2024 Conservative Leadership Election

[takno]

It is quite normal for the Leader of the Opposition to nominate peers at the routine topping-up times and it would be a considerable breach of convention for Starmer not to put Johnson forward if he is nominated in such a situation. However, the Appointments Commision could object to Johnson’s nomination and it would be unusual (although not unknown: see Cruddas above) to push it through against their objection. Sunak has the right to nominate peers when leaving office and I suspect that these are in the system at the moment: it would be interesting to see if he has nominated Johnson and what happens if the Commission says no.

The counter to this is that its not a particularly old convention, and that Boris and mad Liz already did plenty of topping up for the last parliament.

Given that the Lords is widely accepted to be very overlarge and is already stacked with Tories, and that part of the Labour manifesto was to make inroads into that, I don't think it would be very controversial to say to Sunak that he only gets three.

Looked at another way, it was widely assumed that the queen personally blocked Blair for a long time, so it's not impossible that Charles would personally object to that dreadful oik.

Short answer is that there are loads of blocks to having him in the shadow cabinet, but he probably wouldn't fancy that job anyway. He would be a lot easier to slot in whenever they won an election, with an advance promise that that was how it would be done

 

[Donny Dave]

Given that the Lords is widely accepted to be very overlarge and is already stacked with Tories,

Overlarge? Yes, I agree. Stacked with Tories? Not particularly, as there is 270 tory peers in the near 800 members.

 

[takno]

Overlarge? Yes, I agree. Stacked with Tories? Not particularly, as there is 270 tory peers in the near 800 members.

Something like half the house is crossbenchers though

 

[Donny Dave]

Less than a quarter actually.

Conservative270Crossbench184Labour175Liberal Democrat80Non-affiliated36Bishops26Democratic Unionist Party (DUP)6Green Party2Ulster Unionist Party (UUP)2Plaid Cymru1Conservative Independent1Lord Speaker1Independent Social Democrat1

UK House of Lords composition 2026 | Statista

As of 2026, there were 836 members of the House of Lords in the United Kingdom, with 275 Lords belonging to the Conservative Party, 226 to the Labour Party, and 176 crossbenchers. The remaining members of the House of Lords belonged to smaller political parties or were not affiliated with any...

www.statista.com

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Surely BoJo would get an honour - Knight or Peer of the realm being a former Prime Minster and First Lord of the Treasury?

 

[takno]

Less than a quarter actually.

UK House of Lords composition 2026 | Statista

As of 2026, there were 836 members of the House of Lords in the United Kingdom, with 275 Lords belonging to the Conservative Party, 226 to the Labour Party, and 176 crossbenchers. The remaining members of the House of Lords belonged to smaller political parties or were not affiliated with any...

www.statista.com

Fair enough, although with a significant rump of Bishops and Non-affiliated. The Conservatives are around half of affiliated members, which is fairly predominant.

 

[Gloster]

Surely BoJo would get an honour - Knight or Peer of the realm being a former Prime Minster and First Lord of the Treasury?

It isn’t a right, just a convention. And Johnson has a habit of breaking conventions that don’t suit him. Gordon Brown hasn’t been given a knighthood or raised to the peerage, nor has John Bercow, although there are ‘ostensible’ reasons in his case.

 

[brad465]

It isn’t a right, just a convention. And Johnson has a habit of breaking conventions that don’t suit him. Gordon Brown hasn’t been given a knighthood or raised to the peerage, nor has John Bercow, although there are ‘ostensible’ reasons in his case.

Brown now has a Companion of Honour, which is arguably even higher than a knighthood in honour status. He may get a knighthood eventually, in the same way it took Blair 14 years to get one after leaving office.

 

[Purple Train]

Given this is the closest we have to the former dedicated Conservative Party thread, I thought I'd throw this out here: whilst I was walking through one of the few areas of the country that remains Conservative, I noticed that the local Conservative Club was holding a "Clairvoyant Evening". Even though they'd lost 231 seats, I didn't think they'd be that desperate!

