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Could the Tories have their sixth leader in six years? – politicalbetting.com
Could the Tories have their sixth leader in six years? – politicalbetting.com
The Tory Party is not a happy ship!?Shadow Cabinet ministers say Kemi Badenoch is bombing at PMQs?Reform's Nick Candy is hoovering up donors while Tories are cash-strapped?Kemi left a posh dinner with wealthy footie boss with no backing or chequehttps://t.co/iBIjb94MuP
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On topic, what is the point? It is not as if the Tories have a David Cameron or George Osborne (let alone both) to make the party relevant and coherent again sitting in the wings. Just remember that the alternative was Jenrick. That was the best they could come up with.
She's a dud.
It's not as if there is any obvious alternative path open to them.
The big question is do they elect a Reform lite leader prepared to play lieutenant to Farage or do they elect someone who has the ambition to reassert a distinct identity and the charisma to win arguments.
What the Tories really need is Osborne to come back into front line politics but he seems to be enjoying life making serious money and being an incisive commentator from the side lines. Penny was promoting herself yesterday and seems keen to get back but Osborne seems to have moved on, sadly. Cameron's greatest strength was having someone like that to watch his back. None of these others had that. Who does Kemi have?
The idea that the Tories could regain Reform voters was and is implausible - they need to find a way to tack to the centre and regain Lib Dem voters.
Although as my daughter pointed out yesterday Labour are more centralist than the Lib Dems at the moment.
The difference, though, is that Starmer had the full backing of his party. It doesn't seem that Badenoch does. So she's probably a goner.
On most current polls anyway there will be a hung parliament, which would be more of an achievement for Kemi than Foot, Hague and Ed Miliband achieved after taking over as leader of their party after losing power. In any case if she was removed by MPs her replacement would likely be Stride or Philp who while they might do a bit better at PMQs would likely make little difference in polls, same as when Howard replaced IDS
Wouldn't have delighted the culture war warriors but I'm sure that would have been forgotten with a few competent performances at PMQs. Also in these uncertain times more likely to support Starmer in the UK's best interest, which depressingly may well be necessary.
Still Badenoch is there for a year, so probably until at least 2026 unless she resigns, but very unlikely to still be there for the GE. No value left in laying her to make 2029 or later on the markets
At the moment its all a bit self indulgent, attacking a government which in most respects is doing pretty much what they did in government having lost their way and being mocked for these reasons. If Kemi can't have an Osborne she needs a Keith Joseph or Geoffrey Howe to bring forward ideas and new thinking. She needs to define herself in the public mind. She has barely started that.
'Look, I'm not even going to go there, Trevor'
Shadow Foreign Secretary Dame @pritipatel pushes back on rumours that former PM Boris Johnson is planning a return to politics.
https://x.com/SkyNews/status/1891061156199989578
The Party experienced in July 2024 its worst defeat under universal suffrage - the only saving grace was it finished second in terms of votes and seats making it, by most definitions, still the credible alternative Government.
Coming to terms with such a defeat doesn’t take seven months, it might need seven years or many more. There’s a more than reasonable argument even though the traditional principles of One Nation Toryism may seem irrelevant now their day will inevitably return when people grow tired of tedious populism and want more sensible politics.
The Conservatives must prepare for that and be ready to explain conservatism for the 2030s and beyond.
£90M is Still £40M lower than Liverpool FC’s annual £130M wage budget, for another comparison of how Ox guzzling UK society operates in 2025 though.
Maybe a caretaker in the form of a Michael Howard character, if there is one. I don’t know what the best choice for them is. It is hard to criticise labour when their 14 year record is so mediocre.
She lacks the authority in the party to carry through that sort of thinking, but if she does want lower taxes, she needs to find some benefits to cut first. These need to be better thought through than the antics of DOGEs teenage scribblers.
The Tories best chance at the next election is to put forward a credible economic manifesto, as it is unlikely that Reform will, and it will be poor economic performance that is Labour's vulnerability.
The last thing we need is the return of Boris.
But Jenrick is a bit of a star, is quick witted, amoral and nasty, and would - at least - give starmer a booting at PMQs, which would cheer them up if nowt else
Sadly I can’t see Kemi improving. I feared she was a lightweight, I thought she was worth the risk anyway. But she’s turned out to be lightweight - indeed worse than feared
Better to strike now while no one cares or notices
A annual investment with a similar payoff would surely be vastly preferable to chucking the money away - if that is what we’re doing with this deal.
