Who's your pick? Thoughts on the Conservative Party leadership contest

If the Conservative Party wants to change, it needs to, as Bing sang “accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, latch on to the affirmative, don’t mess with Mr In-between"

I let my Conservative Party membership lapse in December 2019 so I will not have a say in who gets to be leader of what I still think of as ‘my’ party. That Party faces a big hill to climb but it is a very differently shaped hill compared to that of 1997. While Labour has a huge majority allowing it to force through whatever it wants, that Party also knows that they weren’t elected with any enthusiasm from the voters. There is no ‘Cool Britannia’, no sunlit uplands, no sense of a new era. Labour in government feels already like a government that plans on doing what the previous Sunak government did only slightly more competently. Even Starmer’s ‘missions’ are studiously vague - as my business school lecturer was wont to say: “your mission or objective is worthless if it isn’t quantifiable and deliverable”.

Britain - not just Britain - has an electorate suffering from a sort of irritated ennui that sometimes tips over into anger. People have heard so many platitudinous speeches from politicians promising to fix everything only to see those same politicians focused on knee jerk reactions to the latest moral panic or photo-opportunity driven policies trading off the back of tragedy or disaster. One reason the forthcoming election in the USA is so close is that Kamala Harris has adopted a position (admittedly slightly artificial) of ‘joy’ and happiness. And I guess having an option who isn’t an old, rude man is something of a breath of fresh air.

If the Conservative Party wants to change itself and the country, it needs to, as Bing sang “accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, latch on to the affirmative, don’t mess with Mr In-between”. People, even comfortably off retired Conservative Party members, want their national leader to point towards a way out of the mess, a way to those sunlit uplands. This means talking about the big wicked issues rather than, as at present, focusing on whatever event gets the most clicks for the media.

Six people have put their name in the hat to be the next leader of the Conservative Party. They face two electorates, the parliamentary party (and given the rules, sixty - half - of that electorate is accounted for in the nominations so the result could be very close) followed by the Party’s members. This is the only game in town for the Tories at the moment since the new, shiny Labour government is gobbling up media attention and excitement (although it is maybe not going as well for them as they’d hoped). Here are some very brief thoughts based on my not very attentive observing of the leadership campaign so far:

Priti Patel. By far the best presented of the candidates. Looks good as we’d expect from someone who started out in PR consultancy. Patel’s pitch appears, at face value, to be directed to Conservative Party members - “heroic members” as she calls them in her campaign launch - with offers of a bigger role for them albeit without (other than a ‘members’ day’ at party conference) being clear as to what this ‘bigger role’ might look like. As a former home secretary it isn’t a surprise that Patel’s policy pitch focuses on immigration and crime with a side order of ‘Our NHS’. Patel has, however, defended the points-based immigration system that many see as much of the problem. Cynics might suggest that Patel doesn’t really expect to get to the member vote but sees her campaign as keeping her place in the Conservative limelight.

Tom Tugendhat. I shouldn't say it but everyone’s inability to spell Tugendhat isn’t a positive for the man who has taken up the fairly tattered banner of ‘One Nation’ conservatism (or at least the slightly corrupted version of One Nation represented by the One Nation parliamentary grouping). Tugendhat’s pitch is hard to glean, like all the other candidates he talks about unity and some form of party reform. Like Patel, Tugendhat centres his area of expertise, in this case defence and security, often by speaking directly of his experience on active service in Iraq and Afghanistan. This positioning is strong as Tories like the military and military leadership, often seeing it as a metaphor for the delivery-focused approach to government that Tom Tugendhat speaks about in his pitch for leader. Tugendhat is a serious contender, no cynics suggest he doesn’t want the job, but he suffers from being tarred with the ‘One Nation’ tag (despite not having been a member of the One Nation Group in parliament).