 

[TheGuy77]

It's almost the end of campaigning period.

 

[Acfb]

No chance with Badenoch, Patel or Jenrick.

Neither Tugendhat nor Stride will win, I guess.

What about Cleverly though? I voted for him as most likely winner, as he's somewhat right-wing but not excessively so.

Personally he gets on my wick, as I find him rather condescending and snide. What would the UK population as a whole make of him though? Politically he's perhaps about the same as Mordaunt, slightly on the right of the Tory Party but not radically - but without the "statespersonlike" manner of the latter.

Could Cleverly win an election if Labour massively slipped up? I suspect the winter fuel payment will be mostly forgotten in 5 years so I doubt that would do for Labour; and also it affects a fairly small part of the population in any case. But if Labour messed up in a bigger way could that let Cleverly in? I'm not sure.

I don't think he would get in unless Labour mess up to a much bigger extent than so far, though.

I can see the logic in thinking they must appeal to the Reform vote first to rebuild , anything is possible given electoral volatility( I own up to predicting the 2015 GE wrong for example).it's not untrue that a lot of the seats Labour won in the Midlands and the South were only won due to reform splitting the vote. I tend to think the Tories are out of power until 2034 as a best scenario for them though because virtually all the Lib Dem seats have decent majorities even with Labour shedding a lot of its core vote to the Greens and Independents. Ed Davey is also arguably the best leader the LDs have ever had in terms of gaming FPTP.

Basically the Tories got lucky due to demographics, Brexit etc in the 2010s under Cameron etc but now that has moved on and they were just left with the pensioner vote ( plus a few other sub demographics such as Jewish and Hindu, anti SNP voters in the Scottish Borders etc) in the 2024 election.

I'm still surprised as some of the MP support for Jenrick though such as John Lamont.

Also surprised to see Alex Burghart supporting Badenoch and not Cleverly or Tugendhat.

 

[TheGuy77]

Opinions after campaigning period (noticed that quite a few people put 'none of the above'):
Badenoch 18 votes
Cleverly 20 votes
Jenrick 5 votes
Patel 8 votes
Stride 2 votes
Tugendhat 6 votes
None of the above 11 votes

 

[Blindtraveler]

My 17-year-old colleague is a young conservative flea paid up member and subscriber who has attended all the campaign and meet the candidate events. In some cases travelling a bit of distance to do so as she lives in southeast London and some events were either elsewhere in the city or further out in Kent and at the end of it has concluded that Tom is the only sane one amongst them. There are, however, a couple of fairly obvious rank outsiders according to her who will fall at the first hurdle or indeed may have already fallen given in a couple of cases how bad they were at answering questions from members

 

[jfollows]

Priti Patel is out (https://www.theguardian.com/politic...rvative-leadership-uk-politics-latest-updates):

Priti Patel out of Tory leadership contest, as Robert Jenrick comes top in first round​

Blackman is reading out the results now

Kemi Badenoch: 22

Robert Jenrick: 28

Mel Stride: 16

Tom Tugendhat: 17

James Cleverly: 21

Priti Patel: 14

That means Patel is out of the contest.

The next round of voting will take place on Tuesday next week, when another candidate will be eliminated.

I think Badenoch will win if she gets through to the last two, but might get eliminated before then. Enough people (like me!) don’t care for her at all. But I’m not a Conservative MP!

And 3 MPs didn’t vote?

EDIT Mel Stride had been expected to be bottom, and not many MPs (<20%) voted for Kemi Badenoch, not as many as she’d have hoped anyway.

 

[brad465]

The distribution of MP votes here was very even, so if someone can rally some strong tactical voting that could turn the contest on its head come the final vote.

 

[Trackman]

Priti Patel is out (https://www.theguardian.com/politic...rvative-leadership-uk-politics-latest-updates):

I think Badenoch will win if she gets through to the last two, but might get eliminated before then. Enough people (like me!) don’t care for her at all. But I’m not a Conservative MP!

