7 Comments

Badenoch is making it known that she sees the LibDems as the likely next leaders of the opposition. I would say that is more likely if she wins the Tory leadership and she probably will. However, her getting as far as the next election seems unlikely.

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The two critical issues for the Tories are going to be

1) their relationship with the faragists. Friends or foes?

2) ditto with the Lib Dems - altho if either of the 2 remaining candidates with it’ll be foes. Which will give the LDs a quandary. Do they go for replacing the Tories as the centre-right Party? Or outflank Labour to the left? They can’t do both?

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It'll be Jenrick not Badenoch because she's got the minor problem with the membership of being black. There will be a temptation to call this result mad, because that's the easy go-to whenever the right move even more right, but the tories will consolidate their voting block where they can and they think their voting block is extreme right - especially as they are trying to outflank reform uk. Which they won't. Their fundamental issue is that the people who vote for them are dying and not being replaced. They still refuse to grasp this fundamental issue and the fact that they have shat on the young'uns for a very, very long time still hasn't got through yet. But the young'uns won't forget quickly.

Why should we care? because these guys with the full support of their chums in the media will get the spotlight and their issues will be put front and centre even if they only affect the tiniest minority of people (and by affect of course I mean bully the powerless). We can expect the quality of their output to worsen and if you thought the gutter was the lowest they could go...well...we are about to see.

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It seems like a gift to the Labour and LibDems to have a hard right Tory leader, but it's far from that simple.

Firstly, I expect Ed Davey to build on his unconventional genius and latter respect and take out more Tory seats from a low risk, low profile position as the biggest 3rd party under a FPTP system in the world for decades. But for Labour, the shock exposure of government and economic crisis together with the right wing monster press, could throw them under a bus and too many of their MP's have small majorities.

If Labour can't turn things around significantly in 3-4 years, the public could lose patience with them and a Badench or Jenerick premiership could happen....god help us. In fact it's worse. Some Tory MPs and major donors are obsessed with re-uniting the right on the model of the Reform Party of Canada with a merger, as happened with the Progressive Conservatives of Canada. Badenoch could easily crash and burn as leader of opposition and we could end up with Farage v Starmer in the 2029 General Election.

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Ha ha, I was looking forward to seeing what you had to say about this!

Don't know why I hadn't subscribed before, but have now.

I thought Cleverly would have been a formidable foe for both Labour and the Lib Dems. The Tory membership now have a choice between genuine crazy hard/far right* and cartoon villain insincere hard/far right. (*Despite her evident craziness and paranoia, I do think Badenoch has some qualities which mean she could be underestimated.)

I think the obvious question now is 'how long will the new leader last?' I can't see either of them leading the Tories into the next general election.

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Which all adds up to: the Tory party is a total waste of space. Something completely new is needed.

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As bad as the Tories are, there can always be worse. Populists are the risk for anything new

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