're still going to be having these conversations, so I don't understand not going into parliamentary knockout rounds before the summer recess because perhaps in that in the heat of the election defeat, some things that we might not expect to happen and things could be said in the heat at the moment. But I think pushing it and then having it all over party conference is a risk because it means that Kia Starmer is not going to have a clear opposing voice because it's going to be Rishi Sunai trying to keep an awkward piece as Fraser said, and then you also have Nigel Farage in the comments who wants to pitch himself as the opposition to Labour, and I think the risk is that suddenly he feels any void left by the Tories, and the Tories potentially look as though they're just naval gazing at a time when Labour are actually doing things in government. One of the striking things again, James, of quoting your column here is you pointed out that Michael Howard in 2005 after that defeat went out of his way to promote unlikely people to big jobs to let them show their skills. So he made David Cameron in the shadow education sector, et cetera, promoted George Osborne, so those two were taken from relatively new positions into senior ones. Saying to himself, "I'm going to create the space for you guys to audition, so the party can choose from the widest range of talent." Ultimately that succeeded in Cameron, succeeded where David Davis failed, but that isn't happening this time. In fact, it does look, as Katie says, like exactly the usual suspects who aren't changing. The historic course, I would say, is clear of Cortina, who I think is incredibly impressive politician, but of course what everybody inside Westminster knows, the average outsider doesn't, is that she has seemed to be basically the next creatures, the next creations. Somebody who is a special advisor, who he put into Parliament, and therefore is so associated with him that she wouldn't be leader certainly this time around, because I think it was going to be at least two Tory leaders before the next election. I think whoever they choose will de facto be an interim one. Yeah, and I think that much like you talk about the long 19th century, this could be the long 2022 race in some ways. If you think about the names we're mentioning, a lot of them ran in 2022. It can be bad knocked on the Toukenhat. One of the names can be considered almost did last time, but then have been taken by events. Much like, as you say, Fraser, if there's a kind of sense that this could be like 2001, whereby the leader that time didn't last the course, because they weren't supported by the MPs, you could get a sense, perhaps, where people who were sort of were junior, collected in 2019, some rising stars, such to say Laura Troft for Gareth Davis might stand in two years' time rather than this time. There's a member's pool that this morning, which shows M came out by some margin in front. Now, to me, that's significant not because it shows that she'll win, but most Tory leadership contests take the following format. You have the front runner, and then everybody unites against the front runner, so you've got anybody but the front runner candidate. So you end up with Tory leadership candidates chosen for who they're not as opposed to who they are. Now, let's remember that Joe Major was chosen because he wasn't Michael Heseltine, Ian Duncan Smith was chosen because he wasn't Michael Pertillo. So you could well be that if Kimmy Bayden is out significantly in front of the members, that there is some kind of let-a-stop Kimmy candidate. So you might get somebody chosen, not because they've got the greatest strengths, but because they've got the fewest enemies. And that's where you can see a kind of Robert Generate position. And Tom Turganette, of course, who strategically timed his birthday from one day he had his drinks. The day he was born he timed? Yes, exactly. You can see what he's up to. I can see what he's up to. So he's sort of starting his leadership campaign already there. Positioning himself as the man who can defend the right and the left flank, the implication being Kimmy is just good enough to defend the right. I think what's interesting looking at that poll is it shows that Kimmy Baydenock has the most support, but also almost half of Tory members want the party to merge reform. Now, that would not happen under Kimmy Baydenock in the sense of a merger. She's been quite clear that she sees Nigel Farage as someone who should not be in the Tory party given he's on the record. Well, he might debate the phrase on it, but give him reform and some members of it on the record saying they want to destroy it. And Nigel Farage has been talking about what comes after the Tories. I think that she says he should not be in it, but I think the Kimmy Baydenock pitch would be, yes, you're not doing a merger of reform, but she would argue she can get those voters back so you don't need the merger. Look, the question should be able to deliver it. I suppose just finally, if we think that Kimmy Baydenock is the one to be, in terms of the other candidates and who's getting support, I think if it does go to the membership and there's some talk of senior Tories, which is, should we change the rules so the membership get less of a say? A lot of the Tory MPs I've spoken to think this is an atrocious idea. I had one new Tory MP say to me, if that was seriously pushed, there would be a big regret against it because you'd be saying, okay, so when the membership picked Boris Johnson, who went on to win a large result in 2019, that was the membership. The membership did not want Rishi Sunak and, in fact, they look at the result when the MPs picked. Now, that is just an argument they made, but I think you'll hear a lot about that, which is, I think, Tory MPs starting to say, almost the membership is getting a bad rap in terms of decisions, whereas they do need to have a voice on this. Otherwise, you're going to have a lot of unrest in terms of how the two function. Yes. I suppose any two leaders who won a majority in this century were both chosen by the members. David Cameron has no five and Boris Johnson as you say, Katie, in 2019. This trust not so much. She never got to actually sound the election, though, did you? Well, if she had, who knows what might be. But exactly. Those who want to dethrone the members. But just the point to her saying, look, the members are barking mad, proof of which is that they elected this trust. So I was talking to George Freeman recently. He was saying that he proposes that the members will come up with a short list of three who the MPs then choose. So you can tell that that has brought this, because right now, I think they think that the members will go for Kemi. And if you actually look at the pools of the membership last time around, Kemi Badenek was actually out in front, ahead of Rochi Senek, ahead of this trust. And it was a Tory MPs who made sure that the votes were done in such a way, but they never got to vote for Kemi. That it was a choice between Senek and trust, the implication being surely you're not mad enough to choose trust. And of course, they kind of did. So I think that their attempts to, the system is kind of, is very strange, is not particularly effective. Also Boris, by the way, was hated in the parliamentary party. He probably would never have been made leader if it was just up to MPs, because they all resented him, but it was lazy. He hasn't spent enough time in the Commons. But as you say, James, it worked. So these are all the many questions which the Tories are going to have many months to resolve. My prediction is this is going to be an ongoing saga. And that come the year 2027, we're still having varieties of this conversation. Lucky us. Thank you, Katie. Thank you, Fraser. And thank you for listening to Copier Shots. [Music]