Badenoch and Truss close in on Mordaunt
Liz Truss and Kemi Badenoch have closed the gap on second-place Penny Mordaunt in the Tory leadership contest, setting the stage for a dramatic finale to the knockout phase.
With the Tory leadership/heatwave metaphors boiling over to fever pitch, MPs dripped into the Commons and voted as follows:
Rishi Sunak – 115 votes (+14)
Penny Mordaunt – 82 (-1)
Liz Truss – 71 (+7)
Kemi Badenoch 58 (+9)
As anticipated, Tom Tugendhat finished bottom – with 32 votes – and has been eliminated, while Rishi Sunak extended his lead. He’s now a shoo-in for a top two finish.
Yet the results leave the race wide open. Going backwards is a disaster for Penny Mordaunt, who was riding high last week after an initial surge – although considering the onslaught she has received from the press, it’s surprising that she didn’t lose more.
Instead, the momentum seems to have shifted to the right-wingers – Liz Truss and Kemi Badenoch. Even so, it’s a complicated picture. Truss would have hoped to pick up a lot more than seven of Suella Braverman’s 27 votes, after the Attorney-General endorsed her.
It’s a great result for Badenoch, who’s cemented herself as a serious contender. There’s even a small chance that she hoovers up enough of Tugendhat’s votes tomorrow to squeeze Truss out of third place, and out of the contest.
Badenoch will be even more pleased considering she failed to capitalise in the mud-slinging TV debates over the weekend.
On ITV last night, candidates were able to put questions to each other, ensuring they didn’t pull any punches, unlike the cagier affair on Channel 4 on Friday. While Sunak copped most of the flak, he countered with some well-aimed barbs of his own, calling Truss a “socialist” for her unfunded tax-cutting plans.
For Sunak and Truss, two debates was plenty. Today, Sky cancelled its Tuesday night debate after the two candidates pulled out.
Sunak and Truss probably had the most to lose and the least to gain from a third bout. But the bigger worry from both camps, and Tory MPs more widely, is that candidates tearing each other – and the party’s record in government – to shreds on live TV is a gift to Labour. Sunak is believed to have turned to Truss after Friday’s abrasive showdown and asked: “Why are we doing this?”
The debates may well have damaged the Tory brand. But don’t the candidates owe it to the public to debate the vital issues the country faces? And if it’s all about optics, swerving scrutiny and open debate isn’t a great look for any party.
In any case, now the televised scraps are out of the way, all eyes are on the parliamentary arithmetic. Could Team Sunak lend out votes to engineer an outcome that suits their man? According to the latest ConHome polling, Truss would be the favourite if she makes it to the final two, beating both Sunak and Mordaunt. Sunak is projected to do better against Mordaunt than Truss.
NASA would have trouble crunching all the permutations. But one thing’s certain. The Tory party is guaranteed to elect the UK’s second ethnic minority prime minister (remember Disraeli) or third female premier – or both.