[Bones McCoy]

Badenoch is now claiming that there is a dirty tricks campaign to stop her being the next leader. She reckons that Jenrick supporters lent some of their votes to Cleverly to try and eliminate Badenoch in the first round. If this is true then it would suggest that Jenrick has already got lots of support and this support will grow even greater if he gets the support of Patel's backers.

They really don't like anyone trying harder to win an election than they do.

Enemies of Aspiration, grumble, grumble.

[Youngian]

She reckons that Jenrick supporters lent some of their votes to Cleverly to try and eliminate Badenoch in the first round.

A tactic so well known it was old hat in the Roman senate. Perhaps Kemi’s time will come after two disastrous years of Bastard Bob at the top.

[Andy McDandy]

The entire concept of big tent two party politics is lending your votes to the least worst option. The alternative being coalitions of chaos.

[davidjay]

And yet again I'll return to what I've said before. The Tories don't on the whole go for contenders who appear to want the job. They much prefer the "Oh alright, if no-one else will" candidate. As with everything, they like to hide their real feelings beneath a veneer of politeness.

[Watchman]

More recently I’ve seen it more as those with the sharpest elbow, and a self belief in their own “competence”, boosted by syncopates

[Abernathy]

Were you trying for “sycophants”, there ?

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Syncopation accents the weak part of the bar. I'd say it was appropriate.

[satnav]

The leadership election will take a bit a bizarre twist when the remaining 4 candidates address the Tory Party conference because they will essentially be pitching to the grassroots but the grassroots won't get a say until MPs have eliminated two more candidates. So the two candidates who give the best speeches to conference could fail to make it onto the ballot paper for the national vote.

[Crabcakes]

Badenoch is now claiming that there is a dirty tricks campaign to stop her being the next leader…

They really don't like anyone trying harder to win an election than they do.

Also, nothing says “party unity” and “not another egomaniac, honest” like accusing people voting for someone else in an open vote as using dirty tricks because you can’t comprehend that maybe they see you as the absolute bin fire waiting to happen that you are.

[mattomac]

They don't need much more than that. Labour will get squeezed by Greens and Jez with "peace and wealth tax" even if the Tory leader does nothing. Badenoch or Jenrick will get some Reform voters back just by being in opposition and not needing to talk in practical terms.

Not sure to be honest, you have to remember Sunak was seen as a “moderate” unless they plump for Stride or Tungenhat they will struggle to keep that idea.

Also their voter base is getting older and older, they effectively have to renew themselves, as I said I bet Labour get more votes and less seats next time out.

I expect they will still have a majority without some major unforeseen event, polling isn’t much worth looking at at the moment. And election is 4 years away at least and the sooner it is the better it is for Labour.

The Tories don’t even have a leader.

[Tubby Isaacs]

They'll have one soon, and they'll be more able to appeal to Reform voters than Sunak who could have shot a migrant on Dover Beach and wouldn't have got a vote back from Reform. I see them ass being in a sort of Labour post 1983 position. They'll come back, because what's important is that they beat the Lib Dems and Reform in terms of seats.

[Abernathy]

TI see them ass being in a sort of Labour post 1983 position.

So what they're looking for is, roughly speaking, a Tory Neil Kinnock ?

Now, who could that be ?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Labour 1983 had lost a load of votes to the Alliance. The 2024 Tories have lost a lot of votes to the rightwing equivalent of the Militant Tendency. So not Kinnock, Somebody more like Tony Benn (except having held his seat).

I take Matt's point that they such an old support base though. Has any party ever faced that?

[Crabcakes]

TI see them ass being in a sort of Labour post 1983 position.

So what they're looking for is, roughly speaking, a Tory Neil Kinnock ?

Now, who could that be ?

The problem they have is that their ‘Neil Kinnock’ was probably expunged by Johnson in his ego quest. So the people who could really drag them back - the Dominic Grieve, Rory Stewart or David Gauke - are already gone. They have to fashion their comeback with someone arguably worse than the people they’re replacing. Like if Michael Foot had been replaced by the 2019 incarnation of Corbyn.

I think they’re now relying on luck. Luck that a new MP who we probably don’t even know the name of yet will emerge as a potential leader, luck that that person isn’t sidelined or deliberately scuppered by a Badenoch or Johnson type, and luck that there is still something left for them to take over by the time they get there.

I’m not wholly convinced there will be, but if there is I think they’ll have Labour to thank. Hopefully over the course of this and the next parliament the moves back to Europe will continue, the benefits will be seen, and the brexiteers will literally and figuratively die off. Then there might be something - but again there needs to be an element of luck that this territory hasn’t been wholly ceded to the Lib Dems by then.

[Oboogie]

Unsurprisingly, Mel Stride has been eliminated.

[satnav]

Jenrick's vote has increased but he doesn't seem to have picked up all of the votes of those MP's who voted for Patel in the first round. He is still 7 or 8 votes short of ensuring he makes it into the final 2. It will be interesting to see if he can pick up any of Stride's votes.

[Watchman]

I don't know how much more excitement I can take!

[satnav]

The only people getting excited will be Ed Davey and Nigel Farage.

[davidjay]

I'd still put money on Andy Street being leader eventually.

[Abernathy]

I'd still put money on Andy Street being leader eventually.

A lot needs to happen for that to come true. For one thing, Street would need to get into parliament as an MP (or at a pinch get elevated to the House of Lords), and he has reportedly no interest in doing that at all.

Not totally impossible or improbable, but very, very unlikely.