And 3 MPs didn’t vote?

EDIT Mel Stride had been expected to be bottom, and not many MPs voted for Kemi Badenoch, not as many as she’d have hoped anyway.

Not surprised Priti is out, and I have same feeling about Kemi.

What's the percentage of cardholders votes when it goes to the end?

 

[TheGuy77]

Priti Patel is out (https://www.theguardian.com/politic...rvative-leadership-uk-politics-latest-updates):

I think Badenoch will win if she gets through to the last two, but might get eliminated before then. Enough people (like me!) don’t care for her at all. But I’m not a Conservative MP!

And 3 MPs didn’t vote?

EDIT Mel Stride had been expected to be bottom, and not many MPs (<20%) voted for Kemi Badenoch, not as many as she’d have hoped anyway.

Surprising Robert Jenrick came out a whole six points ahead of Badenoch. Can't remove Patel from the polls either.

 

[SuspectUsual]

I suspect Badenoch will be hugely disappointed with this result, because she won't be many MPs' second choice, and therefore her vote may not go up much in subsequent rounds

 

[jfollows]

I suspect Badenoch will be hugely disappointed with this result, because she won't be many MPs' second choice, and therefore her vote may not go up much in subsequent rounds

I agree, and the next round is about eliminating the most disliked candidate, which she may be.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 4 Sep 2024 ==

And, of course, the non-eliminated candidates are now sucking up to Priti Patel saying how nice she is in order to get her votes!

 

[YorkRailFan]

Surprised Stride made it through, I was expecting him to be eliminated first.

 

[SuspectUsual]

Do they announce who voted for whom, or just the total numbers?

 

[jfollows]

Do they announce who voted for whom, or just the total numbers?

It’s a secret ballot, so just the numbers.

 

[SuspectUsual]

It’s a secret ballot, so just the numbers.

Except that all of them will have voted for the eventual winner of course

 

[brad465]

Patel will now go back to turning anyone she smirks at to stone.

 

[43096]

Except that all of them will have voted for the eventual winner of course

Until they don’t get a shadow cabinet job!

 

[AlterEgo]

I suspect Badenoch will be hugely disappointed with this result, because she won't be many MPs' second choice, and therefore her vote may not go up much in subsequent rounds

I still hope they elect her. A total wingnut from Bonkersville. It’ll ensure irrelevance for years.

 

[YorkRailFan]

Stride has been eliminated:

The Conservative leadership contest has been whittled down to four candidates after former cabinet minister Mel Stride was knocked out in a vote of Tory MPs.

Mel Stride out as four left in Tory leadership contest - BBC News

The Conservative leadership contest has been whittled down to four candidates in a vote of Tory MPs.

www.bbc.co.uk

Honestly surprised he made it so far. I thought he'd be eliminated in the first round.

 

[brad465]

How insane does one have to be to promote the policy that made one the shortest serving-PM in history and lose their seat in a major vote share collapse as if it was a brilliant idea:

x.com

x.com

Two years on. The British economy would be in much better shape if the Mini Budget had been implemented.

Video attached

 

[Gloster]

How insane does one have to be to promote the policy that made one the shortest serving-PM in history and lose their seat in a major vote share collapse as if it was a brilliant idea:

x.com

x.com

Please explain for those of us not on x.

However, I presume that it is related to Truss and her increasingly strange witterings. Personally, I think she has had some sort of breakdown, possibly in her last days as PM, and is living in some sort of dream-world alternative reality.

 

[nw1]

Surprising Robert Jenrick came out a whole six points ahead of Badenoch. Can't remove Patel from the polls either.

Jenrick comes across like a bland version of Badenoch or Braverman (as reactionary and right-wing as them, but less personality) so I'm surprised he's polling more than Badenoch. I've been a bit out of the loop lately: Braverman didn't stand by the looks of things?