Conventional wisdom has it that the favourite never wins Tory leadership races. In one sense, this is probably true. I don’t have the historic figures but before every leadership election since the Party moved away from the old Magic Circle method of leaders ‘emerging’, there’s a good case that the person who emerged the winner was not the one seen as most likely to succeed in the period before the election was called.
Comments
This poll should be accurate. Lay Rory?
https://twitter.com/goodwinmj/status/1140681238690390017?s=21
Does anyone know why Johnson withdrew in 2016? If not, why does nobody care?
Boris Johnson believes in Boris Johnson and will believe in whatever he thinks it will take to get elected.
Whether apocryphal or true, the story that he wrote two columns for the telegraph, one for leave and one for remain, on the eve of declaring, speaks volumes.
People say Farage is a spiv and a huckster, but at least you know what he stands for.
Unfortunately, like Brown in 2007 that doesn't seem to apply this time.
It is true Boris was favourite when May resigned but bookmakers and Betfair opened markets on Theresa May's successor as soon as she was elected. If you'd laid every favourite since then, you'd be well in profit on George Osborne and David Davis, and quite possibly Gove, Hammond and Rees-Mogg as well.
His odds only make sense if you think he'll overtake Hunt and Gove to make the final two. And not because he'd then win; because he'd then shorten with Boris beating him 65:35.
If Boris's team have any sense of mathematics they'll be manoeuvring to prevent that.
At the rally tonight Rory made a very gracious tribute to David Gauke and his leadership qualities and what he had learnt from him as a junior Minister.
I think integrity in a leader is something Rory values and something he doesn't see in Boris. Remember he was a junior Minister at one point in the FCO so he probably has personal experience of what Boris is really like.
Scottish and Welsh Remain voters do have a non-wishy washy alternative, and will largely take it.
I make a principled stand.
You get to the end of your tether.
He, she or it petulantly flounces.
More or less...
Raab really isn’t very bright.
Seems to me that Tories are sleep walking into another May-style PM f-ck up.
Boris is just not being tackled on anything because he wont do the events. Just as May was not found out in the crucible of a proper leadership election.
They will rue the day.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/06/17/did-rory-stewart-spy-mi6-intrigue-surrounds-tory-candidate-leadership/
Stewart's team privately believe they are two votes short at the moment.