Good morning!
https://x.com/merrynsw/status/1890712923632185519?s=61
What is it though? What is "Kemi"?
Second favourite is Boris!
He is much better at the pre-recorded piece to camera where he does the whole anger with a steely glint look.
If things don't improve, then Badenoch may just look better, or a new leader could come in, and could probably benefit from coming in close to the election.
I assume the worry is that Reform will be in the position to take over if Labour do fail, and that they need to see off that threat quickly. However, I'm not sure Reform have that broad an appeal. We saw that Labour did incredibly well from a relatively small vote share, but that appears to be because the anti-Labour feeling was relatively low, so they, and the Lib Dems were able to easily swap votes and hoover up seats. Reform could hit the same overall number of votes, but they'll still likely suffer from the same problem as the Tories in 2024 - that anti-Reform voting will be stronger and they'll be facing a coalition of voters.
The example given in the article of extending the freeze on thresholds are the obvious ones.
However my crush is not homoerotic - I tried being gay once - ick
No I genuinely believe he has raw talent. The common touch allied with a cold calculating brain. If the Tories are ever going to recover it will be with a bruiser like him
I cannot see that anywhere else. Cleverly is a friendly void. Hunt lol. Stride lol. Tugendhat ffs. They are
bereft
But maybe his chance has gone and the Tories will once again choose the wrong person after this wrong person and then they are finished forever. Fine by me
Bring on the Nigel
That's about it.
Equally it will also mean pensioners will be paying it on their basic pension - as that is going to hit the £12570 sooner than then...
In more recent times? The leaders bar chart says it all. A succession of unelectable idiots who had the misfortune of being in office thanks to the efforts of someone before them. Getting further and further and further away from being seen as anything suitable for government.
Where they are.
Where they want to be.
How to get there.
Who will enable them to get there.
Short term fixes are pointless. It won’t matter if Reform are 20% ahead in the polls next year. There won’t be an election next year.
https://x.com/BR_OpenIce/status/1890936651762774435
In the Conservatives case the target would be a fifty year plus person end of career with older or grown up children. Concerns: job security, inheritance and healthcare provision. Those are the topics you go hard on and develop friendly policies for.
Labour: thirty somethings, possibly starting a family, likely still renting. Your topics: childcare, schools, rents
Is buying a few hundred thousand infantry rifles and training a few hundred thousand people to use them and pay them a stipend to keep training so we have people who know how to shoot in an emergency which might cost, say £300m over many years better than spending it on 40 tanks?
It’s probably easier in the minds of MOD people to think of spending a billion on 150 odd tanks as good as these are big objects and a billion isn’t that big a deal on the gov balance sheet.
So 90m a year to Mauritius can be used better by the army, or specialist medical units, or helping clothe or feed kids who need help. Unfortunately I think a lot of MPs and Civil Servants just lose all sense of money once in place.
Reading the Sun leak, I'm going to make a few surmises:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/politics/33399607/kemi-badenoch-tory-leadership/
In my opinion it's the wets again. This is usually the source of most stabby briefings, right wingers tend to be more public, but the real reason I think that is the language used. "Keir is getting better" is very friendly to the Labour leader, using first name terms and complimenting his performance. This person almost seems ready to cross the floor. A more right wing leak might have read "Starmer is dreadful at PMQs but she can't even seem to beat him."
That there's nothing about policy is also suspicious. Just that she needs to "listen to her team". So I think this is likely to be one of the centrist no-marks. Of course it could be Jenrick, who is also known to be pretty devious, but I just don't see him being the assassin - he would want to keep his own hands clean. At a stretch it could be an ally - but the leak would be more about the challenge from Reform, not how great 'Keir' is at PMQs.
The medium is also telling - The Murdoch press. It's all very Gove. Very the people that engineered Kemi into place to start with.
Despite saying that Kemi wasn't up to it from day 1, I do feel a bit sorry for her now with the Tory backbiting operation in full swing. She's trying to please everyone and pleasing no-one.
There are a few examples that you can find YouTube vids of, mostly from the last 12 months since he came to prominence but I can remember some very awkward Today outings when he was a minister (and that time he ducked a commons question on his planning scandal and sent his deputy).
https://m.economictimes.com/news/international/global-trends/3-fights-in-9-seconds-what-led-to-the-fist-fights-between-us-canada-ice-hockey-teams/amp_articleshow/118297461.cms
https://undercutters.podbean.com/e/will-the-2025-formula-1-season-live-up-to-the-hype/
(If the total cost of petrol had kept pace with inflation since 2010, it would now be 178p per litre. A real terms cut of 21%).