Mel Stride. “Who?”  Stride rose to senior ranks in government without any fanfare and was a cabinet minister who, unlike others, succeeded in not dropping the baton. Stride feels like the ‘Continuity Sunak’ candidate and, in the same way as Tom Tugendhat, talks a deal about restoring trust. In Stride’s case the focus is on ‘careful opposition’ including backing Labour where “we think they’re doing the right thing”. This ‘uniparty’ approach isn’t popular with members but carries a lot of support within parliament, especially from those members looking to their short-term career opportunities. Stride, like the other candidates, points to his personal expertise, playing on his successful business career before entering politics and his role chairing the Treasury Select Committee. Stride oozes competence and won’t frighten the horses but, as political pundit Ian Dale suggested, lacks the p’zazz a leader will need to break down Labour.

Kemi Badenoch. The favourite of the ‘very online right’, Badenoch launched her campaign for the leader’s job with a reminder that Dr Who (or rather an actor who played Dr Who) and her had a spat during the election over her views about the transgender debate. Badenoch (or Kemi as she’ll get called because, like Tom Tugendhat she has a tricky surname) is positioning herself as two things: someone who has thought about and is prepared to make the case for conservatism, and as a sort of attack dog candidate who will, as William Hague did in the late 1990s, take the battle to the Labour enemy. Badenoch focuses on her experience in parliament, coos to her online supporters and sets out her stall as the ‘anti-woke warrior’ candidate. Badenoch has set up a sort of faction which, according to what seems to be an iron rule these days where every right-of-centre group has a name beginning with the prefix Re-, is called Renewal. It feels like Badenoch, with Suella Braverman opting out from the leadership campaign, has chosen the Farage-light position albeit with more focus on those woke issues rather than immigration and crime.

Robert Jenrick. While Jenrick’s pitch isn’t centred on it, his two main policy positions - on housing and immigration - are both informed by him being sacked as housing minister and resigning as immigration minister. Jenrick has positioned himself on the right of the party but with a more policy-rich pitch than any other candidate for leader. While he too talks about unity, about party reform and the task of opposition, there is a sense of political mission too. What’s unclear, however, is whether Jenrick’s “I resigned because we weren’t strong enough on immigration” alienates a part of the parliamentary party that either wished it had the job Jenrick resigned from or sees him as part of the reason for the disastrous election result. There will be some in the parliamentary party - and perhaps the wider membership too - who see Jenrick as a divisive figure.

James Cleverly. “The Twitter Candidate” as some wag dubbed him on seeing his slick but largely contentless campaign video. Cleverly is, we’re told, on the left of the party (at least by the ‘very online right’) largely because of his role as Home Secretary under Sunak. Unsurprisingly Cleverly stresses unity by talking about how divided parties don’t win elections but there’s a sense that the target is more specific in this case. Although Cleverly’s pitch is plainly Tory - low taxes, safe streets, more defence spending - there’s a sense that the ‘we can’t be divided’ is very much directed at the ‘No True Conservative’ faction in the party that seeks a sort of purity test around Europe, immigration and ‘wokeness’. Where the other candidate from the left of the party, Tom Tugendhat, seems conciliatory and receptive to at least hearing the arguments of the Reform-adjacent parts of the party, Cleverly’s pitch feels like they rather than labour are his enemy.

There’s a fair old way to go yet but the first round is on Wednesday with very little indication as to the result. Most observers suggest that Mel Stride and Priti Patel are most likely to be eliminated but nobody is really sure. I've a feeling that the final two will come from Tugendhat, Badenoch and Jenrick. Of these I think Badenoch is too narrow in her idea of conservatism, Jenrick sounds like an ambitious junior minister addressing party conference, and Tugendhat seems very risk-averse, more interested in management than leadership. On the positive side, Badenoch could be genuinely change-making (but let’s remember Liz Truss here), Jenrick has a substantive policy agenda that talks about the big issues, and Tugendhat may well be able to take some really tough decisions (not letting Nigel Farage into the Party, for example) that don’t play well with the ‘very online right’.

The real positive here is that the Conservative Party shows that it still has, despite the mauling of the 4th July, plenty of talent. Indeed one big challenge for the new leader will be how to treat the 200 people who lost their seats at the recent election.

Let battle commence!

Update: First Round Results:

Robert Jenrick 28

Kemi Badenoch 22

James Cleverly 21

Tom Tugendhat 17

Mel Stride 16

Priti Patel 14

Priti Patel is eliminated.