This article was written for the iNewspaper minutes after the result of the third Conservative Party leadership ballot was announced at 3.30pm on Wednesday 8 October 2024. The original can be read HERE.
The Conservative Parliamentary Party rarely ceases to amaze, and usually not in a good way. The result of the third leadership ballot was both expected and unexpected. People expected Tom Tugendhat to bid farewell to the contest, but no one predicted James Cleverly would almost double his vote, and no one predicted that Robert Jenrick would reduce his vote count by two.
Another surprise was the performance of Kemi Badenoch, whom many commentators had written off after her so-called conference “gaffes”. As she told Sky News two Sundays ago: “If they swing for me, I’ll come swinging for them.”
Tugendhat’s 20 votes are now up for grabs on Thursday. It’s easy to be lazy and assume they will all go to Cleverly, but it doesn’t always work like that. There may well be a “Stop Jenrick” movement, in which case centrists may think a Badenoch-Cleverly run-off is preferable to a Cleverly-Jenrick contest, and back Badenoch to ensure that happens.
However, the polling shows that Cleverly would find Jenrick easier to beat among the Conservative Party membership.
Badenoch now has less than 24 hours to turn on the charm and reach out to the rest of the parliamentary party.
In many ways she is the winner today, given so many people had written her off. Each candidate needs 41 votes to qualify for the members’ round. Badenoch is only 11 votes away from that. That is not an unachievable target.
In the minutes after the result was announced, Badenoch issued a statement which urged the right of the party to unite behind her.
She wants to pick off Jenrick supporters. However, it’s a risky strategy as she may well alienate some of her potential One Nation supporters. She is obviously calculating that if she gets five or six Tugendhat supporters to vote for her, that will be enough to see off Jenrick.
The rise of Cleverly is something to behold. Initially, his campaign lacked any form of “oomph” or momentum. His media appearances were lacklustre and it appeared as if he didn’t want it enough. The Conservative conference changed all that. His concluding speech was a gamechanger. Tugendhat fell flat, as did Jenrick, but Cleverly soared.
Almost instantly, his media performances were transformed. He allowed his lightness of touch and sense of humour to shine through, and Wednesday’s results were the result of that. He has what George H W Bush called “The Big Mo”. And that will count for a lot among Tory members, to whom the focus will now shift after tomorrow’s vote.
There are a lot of myths about the Conservative Party membership – especially that they always vote for the most right-wing candidate.
There have only been four leadership elections since party members were given the vote. Ken Clarke was rejected on more than one occasion, not because he was the more left-wing candidate, but because he was pro euro.
In 2005, David Cameron beat the much more right wing David Davis by a two-thirds majority. Boris Johnson beat Jeremy Hunt, not because he was right-wing, but because the membership wanted to get Brexit done. And Liz Truss won because she wasn’t Rishi Sunak, who failed to sell himself to party members. Indeed, he did so much to alienate them.
Whether it’s Cleverly v Badenoch or Cleverly v Jenrick in the final round – and only a fool would make a prediction – party members will have a real choice. And they need to consider it very carefully.