Allowing Hunt’s 5p cut to expire this Spring would save £10 billion over the next four years. Letting fuel duty rise with inflation would add an additional £5 billion.
https://www.smf.co.uk/commentary_podcasts/the-chancellor-can-save-15-billion-by-allowing-fuel-duty-cuts-to-expire/
Not saying its a great idea, but you can see the temptation for a chancellor who has boxed herself in by ruling out so many of the usual levers. Would buy plenty of uniforms for all the new squaddies been sent to peacekeep in Ukraine.
It was with his trademark contempt for his country’s traditional allies that the US president blindsided them by announcing that he had initiated peace negotiations with Vladimir Putin over the heads of Ukraine and the European members of Nato. The UK received no more warning of this bombshell than anyone else. So much for the vaunted “special relationship”. Humiliated and anguished, European leaders are crying “betrayal”. The UK government is not adding its voice to that charge in public, but it privately agrees.
The biggest surprise is that so many people claim to be surprised. We knew that this US president despises America’s historic allies among the European democracies as he disdains the architecture of international security that his predecessors built. His geopolitics is one in which carnivorous great powers cut deals with each other and the smaller ones fall into line or get crushed underfoot. Europeans are right to be angry with Trump, but they should also be furious with themselves. They are to blame for leaving their continent so vulnerable to this danger-infused turn in world events.
It is not that Europe lacks the resources to protect itself without US assistance. The means are there; what’s been lacking is the will. Defence spending is about to become a lively issue in British politics. George Robertson...has been leading a strategic defence review. His grim findings have just been delivered to the desks of the defence secretary and the prime minister.
John Healey, the defence secretary, has effectively conceded that [Britain is not adequately resourcing its security] already by decrying the “hollowed-out” armed forces left behind by the Tories, a “dire inheritance” which includes the smallest army since the Napoleonic wars and an air force losing pilots faster than it can train replacements.
People in a position to know tell me that Sir Keir is becoming swayed by the case to spend more. It is going to take a lot of effort to shift the dial, but the need to do so is becoming pressing. There’s an old diplomatic saw: “If you’re not at the table, you’ll probably be on the menu.” In this era of international relations, exemplified by Trump seeking to do a strongman-to-strongman deal with Putin to carve up Ukraine, the law of the jungle is beginning to prevail. If the UK and the rest of Europe don’t want their vital interests to be on the menu, we’re going to have to stump up the cost of a seat at the table.
But here’s one of the more embarrassing ones on one of the topics that makes him squirm the most. An extended illustration of Jenrick in policy interview rather than tirade mode.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=04gg_6P5RjM
And citation for the commons question dodge.
https://www.cityam.com/robert-jenrick-ducks-questioning-on-his-role-in-unlawful-planning-decision/
HS2 to Manchester was a paltry £37 billion in comparison.
Jenrick admitted that he had unlawfully approved the planning application due to “apparent bias”, but he denies that he had accepted party donations for a favourable decision.
(Desmond sat next to Jenrick at dinner just before he overturned the decision, and popped 12k into party coffers a couple of
weeks afterwards).
Taxing a sale discourages sales. Taxing an illiquid asset (eg with land value tax) encourages (forces) sales.
If that’s the best you can do then pfff
That would totally f*** labour mobility by meaning no home/mortgage owner ever moves home again, it's dis-incentivised already with fees and stamp duty.
However, as things stand at the moment, I would be too surprised to see Trump actually at the Russian May Day celebrations, and celebrating, with Putin, 'peace' in Ukraine.
Meanwhile Zelenskyy will be seeking asylum in the West.
The people notably not celebrating will be the Iranians who will not only lost a market for their drones but will have to reduce the price of their oil.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crm73z0np93o.amp
"The French winemaker whose wines are illegal in his home country"
I expect the howls of rage would be biblical, though.
If Starmer were a strong leader he'd be making this arguments right now and adopting a masochism strategy to take the points straight to the Daily Mail and Daily Express that, if he played his cards right, would be conflicted.
'That Kemi has turned my mate into a zombie'
'I hear Elon is on the Kemi now'
But like fuel duty, or WFP, the country would descend into hysterics.
"2025 is about what Europeans do, not what Americans say"
Which is either a truly hopeful way of looking at it, or presages unfathomable despair...
That's true, and why I couldn't (and didn't) vote for him.